0:01

The art world is an unregulated

0:03

business billions of dollars.

0:06

It is essentially a money laundering

0:09

business. You're working with an artificial

0:12

scarcity of market, and so it's

0:14

fraud, with people

0:16

cutting corners and things

0:19

happening. It

0:21

was when Ann

0:23

Friedman, then the newly minted

0:26

director of the Knoedler Gallery,

0:28

first met Gafa Rosales

0:30

had a soho art opening. Larry

0:34

Reuben had been pushed out of Knoedler a

0:36

year earlier in a coup that ended

0:39

with Ann Friedman being installed at

0:41

the blessing of Michael Hammer. K

0:43

Nodler's sales were flat, the

0:46

clients were leaving in droves, and

0:48

Ann Friedman needed new work to

0:50

help propel the gallery forward. The

0:52

Knoedler, always one step

0:54

behind the times, was hurtling

0:57

towards the art world of a new millennium.

1:02

The galleries long time assistant him

1:04

Andrade, had introduced Ann

1:06

to the soft spoken, polite woman of

1:09

Mexican heritage. As

1:11

fate would have it, Gfia Rosalez

1:14

had two works of art on paper she

1:16

wanted to sell. About.

1:20

All that anyone could agree on was

1:22

that hime Andrade was a shy Ecuadorian

1:25

man of modest height. He was one

1:27

of eleven children who had come to New

1:29

York in the early nineteen sixties and

1:32

found a home in a circle of artificionados.

1:36

He'd made his way to Larry Ruben's gallery

1:39

one Street and worked

1:41

as the galley's driver. Reuben

1:43

had then brought him over to Knoedler as a sort

1:45

of jack of old trades. His job

1:48

was to do pretty much whatever anyone wanted

1:50

him to do. As Anne

1:52

put it in one of her interviews for Vanity

1:55

Fair, he would do everything from changing

1:57

light fixtures to running errands.

2:00

But he always wore a blazer and a tie

2:02

and went to fancy dinner parties and escorted

2:05

well to do women. He was like a

2:07

mascot, but I mean that in a respectful

2:09

way. He epitomized the spirit

2:12

of the gallery. Despite

2:14

a faulty grasp of English. After

2:16

half a century, Hymie was perfectly

2:18

capable of charming one of those women into

2:21

buying a painting from Knodler. Andrade's

2:25

greatest passion was Latin American

2:27

art. As late as two thousand

2:29

eleven, while the forgery ring was metastasizing

2:32

amid criminal investigations, the

2:35

boyish Andrade gave a talk about

2:37

Ecuadorian art and his fifty

2:39

years of immersion in it at the

2:41

mid Manhattan Library. The

2:44

Knottler, in a press release for

2:46

it, would describe Andrott's long

2:48

time friend and dealer David

2:50

Herbert as quote one of the best

2:52

American portrait artists. Unquote

2:56

that was patently untrue.

2:58

But Herbert, upon his death, would

3:01

be cast in another role as

3:04

a central figure in the back story of

3:06

Knoedler's conspiracy of fakes,

3:08

possibly aided and embedded by

3:11

hime Andrade, who had just become

3:13

David Herbert's executor. With boxes

3:16

of documents rich in art world

3:18

lore, Anne would

3:21

never quite come out and say explicitly

3:23

that him may have steered her to the papers

3:26

that gave rise to a conspiracy ring

3:28

of art forgers, but more than

3:31

one Knodler's staffer would take umbrage

3:33

at the way Anne defended him less than

3:35

forcefully in Vanity Fair. Was

3:40

Anne implying that hime Andrade

3:42

had introduced her to Glafia Rosales

3:45

knowing the two works at issue were

3:47

fake, or had him

3:49

done no more than to introduce his boss

3:52

to a Mexican woman who shared his love

3:55

of Latin American arts. Here

3:57

again is writer Michael Schneyerson. Leslie

4:01

Feeley took a dim review of Anne and her

4:03

treatment of Himie. She said Anne

4:05

treated Himie more like a gopher than a

4:07

mascot. Quote. He was

4:09

a very kind, dignified man, but

4:12

Anne would send him out to get her tampons.

4:14

Unquote. He had a poor education

4:16

the legacy of his childhood in Ecuador.

4:20

Jimmy was a gopher. He that's he

4:22

was. He was going and

4:25

he got to know a lot of people in

4:27

the art business. He had more aught

4:29

in his home, but all South America.

4:33

That's the Noteler's art handler Joe

4:35

Stevens Andrade rented

4:38

a ground floor apartment in an ornate

4:40

but musty rental building at seventeen

4:42

East seventieth Street, literally

4:45

next door to the Noodler. He seemed

4:47

to like being on call for whatever

4:49

needs a rose. I used

4:51

to stay there whenever I had openings because

4:53

I worked so late. And now

4:56

I used to go and wife said, man, I'm gonna

4:58

come, I'm saying, Heimie's Chris, Jimmy.

5:00

We'd go a call out and have you know,

5:02

you know, at ten o'clock, ten thirty at night, after

5:04

we locked up and tell me

5:06

about the apartment that he had. There was

5:08

stuffed, like this place is three

5:11

four times bigger than his apartment. He had a huge

5:13

and art work everywhere.

5:16

Fifty pieces on the wall is big. He

5:19

had all this African

5:21

South American sculptures

5:25

everywhere, boxes everywhere. You

5:27

couldn't put another thing on that counter. That's

5:30

a pack. He had

5:32

closets filled with

5:35

this stuff. He was like, it looked like aoid up

5:37

who did everything. Rosales

5:41

and Androde had struck up a friendship

5:43

based on Latin American artist sometime

5:46

in the late es. At

5:48

some point, Rosals mentioned she was trying

5:50

to sell two works on paper by

5:52

Richard deepen Corn, the great abstract

5:55

artist represented for years by the Knodler

5:57

Gallery until Larry reuben

6:00

departure and Anne's promotion did

6:03

I may think Ann Friedman might take a look

6:05

and tell Glyphira what she thought. This

6:09

was a pivotal moment the first

6:11

time Glypira Rosalee focused

6:13

on Ann Friedman as her target for

6:16

newly minted forgeries. Soon

6:20

enough, and Friedman found herself looking

6:22

at a pair of classic deepen Corn drawings.

