0:01

If you went into the Gucci store and

0:03

bought a handbag, you wouldn't

0:05

ask the salesperson is this a real

0:07

Gucci? You know, you would take that as a sort

0:09

of given fact. So the fact

0:11

that Noodler, you know, was the oldest

0:14

gallery in the city. It was a hundred and sixty

0:16

five years old. It had worked

0:18

with these artists in their lifetimes,

0:20

and if you wanted to buy an abstract expressionist

0:23

painting, that's kind of the place you would

0:25

go to do that. By

0:27

the mid two thousand's, Carlos and Glyphs

0:30

forgery scheme was raking in

0:32

enormous profits, and yet

0:34

Glyphra was miserable. Later,

0:39

she told a federal judge that Carlos

0:41

beat her frequently, once

0:43

going so far as to break her nose. The

0:46

beatings, she claimed, were to keep her from bailing

0:49

out of the family art business.

0:52

Quitting wasn't an option. Carlos

0:55

warned that if she left, he would

0:57

kidnap their daughters solely and take

0:59

her to Spain, and glyph Era would

1:01

never see her again. Ironically,

1:07

GPS relationship with Ann Friedman

1:09

was blossoming. Rosalies

1:13

demanded and received higher

1:15

fees from Ndler as the fake paintings

1:18

continued to sell for exorbitant

1:20

prices. Ultimately,

1:22

Gla would rake in more than twenty million

1:25

dollars in her fourteen year forgery

1:27

career. With

1:31

that money came a commensurate lifestyle.

1:34

In two thousand five, Carlos

1:36

and A bought an enormous square

1:39

foot house in the North Shore neighborhood

1:41

of Sam's Point on Long Island's

1:43

Gold Coast. The Mediterranean

1:46

style home came with a two point three million

1:48

dollar price tag, quite a

1:50

property for a local art dealer and

1:53

her seemingly unemployed partner.

1:56

Friends and neighbors found the home beautiful

1:59

and impressively furnished, but not

2:01

without its quirks. The odd

2:03

thing about it was they were paintings

2:05

everywhere, and not just hung on the

2:07

walls either. One

2:10

time we went over to pick up the kids, my

2:12

wife and I were in the house and

2:15

we were kind of blown away by the art that we

2:17

saw in the house, because, you

2:19

know, Glaire always had the appearance of being successful.

2:22

My name is Brian Scarlatto's I'm an attorney

2:25

with Costellans and Fink in New York City,

2:27

and I specialized in criminal texts,

2:30

investigations and prosecutions. Brian

2:33

was a family friend of Cfia and Carlos

2:35

and Sand's point, their children attended

2:38

the same school. Later, when Cpia's

2:40

legal troubles began, she retained

2:42

Brian as her attorney. We

2:45

knew she had a gallery in New York, but

2:47

when we went into the house, you know, we recognized

2:50

several pieces that we knew there

2:52

were war holes. I believe there was a Picasso,

2:55

there was a Rothco, and others like

2:57

that. And as I said, there was

2:59

also very interesting furniture, and

3:01

there was just so much art that some

3:03

of it was leaned up against the wall because

3:06

there wasn't enough room to hang it all

3:08

on the walls. And you know, my wife

3:10

and I think just assumed that they were using

3:12

their art as storage for their gallery.

3:15

But when you go into somebody's house and you see warholes

3:17

in a Picasso and a Rothco and other things that

3:19

you recognize, it's it's sort of, you

3:21

know, overwhelming. You

3:23

know, it was also casual. I remember remarking

3:25

to my wife on the way out that you know,

3:27

oh my god, they have this this little dog, Rocky,

3:30

who was running around embarking. And I remember saying

3:32

to my wife, what if Rocky were to pee on a

3:34

Picasso. I mean it just and

3:37

it seemed like it could happen, because, as

3:39

I say, things were just stacked up against the wall.

3:41

They were always very elegantly dressed,

3:44

you know, had nice cars in a very nice house,

3:46

and they seemed to travel the world, and

3:48

they also knew a lot about art. And so

3:51

they were my friends who were the art dealers and had

3:53

a gallery. And

3:57

Friedman was also living the good life.