6:25

Sadly, that great profusion of Ocean

6:28

Park paintings and drawings. All

6:30

those Christmas mornings the staff had

6:32

described opening brand new deep In corn

6:34

work had come to an end. Deep

6:37

In Corn had died in and

6:40

his daughter Gretchen and son in law Richard

6:42

Grant, co heads of the Artists

6:44

Foundation, had ended the galleries

6:46

long association with Deepen Corn. They

6:50

didn't much like Ann Friedman. They

6:52

liked her even less after the coup that

6:54

put her in charge. Still,

6:58

Nodler was widely known as Eben Corn's

7:00

main gallery. There would be

7:03

no more primary works directly from

7:05

the artist, but secondary works,

7:07

those that had changed hands at least once,

7:10

were fair game for anyone who wanted to

7:12

buy or sell them, and Nodler

7:14

could put buyers and sellers together as

7:16

well or better than anyone else, given

7:19

its history with the artist. So when

7:21

hera offered to show Anne too Deepen

7:23

Corns, the Nodler's director jumped

7:26

at the chance. Days

7:29

after Anne's coup in November, a

7:33

certain calm had come over the Kndler

7:35

Gallery. Larry Reuben had even

7:37

agreed to stay on as director until the last

7:39

day of the year. The old

7:42

art world War horse had recovered

7:44

his spirits somewhat and shrugged off

7:46

the coup. Perhaps it was time

7:49

for him to leave Ndler after all. Gracefully,

7:53

he even did Ann Friedman a favor by

7:55

agreeing to take a look at the too Deepened

7:58

Corn works on paper. Like

8:00

most of Deep and Corn's work since the

8:02

mid nineteen sixties, these were geometrical

8:04

abstractions from his Ocean Park series.

8:07

When Anne asked where they'd come from, Rosals

8:10

demurred. Regrettably. She

8:12

said her client wanted to remain

8:15

anonymous. That

8:18

was hardly unusual for works brought in by

8:20

perfect strangers. Unfortunately,

8:23

neither of the drawings had identifying marks

8:25

on their verso verso is

8:27

what dealers call the back of an artwork,

8:30

no record of the works tracing back to the

8:32

artists studio. There was no trace

8:35

of later buyers and sellers, no

8:37

auction markings either. In

8:39

a word, the drawings had no

8:41

provenance. That was a

8:44

problem.

8:48

So what is provenance. It's

8:51

the paper trail of what we know about an

8:53

artwork, starting from the time it was created.

8:55

It tells us who owned it, when it was sold,

8:58

where it was shown, and so forth. Had

9:01

Deep and Corn been alive, the issue

9:04

of provenance for these works would

9:06

have been moot after all, the artist

9:08

was the best judge of his own work. He

9:11

could say in an instant whether these two

9:13

drawings were done by his hand or

9:16

not. When an artist died,

9:18

the primary work he left behind in

9:21

his studio or home was

9:23

easy to judge and usually genuine

9:25

too, so it wasn't difficult for

9:27

the artist's family or executor to

9:29

authenticate those works and record

9:31

them for posterity. The

9:34

challenge came with secondary works

9:36

sold after the artist's death, works

9:39

bought and sold and bought again, works

9:41

that sometimes vanished and then reappeared.

9:46

Were they real or not? An artist

9:49

like Deep and Corn post a special

9:51

challenge. His Ocean Park

9:53

works were all beautiful, but also

9:56

quite similar. Larry

9:58

Reuben, as it turned out, was underwell by

10:00

the Ocean park esque drawings,

10:02

and Freedman showed him quote

10:04

I told her I did not think they were good,

10:07

Reuben later told Vanity Fair, which

10:09

was to say, I thought they were fake.

10:12

He said the gallery couldn't or certainly

10:14

shouldn't sell them.

10:18

Not long after, Deep and Corn's

10:20

widow, Phillis, paid a visit to

10:22

the Noddler with her daughter Gretchen, and

10:25

Friedman had called the drawings to their attention.

10:27

And the family were worried about them.

10:29

When Anne laid them out on a table at the gallery,

10:32

Gretchen and Phillis stared at those

10:34

drawings for a long time. They

10:37

looked quite good. We really, we're

10:40

pretty impressed. It was

10:42

clearly a beautiful piece. I

10:45

am Gretchen deep and Corn

10:47

Grant. My father is Richard

10:49

Deepon Corn. Despite

10:52

the exceptional quality of the works,

10:54

the family felt they were not authentic.

10:57

You could see the hand of the forger

11:01

in both of them. You

11:03

look at someone's work

11:05

long enough in my entire

11:08

life. I'm seventy six

11:10

years old, so I

11:12

was alive during my

11:14

father's career, and

11:17

you have a sense of

11:19

it. Not perfect, but

11:21

you do have a pretty good sense. What

11:24

I said to and at the time

11:27

was that the problem for me was that they

11:29

didn't have any soul. They

11:32

didn't seem to breathe. I just

11:35

couldn't relate to it, even though it

11:38

was clearly a beautiful piece, and

11:44

reactions surprised them. She didn't

11:47

even thank them for calling attention to what might

11:49

be fake Deepen corns. Neither

11:52

did she suggest she would hand them back

11:54

to their owner, whoever they might be.

11:57

The whole question of what the nobler might

11:59

do with them was simply not addressed.

12:03

Of course, she didn't say

12:05

to in Freedman, I think they're fake,

12:08

because you know, in the art world you

12:10

cannot call something a fake because

12:13

if you do so, you might be sued

12:15

for defamation of property. So

12:17

people are very careful. Just

12:19

Seli Reggaeteo is a reporter

12:21

currently with the Center for Investigative Reporting.

12:24

She pursued the note of story for several years

12:26

and came up with a few scoops, starting

12:29

with the story of Dr Bernard Krueger.

12:32

They might say this doesn't look right,

12:34

but you don't quite say this is fake. So it's

12:36

quite interesting that I talked to both Russian

12:39

Demonquirn as she was seeing

12:41

this this pieces as they were about

12:43

to be sold, and then I

12:45

also talked to Bernard Krueger, who was looking

12:47

at the pieces from the buyer's perspective.

12:50

And in both instances,

12:52

you see there were several things

12:54

strange about this. You know, where

12:56

they were coming from, how they

12:59

looked, how much they were being offered.

13:02

All of those things adopts

13:04

to you know, there's something

13:06

strange happening here. Here's

13:09

Francis Beatty again. I

13:11

do remember going to a Deep and Corn

13:13

show of Deep and Corn works on

13:16

paper and someone saying

13:18

to me, you have to be super

13:21

careful because you want to make

13:23

sure that you're not buying one of

13:25

the things that the family has

13:28

disavowed. And the

13:30

idea that you would

13:33

show something, let alone

13:36

sell it, that the family of

13:38

the artist has disavowed,

13:41

is absolutely shocking. I mean, you

13:44

have a responsibility to your client,

13:47

and if something has a cloud

13:49

over it, the cloud is never going

13:51

to disperse. Since

13:57

the drawings were secondary market works,

14:00

the family couldn't keep Ann Friedman from

14:02

doing what she wanted with them, which was, of

14:04

course, to sell them,

14:07

as Larry Reuben later told Vanity

14:09

Fair, and Friedman could justify

14:12

selling those two drawings because the

14:14

artist's wife had not called them fake,

14:17

nor had Larry Reuben. I wasn't

14:19

one sure they weren't real,

14:22

Reuben explained later. And you

14:24

can get into a lot of trouble by declaring

14:26

something as fake when you don't have the hard

14:28

evidence. And since I was leaving, I

14:30

said to Anne, fine, you handle

14:33

it, and she did.

14:35

Despite the doubts expressed by the family,

14:38

and Friedman sold the Deep and Corn drawings

14:41

to the perfect buyer. More

14:48

art fraud in a minute. Not

14:52

long after the Deep and Corn Family's

14:54

disconcerting visit to Knoedler, a

14:57

doctor named Bernard Krueger received

14:59

a phone called he never expected to get.

15:03

Krueger was a collector, perhaps

15:05

not a great collector, but an eager

15:07

one, especially in regard to

15:09

which your deep in Corn's work. He liked

15:12

to think he had an inside track. He

15:14

was, after all, and Friedman's

15:17

doctor. He told

15:19

me he loved Devon Coorn's work for many years,

15:22

and at the time he was alive

15:24

in the nineties, and even before

15:26

that, I think he started buying the first diven Corns

15:29

in the eighties. He had to

15:31

go through Knodler because at the time

15:33

Richard Devon Corn was alive and

15:35

Knodler represented him.

15:38

And what Ben Krueger told

15:40

me is that every time he wanted

15:42

to buy a piece, it was not easy. You

15:45

would think you have money, you want

15:47

to buy a piece of art, You walk in and say,

15:49

I want this, But that's not how

15:51

it works in the art world. You know, there is

15:53

no like free market, or

15:56

you know, they sell for whoever they

15:58

want to sell, and they might give up price to

16:00

me and a different price to you. And

16:03

the way that Bernard described

16:05

to me is that Ann Friedman was quite difficult

16:08

and quite protective, and

16:11

she would say to him, no, you cannot

16:13

buy this one. If you want, you can buy this other

16:15

one. He said to me, I

16:17

would need to beg to buy,

16:19

and sometimes she would let me buy, and

16:21

sometimes she wouldn't. And I asked

16:23

him why why would she do that? And he

16:25

said, well, that was her way of having

16:28

power and having control. Despite

16:31

having an inside track as Hans

16:33

doctor, Bernard Krueger was having

16:35

a difficult time purchasing a work from

16:38

the artist he most coveted. Surprisingly,

16:41

all of that would change after Deep

16:43

and Corn passed away in early and

16:48

all of a sudden, Bernard Krueger

16:50

gets a call from Knoedler saying,

16:52

we have the two different corns for you to

16:54

see. You know, they

16:57

just came in. I think you would like it. I

16:59

was a ready, like, wait a minute, don't

17:02

you think that was change? For

17:04

years you've been begging to buy a dipping corn.

17:06

All of a sudden they're calling you and offer

17:09

you a dipping corn. And he said

17:11

no. I thought I was great. I thought I was finally

17:13

getting a good deal on a dipping corn, because

17:17

he bought one of them and that was one

17:19

of the fakes. If

17:22

I remember the numbers right. He told

17:24

me the last deep and Corn he had bought for

17:26

like a hundred twenty five hundred

17:28

thirty five thousand, and that

17:30

one he bought for eighty thou dollars.

17:32

So again he was thrilled. He's like, all of a

17:34

sudden, I'd been offered a deep and corn, and

17:37

it's cheaper than the last one I bought.

17:41

Nadler did well by those two Deepen

17:43

Corn sales, earning forty five thousand

17:45

dollars on each. When

17:48

word of the sale reached the Deep and Corn

17:51

family, they were shocked, As

17:54

the late artist's daughter Gretchen said,

17:56

we thought, being the naive people we

17:58

were and being honest, we basically

18:01

thought she would simply return them and that would

18:03

be that. Instead, she

18:06

wrote a letter to my

18:08

mother and to me that

18:11

we had come

18:13

to the gallery and authenticated

18:16

these works, and therefore she had sold

18:18

them, and we

18:20

were very distressed. I wanted

18:22

to write to Anne and

18:24

tell her that this was not okay,

18:26

and that we had not authenticated them.