4:01

Ndler was trafficking almost exclusively

4:03

in the David Herbert collection of fake Rothko's,

4:06

de coonings and pollocks. Anne

4:09

had a knack for reaching out to buyers

4:11

that were exceedingly wealthy but not necessarily

4:14

well informed. Domenico

4:16

and Eleanor de Sole walked into the

4:18

Knodler in late two thousand four in

4:21

search of a Shawn Scully painting. Scully

4:24

was a contemporary abstract artist. The

4:26

De Soules were fond of. Domenico

4:28

De Sole was just stepping down as

4:30

president and CEO of Gucci

4:33

and was becoming designer Tom Ford's

4:35

partner in a new fashion company.

4:38

The Desules had an ocean front home in

4:40

Hilton Head, South Carolina, and needed

4:43

art to hang on its walls, and

4:45

didn't have a Shawn Scully painting

4:47

to sell them. She did, however, have

4:50

an amazing Mark Rothko, as

4:53

she had done so many times before, an

4:56

enchanted her prospective buyers with the story

4:58

of the ex family, David Herbert

5:01

and the marvelous downtown art world

5:03

of the nineteen fifties where artists

5:05

sold works out of the back of their studios

5:08

for cash. The Desoles

5:10

glowed with excitement. They had

5:12

never paid anywhere close to eight

5:14

point four million dollars for a painting before,

5:17

but it was a Rothco. The

5:19

very name of the painting, untitled

5:22

nineteen fifty six, evoked

5:24

images of the troubled artist in

5:26

his upper east Side carriage house, working

5:28

late into the night. Like

5:31

so many other paintings in the David Herbert

5:33

collection, the work was notably smaller

5:36

than a typical Rothco. Larger

5:38

ones went for tens of millions of dollars.

5:41

Once again, the painting had no real provenance,

5:44

nor was it in the Rothco catalog resume,

5:47

but Anne said she had no doubt the magnificent

5:50

painting they were gazing at, which soar in

5:52

value once it was placed in a future

5:54

supplement to the catalog resume.

5:57

The eight point four million dollar rothco

6:00

was sold and hung in the Dosoles

6:02

hilton Head family home. Eleanor

6:05

later testified that friends would stop

6:07

by just who and a over it. But

6:13

what was a roth Cooke compared to

6:15

a top of the market Pollock. Ever

6:18

since Anne had hit a wall with the Leavy

6:21

Pollock, she had pressed life for

6:23

another. By two thousand seven

6:25

she had it in hand, a

6:27

classic drip painting with a silvery

6:29

cast. Fully deserving, Anne

6:31

thought of the seventeen million

6:33

dollar price tag she attached to it.

6:37

Through a pair of middleman dealers,

6:39

a transparency of the painting found

6:42

its way to a Belgian born financier

6:44

named Pierre Lagrange. The

6:46

Grange was a hedge fund manager, one

6:49

of the richest men in London. He

6:51

was drawn to the Pollock, but, like Jack

6:54

Levy, he wanted assurances that the

6:56

painting was authentic. Fortunately,

7:00

Lagrange wasn't asking for an official

7:02

eye far evaluation of the painting. He

7:04

did want to be sure that the Pollock Krasner

7:06

Foundation would authenticate the work.

7:09

This was a problem for Anne. The Pollock

7:11

Foundation had stopped authenticating any

7:13

new works purporting to be Pollocks. As

7:16

for the Pollock Catalog Resume, its

7:19

last and final supplement, had been released

7:21

in nineteen ninety four. Anne

7:23

had the clout to arrange a meeting with the Pollock

7:26

Krausner Foundation lawyers, in

7:28

part because one of the lawyers was also her

7:30

lawyer. She talked up the painting

7:33

and stressed the importance of updating the entire

7:36

catalog resume to be reprinted

7:38

in full color. It was our only

7:40

shot to have the painting added. Officially,

7:43

the lawyers murmured and hummed, but

7:45

the word authentication never quite entered

7:47

the room. Anne had to think fast

7:50

or risk losing the biggest sale of her

7:52

career. On

7:56

March eighteenth, two thousand seven, Anne

7:59

rode to Lagrangees camp and told

8:01

them exactly what she thought the English collector

8:03

wanted to hear quote. The Pollock

8:05

Krasner Foundation has stated that they

8:07

are intending to update and republish

8:09

the catalog resume in full color

8:12

and also in an online version. Every

8:15

detail of the email was a

8:17

lie. Lagrange

8:19

and his chief lawyer, Matthew Johnson

8:22

found the email less than persuasive. They

8:25

wanted reps and warranties, as Donson

8:27

later put it, which was to say legally

8:30

binding language that the painting would be

8:32

authenticated and that it would appear

8:34

in the next catalog. Resume Friedman

8:37

turned indignant. Quote.