18:29

She can sell whatever she wants, but she

18:31

can't say that we authenticated it. And

18:35

my mother was very

18:38

shy about being

18:41

in an antagonistic position with

18:43

anybody, and she

18:46

really didn't want me to

18:48

write on behalf of myself or

18:50

on behalf of her, and

18:52

so that was dropped. Later,

18:57

Dr Krueger would say he had sold the

18:59

work and had no idea where they

19:01

were. Perhaps, But

19:03

over the next fifteen years, the Deepened

19:06

Corns would routinely hear of fake

19:08

Deepen Corn works on paper popping

19:11

up in the market. Each

19:13

new appearance meant that some new owner

19:16

was trying to unload his Deepen Corns,

19:18

either with or without the knowledge that

19:20

they were fake. When

19:23

the works once again vanished, the

19:26

implication was just as clear. Some

19:28

new owner had been duped or worse,

19:31

set out to con his own next prospective

19:34

buyer. In

19:38

the years to come, stories like that

19:40

would find their way to the Deepen Corn Foundation

19:43

on a regular basis. Eventually,

19:46

the family counted some two d and fifty

19:48

deep in Corn images around the world,

19:51

submitted for authentication or

19:53

just out of curiosity. They

19:55

ranged from the occasional top

19:57

drawer forgery to when art students

20:00

homage for class credit left

20:02

in a garage to be celebrated

20:04

briefly as the real McCoy.

20:10

Times were tough in the art market of and

20:13

few galleries were feeling it as much as Noler,

20:16

which had little to live on after Larry

20:18

Reuben's departure other than its reputation

20:20

and venerability. I

20:23

mean, she wasn't making much money

20:25

at I mean business wasn't

20:27

good, and so

20:30

she needs something was needed, something

20:33

really special. Money was needed. Still,

20:37

Anne seemed to harbor lingering concerns about

20:40

those works. Perhaps she was eager

20:42

to prove their authenticity to herself and

20:44

to pave the way for more paintings from Glafira

20:47

Rosales. Surely Coalfia could

20:49

share with Anna telling detail or two

20:51

details to assure her the works had

20:54

some shred of provenance. Gently,

20:59

but firmly, Glyphia declined

21:01

to say anything about where the

21:03

deep and corn drawings had come from.

21:07

She would only say she was representing a

21:09

man she called Mr X Junior,

21:12

whose parents had passed on to their son

21:15

more paintings by some of the

21:17

best known artists of the post

21:19

war period. Soon

21:21

enough, Anne was calling him Mr X

21:23

Junior too, and referring to his

21:26

parents as Mr. And Mrs X.

21:29

It sounded a bit silly, but maybe

21:31

a fan played ball Glyphia might introduce

21:34

Anne to Mr X Juniorphia

21:37

did say that Mr X Junior had

21:39

more works to sell if they could

21:41

be placed discreetly. These

21:44

were works that had been long stored

21:46

by Mr X hermetically sealed.

21:49

Even Glafira had

21:51

said the paintings had been in storage for

21:53

so long that critics and collectors

21:56

would be thrilled to see these lost

21:58

masterpieces finally unwrapped.

22:01

I have never, and I actually

22:04

don't have any colleagues who

22:06

I know, who have regularly

22:10

managed to obtain from

22:12

a private person a picture

22:15

for let's say two

22:17

hundred thousand dollars that then

22:19

they could sell for eight hundred thousand

22:22

dollars. I mean, it just simply

22:25

doesn't happen. If

22:29

somebody came to me and

22:31

said, I want to sell

22:34

you this Cliford

22:36

Still, and I know

22:38

that the Cliford Stills fair

22:41

market price would be a million,

22:44

and they say to me, well,

22:47

I'm going to sell it to you for two hundred thousand,

22:50

I would think immediately that it

22:52

was hot. What

22:56

other conclusion. It's the same

22:58

in any business. I think if

23:00

you're a diamond merchant, somebody comes

23:02

to you with the diamond, and they're

23:05

selling it to you for of

23:08

its real value. You would assume

23:10

that there was something wrong with it. You say

23:12

no, thank you. And

23:18

if you bought a painting by mistake, letting

23:20

your passions get the better of you, what

23:22

would you do when you came to your senses. These

23:25

things once in a while happened to dealers.

23:28

You just you make a mistake, but

23:31

the minute you do, you recognize

23:34

it, you give the money back. You

23:36

know you, you take it, and

23:38

you learn from it. Otherwise you

23:40

lose your reputation completely

23:43

and utterly. So that's one of the really

23:46

key things. It

23:49

wasn't long before fa Rosalez

23:52

was back in the Nler, this time

23:54

with a painting by abstract expressionist

23:56

Mark Rothko under her arm.

23:59

It was a beautiful work, has Anne

24:02

described it later, with dark

24:04

orbs against a pale pink peach

24:06

backdrop, and like the

24:08

Deepen Corns, it had no provenance

24:11

other than the link to Mr and Mrs

24:13

X. I think that they

24:16

were the consortium, not just Cliff

24:18

ear Right. They created

24:21

paintings that were actually quite

24:23

smart because they were

24:25

very highly valued. I'm

24:27

Maria Condakova, I'm an author journalist

24:30

and psychologist, the author most

24:32

recently of the Biggest Bluff and also most

24:34

relevant to this, the confidence game. I

24:38

mean, let's be honest, Abstract expressionism

24:41

is not necessarily the most technically

24:44

advanced paintings. Now I'm not saying

24:46

that Rothco is not technically advanced. He is.

24:48

He could paint anything. But for

24:51

someone who's not, you know, incredibly

24:53

technically advanced painters,

24:55

probably easier to create a Rothco

24:58

than a rum round one. That

25:00

I think you said in your book, it's

25:03

very important for the con artists not

25:05

to move too quickly. That was the

25:07

whole part of the what I think you call the long

25:09

con. Something

25:11

that con artists, the good con artists

25:14

have in abundance is patients.

25:17

Some cons take decades to

25:19

play out all the way. So you really

25:21

need to be able to see the long game and

25:24

not just be in it for you know, the immediate

25:26

profit. You need to be able to see

25:29

how does this play out over time? And

25:31

one thing that you have to hand to life

25:33

Era is you know, she didn't just do

25:36

her homework on and she did her

25:38

homework on the art mark and how that world

25:40

works and what people

25:42

expect if you walk in

25:45

right away with twenty

25:47

roth Goes and a few Pollocks in there,

25:49

someone's gonna say, Okay, hold on

25:52

one second, we're gonna do some very heavy

25:54

duty analysis on this, but one

25:56

at a time. Lost treasures,

25:59

you know, we really don't want to part with them, but

26:02

we're we're selling them piecemeal. That's

26:05

much more compelling and invites less scrutiny.

26:07

And she's also building the market

26:10

for herself because now,

26:13

even though there was originally no provenance,

26:16

now a lot of these pieces are

26:18

in collections and some

26:21

end up making it two shows and to museums,

26:24

and so that creates the

26:26

provenance that this is the collection

26:28

of Mr. X. And some

26:30

of these have already been validated by

26:33

some of the leading galleries and museums

26:35

and collectors in the world. I

26:38

think that if someone brought

26:41

me a Rothco who

26:43

I didn't know and who

26:45

had no kind of

26:47

bona fidees in the art

26:49

world, I would be very

26:52

suspicious. Where did this person

26:54

get it? And it was stolen?

26:57

I mean, you don't just go

26:59

oneer around with Rothko's right,

27:05

and did show the painting to Christopher

27:07

Rothko, son of the late artist,

27:09

who professed to find it beautiful That

27:12

was enough for Anne. She

27:15

bought the painting for one dollars

27:17

from Rosalis. She sold it to

27:20

the Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery for

27:22

three thousand dollars

27:24

for a gross profit of one hundred nine

27:28

Later, when she heard about the sale, Francis

27:31

Beatty found Anne's strategy

27:33

underwhelming. If

27:36

she showed it to Christopher

27:38

Rothko, I would say that would

27:40

be a good first step. But

27:43

that doesn't tell you where it came from.

27:46

That doesn't tell you that the person has

27:48

good title to it. You

27:50

know that you would have to investigate.

27:55

A few people knew that Nodler was starting

27:57

to deal in works without any provenance.

28:00

The circle had been confined to Glypha

28:02

and any confederates she might have, as

28:05

well as the staffers at the gallery, who

28:07

could gossip but hardly take on their imperious

28:09

boss. Leslie Feely recalled

28:12

seeing one of the Rothcoes brought in by

28:14

Gpa. I

28:16

just walked in and saw this great

28:19

red painting, presuming

28:21

to be a Rothco. I

28:24

just couldn't even look at it because

28:27

it was so garish

28:30

and so not by

28:32

Rothko, and they were selling it

28:35

for at the time million

28:37

dollars. It was not that large

28:40

and it was clearly a fake.

28:44

None of these paintings had any provenance,

28:46

at least of the kind that the art market expected,

28:49

Nor were any in the catalog resume of

28:52

Mark Rothko or the soon to be

28:54

completed catalog resume for the late

28:56

Richard Diebencorn. How

28:58

could it an organization and not check

29:02

the provenance. That's what you're supposed

29:04

to do for an art fairy, supposed to check the provenance

29:06

on any painting, particularly a Rothco.

29:10

And there it was. Nobody took it out, just

29:13

sitting there. But

29:17

just to play devil's advocate here, many paintings

29:20

must meet the market with no provenance because

29:22

the artist has just finished them, or or

29:24

maybe he put them aside and got bored with his

29:26

painting. In the old days, you

29:28

had to ask Jeane thaw On Francis

29:31

O'Connor to write an attestation.

29:34

I mean recently, there are lots

29:37

of states that don't want to write

29:39

authenticity, which is very

29:41

problematic. And so

29:43

what you do is you

29:46

get people in, you sit them

29:48

down and you say, I'm worried

29:50

about this. You know, this is

29:52

a picture which has been offered to me. I

29:55

think it looks beautiful, but it

29:58

has I have no proven it's

30:00

on it, and I really need

30:02

to know what you think

30:04

about it. You ask

30:06

a couple of people, and

30:09

you do your due diligence

30:11

because you're on the line for it. One

30:16

of the most important aspects of provenance

30:18

is in an artwork by a great established

30:21

artist be readily found, and

30:23

that artists catalog resume. A

30:27

catalog resume is done

30:29

by scholars or a family in

30:31

which they

30:33

try to write down

30:36

every single picture that

30:38

to date has been attributed

30:41

to this artist and that they think

30:44

is legitimate. And typical

30:46

catalog resume is like the Pollock catalog

30:49

resume. It says where

30:51

the work comes from in scrupulous

30:54

detail. Sometimes it says

30:57

whether it's been repainted, whether

30:59

it was in a fire. I mean,

31:01

you try to get as much information

31:04

as you possibly can. You

31:06

try to document every

31:09

single picture by that artist.

31:12

You also have to be sure

31:14

that you're passing something that's

31:16

legitimate or is

31:19

considered legitimate

31:21

by the authorities. Of

31:25

course, it does sometimes happen that a painting

31:27

lacks any provenance. It's rare, but

31:30

it happens. So what do you do? Start

31:33

calling in the experts and hopefully get

31:35

them to look at the actual work, Invite

31:37

them to a gallery opening, Steer them

31:39

to your newly acquired Barnett Newman A Rothko.

31:42

Is there anything wrong with doing what she did?

31:45

As far as that goes, one could argue

31:47

that Anne and asking the depon Corn family

31:49

to look at those two works on paper was

31:52

acting quite properly. No, there's

31:54

nothing wrong with doing that. I mean, you want

31:56

to know what distinguished

32:00

scholars and what

32:02

people who are regarded to

32:04

have what we call the art business

32:07

a good eye, in other words,

32:09

they have, you have some reason to

32:12

believe that you

32:14

would risk your reputation

32:17

on their say so. I

32:22

guess one important nuance of this is

32:25

that if you want to get that expert's

32:27

opinion, you are upfront about

32:29

asking him, rather than sort

32:32

of inveigling him to come into

32:34

your office after hours while everyone's

32:36

downstairs having a glass of wine, and

32:39

you show this picture and the expert

32:41

says, oh, that's a nice picture, how

32:43

beautiful. That

32:46

is not the same thing as

32:48

authentication, which is sort of the ultimate

32:50

stamp of approval. This is just an

32:53

expert, perhaps caught a bit away

32:56

from office hours, and saying that looks

32:58

like a nice painting. It's not roof. Could

33:00

there ever be a situation where you've got enough signatures

33:03

from experts that people would

33:05

say, yes, that's real. I

33:07

mean, now we all know you have it

33:10

forensically tested. I mean, if

33:12

you have such a picture that has

33:14

no provenance and you are very suspicious

33:17

about you get it on

33:19

consignment from whoever

33:21

it is, and you have

33:23

it tested, you have to get

33:26

a complete consensus. You

33:28

have to have every single person

33:31

who could question such a thing

33:34

in line. And then of course you have the whole

33:36

issue. Can you pass good title to

33:38

this picture? Which is I

33:41

think just as problematic

33:44

and far more frightening. You

33:47

are passing good title

33:50

and guaranteeing

33:52

the authenticity and

33:55

the title. That's what the uniform

33:59

code said, as you were doing if you

34:01

write an invoice.