8:40

The distrusting and demanding language

8:42

in this agreement of sale is not in keeping

8:44

with the familiar and widely accepted

8:47

standards and practices in the art business,

8:49

she huffed. In her written response, it

8:52

veers far from the spirit and understanding

8:55

of our original agreement. I

8:57

have not been confronted by anything like this

9:00

in my thirty four years of experience

9:02

as an art dealer. We

9:04

have given you our word. Our invoice

9:07

is always our legal guarantee, and

9:09

has previously stated if this painting

9:11

has proved not to be by the hand of Pollock, the

9:14

sale would be canceled, to painting return

9:16

to Knodler and the full purchase refunded

9:18

to you end quote. The

9:21

hypocrisy of the letter was breathtaking,

9:24

but Ann's huffing and puffing seemed

9:26

to do the trick. On November

9:29

six, two thousand seven, Pierre Lagrange

9:31

completed his purchase of the silvery

9:34

Pollock. The Knodler

9:36

provided a written guarantee that Lagrange's

9:39

pollock was from a quote private collection

9:41

of the heir to a collector who had

9:43

obtained it directly from Jackson Pollock.

9:46

End quote. The air insisted

9:48

on anonymity. With

9:50

seventeen million dollars rendered, Pierre

9:53

Lagrange gave his new painting a place

9:55

of honor in his London penthouse,

9:58

unaware that its true value it

10:00

was little more than the canvas it was

10:02

painted on. More

10:17

art fraud in a minute. Around

10:21

the same time Pierre Lagrange was acquiring

10:23

his seven figure Pollock Glafia,

10:25

Rosalie's success was perhaps going

10:28

to her head. An opportunity

10:30

for new business came up when her old

10:32

friend Heimi Andrade introduced

10:35

Gfia to an ex notler dealer

10:38

named Julian Weissman. Rosale

10:40

spoke to Weiseman about potentially

10:42

cutting ties with ann Friedman. She

10:45

wanted a new start, she said. As

10:47

a show of good faith, she consigned

10:50

three Robert Motherwell paintings to Wiseman's

10:52

gallery, who works were said to be

10:54

from Motherwell's Elegy to the Spanish Republic

10:56

series. The third painting

10:59

from the series ultimately sold by

11:01

Wiseman for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars

11:03

to Mark Blondo, director of

11:05

the Irish Kalila Gallery. Blondeau

11:09

like Lagrange wanted authentication and

11:12

he got it. Jack Flam and Morgan

11:14

Spangler, co directors of the Motherwell

11:16

Foundation known as the Dadalist, spent

11:19

hours poring over the Blonde Motherwell.

11:22

Its lack of provenance bothered them,

11:24

but they felt obligated to authenticate it.

11:27

The painting was just that good. Flam

11:33

and Spangler spent the rest of two thousand

11:35

seven finishing Motherwell's

11:37

catalog resid A. As

11:39

they did, they noticed a troubling trend

11:42

more Spanish elegy paintings without

11:45

provenance. There

11:47

were seven in all, including the

11:49

one now owned by the Khalila Gallery.