34:08

The staffers learned to keep their distance

34:11

when Rosaliss name was

34:13

mentioned. Whenever something about the

34:15

Rosales works was discussed. One staffer

34:17

said that was a closed door meeting

34:20

for Anne. That

34:23

was unusual at all. Other times

34:26

the door to Anne's second floor office

34:28

was open. Sign new House would

34:30

step over a rope and come on in. A

34:33

staffer recalls of the publishing

34:35

mogul, so the door was only closed

34:38

for certain sensitive meetings. It

34:41

was around this time that

34:43

Anne and Glepa held a staff meeting to

34:45

discuss how many paintings remained in

34:48

the mysterious collection. Rosales

34:50

identified approximately eight works that were still

34:52

available. There

34:55

is another still a Gottlieb

34:57

too, decoon ngs a motherwell

34:59

a new whom in one or two Caldlers.

35:02

That's attorney Emily rice Baum.

35:04

Over a decade later, at trial, attorneys

35:07

Gregory Claric, Aaron Crowle, and

35:09

Emily would present evidence of handwritten

35:12

notes of this infamous meeting. The lawyers

35:14

noted something peculiar about cafe as purported

35:17

inventory, and then

35:19

Anne asks is

35:21

there a pollock? And lo and behold

35:23

it all says I'll go check, yeah,

35:26

let me check. She was not

35:28

on her list. You would think if she had a Jackson

35:30

Pollock, she would come in and say

35:32

she had a Jackson Pollock. And then it's

35:35

you know, two years later, having

35:38

gone to none, she suddenly has five. Did

35:42

someone did discover a missing

35:44

pollock in their attic? Once every

35:46

decade or so, does something like

35:48

that pop up? A Rothcoe that roughly traded

35:50

with his dentist for some dental work? Does

35:52

that pop up. Sure, you know there's

35:55

one here and there's one there, But

35:57

are there three? Are there? Fo I

36:00

from the same source, are there eight?

36:02

Are there twelve? Or there twenty? Are

36:04

there forty one? Literally?

36:07

Never, Despite

36:09

her initial estimate of having eight paintings

36:11

in the collection, Gafa would manage

36:14

to deliver over thirty more works to Knodler,

36:16

including five supposed Jackson Pollock's,

36:21

surprisingly and treated Kndler's

36:23

own artists just as harshly

36:25

as she treated the galleries assistance and

36:29

just trashed her own artists, every

36:31

single one of them. Knodler artist

36:34

Donald Sultan later said she

36:36

would never answer phone calls. She

36:38

was completely disinterested in the artist

36:41

she had. She kind of ignored everyone

36:43

who was there. All her dealings

36:45

were secretive, Sultan said. According

36:48

to Sultan, and was out of her depth.

36:50

After Larry Reuben's departure, Sultan

36:53

said it was as if the director

36:56

of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was

36:58

like Philippe de Montebelle, deciding

37:00

that he's going to turn the thing over to the secretary.

37:05

According to one staffer who worked closely

37:07

with her, Anne was not above dramatizing

37:10

a story to sell a painting. There

37:12

was this painting by Helen Frankenthaler.

37:15

We had hung onto it for a couple of years,

37:17

recalls a staffer. A museum

37:19

director came into Anne's office and

37:22

had the painting out, and the museum

37:24

director said, where did that come from?

37:27

The staffer went on to say there had been a

37:29

woman killed in a hit and run.

37:31

This was in the news. She had been

37:33

an art collector and said, I can't

37:36

really tell you, but there was a recent tragedy

37:38

you might have read about in the news, very sad

37:40

story. The staffers said, in fact,

37:43

we had bought the painting at auction

37:45

in or whatever. An

37:48

art net search would have shown it hadn't

37:50

come from this woman's collection. But

37:52

Anne just lie to this director why

37:55

we probably got it on the cheap and Anne

37:58

was marking it up. On

38:00

another occasion, Anne took in a double

38:03

paneled Milton Avery painting, which

38:05

was to say that there was a painting on each

38:07

side of the wood. Instead

38:10

of showing it that way to the Averies, Anne

38:13

reportedly had a conservator split

38:15

the painting down the middle and get two

38:17

salable works instead of one, a

38:20

considerably greater profit to her and the

38:22

gallery. I asked Francis

38:24

if this was typical in any way for a gallery

38:26

director. Never in

38:28

a million years. I mean, I

38:34

you know, you hear these stories about

38:37

people doing them in the kind of

38:39

olden days, but no

38:42

one would imagine

38:44

doing that in my era.

38:47

It's a kind of vandalization of

38:50

an object that you certainly

38:54

can't do without enormous

38:57

thought, and I would think, consultation

39:00

with lots of other people.

39:12

We'll be right back. Sometimes

39:15

Anne seemed drawn by the sheer challenge

39:18

of a newly arrived work. Someone

39:23

might come off the street with a calder

39:26

and a story, recalls one staffer,

39:29

it was my father's and he passed away.

39:31

I'm trying to sell it. Inevitably,

39:34

the owner didn't want to wait long enough

39:36

to put the calder up for auction.

39:38

The provenance sounded sketchy, but

39:41

Anne went upstairs where the finances

39:43

were done, and ended up buying it

39:45

for cash. The staffer

39:47

said, I was thinking, either there's something

39:50

wrong, or you're taking this painting

39:52

and we'll sell it for two or three times the amount.