11:51

To the foundation's dismay, four

11:54

of the seven paintings were being sold

11:56

by the Knoedler Gallery. Jack

11:59

Flam insisted at all seven Spanish

12:01

elegy paintings be shown together

12:03

at the Knoedler and resisted

12:05

as long as she could, but ultimately she

12:07

caved and agreed. The

12:10

Spanish elegies were spectacular,

12:13

but curiously, they were all signed

12:15

exactly the same way. This

12:18

was strange for a painter who was known

12:20

to vary his signature from picture

12:22

to picture. Three of

12:24

the paintings had gone from Gera to Weissman,

12:27

indicating that Rosalis had played her side

12:29

game, likely to ann Friedman's

12:31

surprise now and admitted

12:34

the obvious. All seven

12:36

paintings had come from the same source for

12:38

the moment, she refused to say who

12:41

that source. Was Alarmed,

12:47

the Dadalus Foundation demanded Knoedler

12:49

higher, a widely respected forensic

12:52

art expert named Jamie Martin, to

12:54

test two of the disputed Spanish

12:56

Elegy paintings. Martin also

12:59

tested genuine when Motherwell paintings

13:01

for comparison's sake. What

13:04

Jamie Martin would do is he will take a painting

13:07

and he will investigate

13:09

all the aspects of the pain from the frame

13:11

to the paints that are used. That's

13:13

Jason Hernandez, Assistant District

13:15

Attorney to New York Second District, and

13:18

the course of his criminal investigation, Jason

13:20

gleaned a wealth of knowledge about the

13:22

forensic testing process. He'll

13:25

take an incredibly small slice of the paint.

13:27

He will investigate the dust that's in the crevices

13:30

and the cracks of the paint, and he

13:32

will determine, you know, what the composition

13:34

of those materials are. He will

13:36

look for what he calls anomalies, meaning

13:39

things that shouldn't be there. And I'll give you a

13:41

very very simple example. I

13:43

think it was the DuPont Corporation at some point

13:45

patented titanium dioxide,

13:48

which really makes whites really white.

13:50

It was patented sometime and I don't know the

13:52

seventies I'm going to call it. But what that means

13:55

is that if I present to you

13:57

a Pollock painting and it has titanium

13:59

diox, I didn't we have a problem

14:01

because Jackson Pollock was dead before

14:04

titanium dioxide was discovered. And Jamie

14:11

Martin's report was devastating.

14:14

He found that a red pigment

14:17

in one of these Spanish elegies hadn't

14:19

existed until years after the paintings

14:21

were said to be made. All

14:24

seven of the Spanish elegies were immediately

14:27

scrapped from the upcoming Motherwell

14:29

catalog Resone. The

14:32

Kalila Gallerbay sued the Dadalists. The

14:34

Dadalist sued Weissman, the dealer. In

14:37

the end, all parties settled, with money

14:39

changing hands and the Kalila's painting

14:41

branded on its verso as a

14:44

forgery. One

14:48

day, while Jamie Martin was studying the Spanish

14:50

elegies, Jack Flam had a memorable

14:52

talk with Ann Friedman. She

14:54

said, I don't want to get Michael Hammer involved

14:57

in this. He's very lititious, Flam later

14:59

recalled. Despite

15:02

her wish to keep the Spanish Elegy debacle

15:05

off her boss's desk, Friedman

15:07

and Hammer had forged an alliance right from the

15:09

start, As

15:11

a lawsuit would later allege, Anne

15:13

had kept her boss in the loop on the sales of

15:15

Rosales's paintings from the beginning. She

15:18

sent Hammer short write ups of every new painting

15:20

that came in. The writeups detailed

15:22

how much the gallery paid Glofere for each

15:24

picture wholesale and how much

15:26

Nodler had sold them for retail to its

15:29

customers. And yet

15:31

years later, Anne felt afraid of

15:33

Michael Hammer enough to worry he

15:35

might sue her. It seemed

15:37

as if each partner still kept some secrets

15:39

from the other. From

15:42

the start, Knoedler's owner, Michael

15:44

Hammer had kept all but invisible in

15:46

his spacious office at the gallery.