39:55

I was. Seeing this for the first time. It

39:58

was an indication to me. Over

40:01

the next year or two, other deep

40:03

in corn works on paper came in

40:05

from Glyphra Rosales. Like

40:08

the first ones, they were ocean park abstracts,

40:11

but they were different in one sense. According

40:14

to Rosales, they came from the

40:16

the Honda Gallery in Madrid,

40:19

indicated by the seemingly well worn

40:21

label on the back of each one. The

40:24

Deep in Corn families doubts about those

40:26

first two drawings seemed to

40:28

have worried and Friedman to she

40:31

had written a letter to Rosalie asking

40:34

for at least some provenance on the

40:36

newly surfaced the Honda Gallery

40:38

ocean parks. Leslie

40:41

Feeley recalls and searches

40:43

for provenance. She

40:45

would be in touch with people who used to work

40:47

at the National Gallery, like a Carmen.

40:50

I mean, she tried to find names

40:52

that would fool people, and

40:54

she lied and lied and made up these

40:57

fake provenances.

41:01

I believe from the beginning she knew these

41:03

were fixed, they had no provenances.

41:05

She made up provenances every day.

41:10

The Honda Gallery works troubled

41:13

the deep and Corn family as well. We

41:15

began looking up the Handy Gallery

41:18

and it all seemed very strange because

41:20

all the work that they had handled. You

41:23

can't talk to anybody, they're all dead.

41:26

But the works that they did handle when they

41:28

were in existence, were very,

41:30

very different from the work that

41:33

my father did, things like Picasso

41:35

and some of the earlier

41:38

abstract people. I just remember

41:40

thinking, Wow, that just seems

41:42

odd. Apparently

41:47

Rosalis had made some calls and

41:49

came up with provenance for the Honda Gallery.

41:52

Deepen corns. The key figure

41:54

was a Spanish restaurant owner named

41:56

Cesario Fontanella.

42:00

Supposedly, he told Rosalez that

42:02

he had owned a restaurant called Taverna says

42:04

Are on Fleming Street, near

42:07

Madrid's Castellana Plaza from the

42:09

late nineteen seventies until nineteen

42:11

eighty five. The Taverna

42:13

Cesar had been a hangout for artists. Everyone

42:16

from Francis Bacon to Andy Warhol

42:18

had frequented the place, or so Rosalez

42:21

heard. Nearby was

42:23

the Jande Gallery, said Clario

42:25

Fontenella, where many of those artists

42:28

had shown. Fernando Vijande

42:30

would often bring them over to the Taverna Cesar.

42:34

Deep and Corn had been one of the regulars, and

42:36

in a time honored artistic tradition,

42:39

had often paid off his bar bills with art

42:41

or traded his own art. The nimble

42:43

says our Fontenelle had procured his deepon

42:46

Corns that way, and kept them

42:48

for all those intervening years, he said,

42:51

and was selling them only now after deepin

42:53

Corne's death. It was a

42:55

fine story, except that Rodrigo

42:57

Vijande, the late gallery owner's

43:00

son, found it preposterous.

43:02

First, he had never heard of the

43:04

Tavernas Caesar. He would have known

43:07

it well if his father patronized it.

43:09

He would have known which artists hung out

43:12

there, too, because Rodrico had

43:14

helped run the gallery with his father

43:16

and knew its artists

43:18

upon his father's death. In the

43:23

most off key detail of Caesar

43:25

Fontendles's story was the Tavernas

43:28

address. Even if it

43:30

had existed, it wouldn't have been a

43:32

hangout for artists from the the Honda Gallery

43:35

because it's supposed address on

43:37

Fleming Street was two or three

43:39

miles from the gallery. Both

43:42

galleries that my father owned in Madrid

43:44

were right where he lived, in front

43:46

of his house on Nunez de Balboa

43:49

in the center of Madrid, Rodrico explained

43:52

moreover, of the Hondai didn't drive,

43:55

that, declared his son Rodrigo,

43:58

was why he lived some fifty yards

44:00

from his galleries at

44:02

first, and Freeman may have believed

44:05

the the Honda Gallery story. Certainly

44:07

she wanted to believe it. If

44:10

it was true, it might validate

44:12

the half dozen other such ocean

44:14

parks that Rosalis

44:17

was bringing in one by one. With

44:19

their now distinctive the Honda Gallery

44:21

labels had cast a glow

44:23

of authenticity over all the

44:25

ocean park, Deepen Corns and

44:28

over Glafira Rosalee herself.

44:32

But a label isn't provenance. It's

44:34

just a label. If the

44:36

label had been part of a paper

44:38

trail of ownership, the result would have

44:40

been picture perfect provenance.

44:43

In this case, the trail petered out

44:45

as soon as it began. What

44:48

was it fair to say that every time

44:50

you saw a deep in Corn

44:52

ocean park that had a label

44:55

on back, that it was almost

44:57

certainly fake. I

45:01

think one could say that, Yes, she

45:06

swears that she didn't know, which

45:08

seems hard to believe.

45:11

That's k Noodler artist Michael David

45:13

Again, should she have known? Yeah?

45:16

And is this business fraud

45:19

with people cutting corners with

45:22

fraud? Absolutely? And

45:28

Friedman had her Deepened Corns with the

45:30

Honda Gallery labels, but she

45:32

pressed Rosalees for more proof of

45:35

the works provenance If

45:37

she wasn't going to uncover an actual paper

45:40

trail, she could do the next best

45:42

thing. She could find experts

45:44

on the painters whose works were coming

45:46

in from Mr x Jr. Already

45:49

she had done that with Chris Rothko, the

45:52

late artist's son. Since

45:54

then another Rothko expert,

45:56

David and Pam, had praised it

45:58

too, and would do her part

46:01

seeking out more art world academics

46:03

who might inspect the paintings as they came

46:05

in and find that they were true.