15:49

Staffers rarely saw him,

15:51

and when they did, it was hard not to

15:53

be distracted by his artificial tan

15:56

and a wardrobe that could charitably be described

15:58

as extravagance. Hammers

16:01

roughly two dozen vintage cars, some

16:03

worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, only

16:06

underscore the sense that here was a man of

16:08

almost unimaginable wealth, free

16:11

to do as he wished. By

16:15

the fall of two thousand nine, news

16:18

of the fake Spanish elegy paintings had

16:20

reached the Prosecutor's office in the Second

16:22

District of New York. Investigators

16:26

were now sifting through and Friedman's

16:29

seventeen years as head of the

16:31

Ndler Gallery. Any

16:33

hopes and had of keeping Michael Hammer

16:36

out of the loop were dashed. Seeing

16:39

law enforcement walked through the doors had

16:41

jolted Hammer to his core. That

16:44

October, he terminated and Freedman's

16:47

employment from the Ndler Gallery. Her

16:50

feet barely touched the floor as

16:53

security guards swept her through the gallery

16:55

and out the front doors under the Royal

16:57

blue awning and

17:02

was finished. We'll

17:09

be back after this. Back

17:13

in London, Pierre Lagrange was having

17:15

trouble of his own. Just

17:17

two years after buying his seventeen million

17:19

dollar pollock, he was embarking on

17:21

a divorce. He was advised to

17:23

sell his recently acquired pollock and split

17:25

the proceeds with his soon to be ex wife

17:28

Lagrange was shocked to discover that

17:31

neither Southnbies nor Christie's would accept

17:33

the work. After all, the Pollock had

17:35

no provenance, and its surfaced

17:37

only a few years before. David

17:40

and Pham, one of the world's most respected

17:42

authorities on modern American art, was

17:45

just as skeptical when he personally viewed

17:47

the painting in Pierre Lagrange's London home.

17:51

It was the ninth of April

17:53

two thousand and eight when

17:55

I paid a visit and

17:58

I saw the whole collection of the and suddenly

18:01

we got to the Pollock. Pierre

18:04

looked at me. I looked at Pierre's

18:06

advisor, and I

18:09

think I said, what do you think? And

18:11

I wouldcall very clearly, saying

18:14

well, that has a history.

18:18

And they were hoping for some more words.

18:20

But I never said the west

18:22

was silence. They

18:24

were hoping that you would say

18:27

the painting was right. Yes, that's

18:30

exactly what I did not say. La

18:36

Grange had the distinct feeling he was being

18:39

toyed with, and he was angry.

18:42

Where was Ann Friedman anyway?

18:45

News of her firing hadn't yet made its

18:47

way to La Grange. The Knoedler

18:49

was playing a vanishing game of its own.

18:52

The gallery flat out refused to take

18:54

back Lagrange's Pollock, nor would

18:56

it be fund his seventeen million dollars.

18:59

After all, the gallery insisted the

19:01

painting was genuine. Lagrange

19:04

was seeing read he wanted his money,

19:07

and surfaced in November two with

19:10

an email meant to lower the temperature.

19:13

Once again, she insisted politely but

19:15

firmly, that Lagrange's Pollock was one

19:17

of several newly discovered works that would

19:20

be added to a revised Pollock catalog.

19:22

Resimee Ann's

19:25

timing couldn't have been worse. Just one

19:27

month after her attempt to band aid the Lagrange

19:30

situation with yet another lie, Jackson,

19:33

Pollock expert Eugene Thaw shocked

19:35

the art world with a declaration of

19:37

seismic proportions. Thaw

19:40

declared that Legrange's silvery Pollock

19:42

looked not right to him.

19:45

Thaw was in poor health and he wanted to be sure

19:47

his judgment was made clear, so

19:49

in early two thousand eleven, he repeated

19:52

his claim in a videotaped Affidavid

19:55

the painting looked fake to him, Thal

19:57

said, AND's email was

19:59

immediately and entirely invalidated.

20:04

It was now February two eleven.

20:07

Pierre Lagrange still had no interest in

20:09

meeting Ann Friedman, but word

20:11

was that a grand jury was convening to consider

20:13

charges stemming from the fake Spanish

20:16

elegies, and Anne was said to be

20:18

a subject of interest. Lagrange

20:22

decided he would meet with her after all, and

20:26

suggested the lounge of the Carlisle

20:28

Hotel with its serpentine rooms

20:30

of overstuffed chairs. Anne

20:34

arrived early to the Carlyle on

20:36

a wintry day and shows a small

20:38

table in a cozy lowlit corner.

20:42

She recognized Lagrange from his long

20:44

gray hair and angular face as

20:46

soon as he walked in, and

20:49

stood up to greet him and his attorney, Matthew

20:51

Donson. Pierre Lagrange,

20:53

I'm Ann Friedman. It's nice to meet you, she

20:55

said, don't be so sure,

20:58

Lagrange seethed in his eligian

21:00

accent. Lagrange ordered

21:02

a cocktail, the lawyer a coke.

21:05

I've been looking forward to meeting you and

21:07

discussing the painting, and said, cheerfully,

21:10

let's talk about how I can be helpful. I

21:12

want my money, the groans said, his

21:14

voice rising with each word. That's

21:16

all, and tried

21:19

to stay calm, She leaned forward

21:21

a bit. It's hard to predict

21:23

the market, she noted. She said they

21:26

might have to wait a while before selling the painting,

21:28

but she and La Grange would be able to

21:30

help each other out of this fix, and said

21:33

assuredly. That

21:35

was when Lagrange lashed out quote.