46:09

But couldn't Lafa do something to

46:11

fill in the story of the ex family and

46:14

arranged for Anne to meet Mr x

46:16

Jr. At last, not yet,

46:19

Rosavas deflected soon, she

46:21

felt soon. But

46:24

then came the most astonishing accident,

46:27

one that seemed to prove beyond doubt

46:29

that Mr X and his paintings were

46:31

real after all. In

46:36

their conversations, Lafra and

46:39

Anne often talked about art of the

46:41

post war period. Lafia

46:43

knew a lot enough to impress Anne,

46:46

and the two women share their favorite artists,

46:49

one of whom was Clifford. Still in

46:52

most cases, Glafira would go through

46:55

Mr X's collection searching

46:57

for a painting by one of the artists and

47:00

had spoken of with great admiration. Miraculously

47:03

Glafira would find one. Glafira

47:07

Rosales told investigators

47:10

that the galleries would often

47:12

ask her for specific things

47:15

without asking many questions where

47:17

it came from. So think about this. You

47:19

are a gallery and you are buying painting

47:21

after painting from this woman

47:24

from Mexico who sess was representing

47:27

a famous collector. So then,

47:29

as a gallery owner, I turned to

47:31

her and say, so do you think he might

47:34

happen to have some mother will?

47:37

And then a few weeks later she comes

47:39

with a mother will. I mean, what is really

47:41

the likelihood that this would happen, And

47:44

would then ask her to send an image

47:47

of the work if they'd

47:49

met with her approval, and would

47:51

ask to bring the painting

47:53

in. A standard routine

47:56

was followed. The painting was put

47:58

in the trunk of Mr X Junior's car

48:00

and transported to a photographer's

48:02

studio. Pictures

48:05

were duly taken and the painting was

48:07

then put back in the trunk of the car. The

48:09

plan, as usual, was to send the

48:11

transparencies once they came back from the

48:13

studio to Ann at the Knoedler

48:17

and would then decide if the painting met

48:19

with her approval. Only then would the

48:21

painting be sent to the gallery. Rosalis

48:25

soon called Freedman with terrible

48:27

news while the driver was

48:29

bringing Mr X's Clifford Still

48:31

painting from the photographer's studio.

48:34

She said there had been an accident.

48:36

The car had a rear engine and the

48:39

engine had caught fire. The painting

48:41

was nearly destroyed, all but

48:43

a fragment. When

48:46

she got over her shock and told

48:48

Rosalee to bring her the fragment, the

48:51

painting was indeed badly burned.

48:53

It would have been two and a half feet by three

48:55

feet, Freedman said later. Indeed,

48:58

nearly all of the paintings Rosalis

49:01

would bring were of medium scale.

49:03

To Anne, it made absolute sense

49:06

that the painting had been stored in the trunk,

49:09

and was fascinated with the fragment,

49:12

and more so with the transparency

49:14

that accompanied it. The transparency,

49:17

after all, showed the whole painting before

49:20

it was consumed by fire. On the

49:22

drive back to Mr X Junior's house,

49:25

you could see the whole thing, and with

49:27

a fragment you can analyze the front

49:29

and back differently. You can do

49:31

a touch and feel about it. And later

49:34

said later in

49:36

telling that story and would beam with triumph.

49:39

Quote would a con artist burn the painting

49:41

and then save a fragment so it could be forensically

49:44

examined if the painting wasn't

49:46

real, wouldn't that make it obvious?

49:49

Unquote? Everything

49:51

checked out and declared, including

49:54

that in one of the pigments that Clifford still

49:57

used in many paintings, there's an oxidation

49:59

that had proof positive the

50:02

pigment proved the painting was real, or

50:04

so felt Anne as

50:06

for the burned fragment and kept

50:09

it as proof that the first Clifford

50:11

still Mr. X Junior had sold her

50:14

had been real as well. One

50:16

staff are recalled that the fragment

50:19

was kept in a flat white portfolio.

50:22

You could see the burn marks on the edges.

50:25

It was an friedman's own shroud

50:27

of Turin conveniently,

50:33

Mr x Jr. Managed to find

50:35

another Clifford still in storage

50:37

and sent it along and

50:40

in turn took it to the annual

50:42

Art Dealers Association of America

50:45

show at the New York Armory. Bill

50:47

Ruben came by in a wheelchair and

50:50

said of the famous director of

50:52

the Museum of Modern Art and brother

50:54

of the Nler's former director, Larry

50:56

Reuben whom Anne had dispatched

50:59

from the Notler. According

51:01

to Freedman, Bill Reuben looked hard at

51:03

the Clifford still and said, yes,

51:06

that's a cliff painting. I

51:08

turned it around for him and he confirmed

51:11

that it was a Clifford Still

51:13

painting. Bill

51:15

Ruben had been duped by the Rosava's

51:18

ring too. In reality,

51:20

none of the details in as

51:22

story of the burned Clifford Still painting

51:25

were true. Now

51:27

we know no fire really happened, right did

51:29

it did? Happened? Actually, Carlos

51:32

was preparing the pieces and he was treating

51:34

them with her dryers

51:37

and following them in coal and hot

51:40

temperatures, so that

51:42

one got burned because he forgot

51:45

to turn the hair dryer of, and

51:47

of course it went in flames. And now

51:50

Anne is waiting for the piece. And

51:53

what is this planation I'm going to give Carlos

51:57

Tom It will tell them this. I

51:59

want people to know that

52:01

I have never talked to nobody. I have

52:03

never been interviewed about my life

52:06

or about this case except

52:08

for the government of course. More

52:11

from Glafira Rosale's herself

52:14

next time on art fraud.

52:16

You have the cool, clear

52:20

eyes of a seeker of wisdom

52:22

and truth. Yet

52:27

there's that bob turned

52:30

chin and the grin of impetuous

52:33

youth. Believe

52:40

you hard,

52:44

Believeving you. Art

52:48

Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio

52:51

and Cavalry Audio. Our

52:53

executive producers are Matt del Piano,

52:56

Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner,

52:58

myself, and Michael Ayerson.

53:00

We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach

53:03

McNeice. Zach also edited

53:05

and mixed this episode. Lindsay

53:07

Hoffman is our managing producer.

53:10

How a writer is Michael Schneyerson. I

53:15

believe you and

53:21

my faith and my fallow

53:23

my