21:39

He started screaming at the top of his lungs.

21:42

I'm going to set you on fire. Do

21:45

you understand that I'm going to set

21:47

you on fire? And you will have no life.

21:50

It will be over, and it will hit the press

21:52

and you will be done.

21:57

And tried to reason with the Belgian financier

21:59

in a calm voice, as if talking

22:01

to an unruly child. Taking

22:04

the painting back simply wasn't an option.

22:06

She said all the experts

22:09

agreed it was real, and so did

22:11

she, and said she offered

22:13

to take the painting on consignment and try

22:16

to sell it to someone else. Lagrange

22:20

was astounded. Anne's solution

22:23

was to find some other sap to unload

22:25

the painting on. Not only was

22:28

that wildly irresponsible, but surely

22:30

illegal as well. The two

22:32

of them would be selling a painting Lagrange now

22:34

believed was a fake. If

22:37

Noodler didn't immediately return

22:40

his money and take back the painting.

22:42

Lagrange railed, he would destroy

22:44

her reputation. He was furious.

22:48

Lagrange and Johnson stood up.

22:50

The meeting was clearly over. Everyone

22:53

by now at the Carlysle was staring. This

22:55

was a real scene, and recounted. The

22:58

waiter came over and asked if she is all right.

23:01

Later, Lagrange would deny A's

23:03

account of the meeting. He hadn't raised

23:05

his voice, he said. The

23:12

calamity at the Carlisle merely confirmed

23:14

Lagrange's worst fears. He

23:16

was sure his Pollock was a fake, and

23:19

Friedman persona non grata. At the n Nodler

23:21

could do nothing to get him his money back. Lagrange's

23:24

only move was to squeeze the reclusive

23:26

Michael Hammer, Noodler's chairman, in

23:29

whatever way he could to recover his seventeen

23:31

million. Lagrange

23:34

had no idea how utterly dependent the

23:36

gallery was on the sales of Ga Feara

23:38

Rosales's paintings. He

23:41

did note with interest that Hammer had

23:43

put one of the galleries two adjoining mansions

23:45

up for sale for more than a

23:47

year, The seventeen thousand square

23:49

foot Italian Renaissance building at

23:52

nineteen seventy Street had

23:54

been quietly shopped around town for

23:56

fifty nine point nine million dollars.

23:59

That is a high price in a bear market. It

24:02

remained for sale until February two thousand

24:04

eleven, when it sold for thirty one

24:07

million dollars, half its original

24:09

asking price. As

24:12

it turned out, the sale came shortly

24:14

before the disastrous Carlisle Hotel

24:17

meeting. Lagrange knew exactly

24:19

where seventeen million of the mansions proceeds

24:21

should go, but Nodler had no

24:23

interest in giving any of that money back to

24:25

the London hedge funder. The

24:27

standoff with Lagrange remained a secret

24:29

through much of two thousand eleven as

24:32

lawyers attempted to resolve the situation.

24:35

Then in October came news of

24:37

the Motherwell Spanish elegy settlement.

24:42

Hi. I'm Patricia Cohen, and I'm a reporter

24:45

for the New York Times. Patricia's

24:48

first scoop about the Noodler saga was

24:50

dated October eleventh, two thousand

24:53

eleven. I had

24:55

no idea at that point that that

24:57

story was going to kind of

25:00

splode into one of the

25:02

biggest art frauds of

25:04

the last hundred years. I

25:07

just started digging around, and

25:09

even though that story was relatively short,

25:12

I quickly realized that there was a much

25:15

bigger story buried

25:17

beneath this with with a lot more

25:19

questions that came up, and then I started

25:21

digging. Cohen's

25:25

story in the Times prompted Lagrange

25:27

to do something he should have done far earlier.

25:30

He called Jamie Martin, the forensic

25:32

expert who had analyzed the motherwells,

25:34

and requested a test on the polit no

25:37

auction house would touch. The

25:40

tests confirmed Lagrange's worst fears.

25:43

Various pigments in the painting had not existed

25:45

in nine when the painting was supposedly

25:48

made. It was forensically impossible

25:51

for the work to be legitimate. The

25:55

report Lagrange received in late November

25:57

of two thousand eleven brought full

26:00

throated legal action. In

26:03

a searing letter to Michael Hammer, Lagrange

26:05

demanded that Knodler refund

26:07

his seventeen million dollars in forty

26:09

eight hours or face a lawsuit.

26:13

The letter would ultimately be the last straw

26:15

from Michael Hammer to Lagrange's

26:18

astonishment. Hammer responded

26:21

by closing the Knoedler's brass

26:23

doors permanently on November

26:26

eleven, sixty five

26:29

years after it first opened for business.

26:39

Gafara wasn't actually named, but New York

26:41

Times readers learned the name of Ann

26:43

Friedman and learned too that she

26:45

had been accused of selling fake Motherwell's

26:48

while she was president of Nodler. Was

26:51

there a sense of starting to connect the dots

26:53

sort of? I remember that day very

26:55

well because it was a big

26:58

scandal. There was an FBI investigate issue.

27:00

We were talking about, you know, many

27:02

paintings in many millions of dollars,

27:05

and I knew about the Pierre Lagrange

27:07

lawsuit, and so I

27:10

had basically been planning within the next

27:12

week to have this

27:14

you know, big expose about

27:17

this, and then when the gallery closed,

27:19

it was like, oh shit, we

27:23

have to cover this, but you know, we've

27:25

got this really other, big story,

27:27

but I can't get into all of that yet

27:29

because not every single piece had turned down.

27:31

So essentially I covered

27:34

that as a new story, um,

27:36

giving enough detail that

27:39

we knew something was going on, but also not

27:41

essentially wanting to kind of

27:44

expose what we knew

27:46

was going to be part of this really big takedown. Incredibly,

27:53

just two days before Noodler closed

27:56

its doors and two years since

27:58

she'd been fired, and placed a

28:00

very strange phone call who noted Clifford

28:03

Steel expert David and Fam,

28:05

the same expert who had viewed Pierre Lagrange's

28:07

fake Pollock in London, and

28:10

telephone me on the November

28:14

twenty eleven. The game was

28:16

up. By then, basically we

28:18

knew that it was all hopes

28:21

since things were fakes in

28:24

a truly baffling move, and was

28:26

lobbying an Fham to have the

28:28

burned fragment of a fake Clifford

28:31

Steel painting added officially

28:33

to the Clifford Steel Museum.

28:35

This was the very same painting Carlos

28:37

Bergantino's had burned with a hair

28:40

dryer and told GA to say

28:42

had caught fire in a car. I

28:45

was absolutely astonished

28:48

that Ann wanted me to

28:50

write some kind of a letter about the

28:52

Clifford Store Museum accepting this

28:54

flagmant of the painting, and

28:57

I told him point blank is not up to

28:59

me to do it, so if anyone is

29:01

going to do it, it would have to be approved by director,

29:04

by the Bold and so forth. So

29:07

it was to me um

29:10

a phone call that left

29:13

me spaceless. Even at the time

29:15

when I wrote it, I bore

29:17

exclamation marks after that note

29:20

because of extraordinary

29:26

On the morning of December two, two tho

29:29

high pitched scream could be heard from

29:32

the bedroom of a hotel suite in Miami,

29:34

Florida. The annual

29:37

Art Bosl Fair was about to begin,

29:39

and Domenico and Eleanor Desole had

29:42

arrived early to get premium tickets.

29:45

Eleanor was scrolling through The New York Times

29:47

on her iPad when a story jumped

29:50

out. Domenico rushed

29:52

from the shower to see what was wrong. Too

29:55

shocked to speak, Eleanor handed him the

29:57

iPad, her hands shaking. Patricia

30:01

Cohen's first story in the New

30:04

York Times had mentioned the Knoedler and

30:06

publicly identified Glefara Rosales

30:08

for the first time, but it was a

30:10

short piece and the Disules may

30:12

not have noticed it. That morning's

30:15

follow up about Pierre Lagrange and

30:17

his fake Pollock made the news all

30:19

too clear. One

30:22

of the soules first calls that morning

30:24

was to Ann Friedman and

30:27

swore to the Dosilas that the Lagrange

30:29

Pollock described in the New York Times was

30:31

real. So were the rest of the works

30:34

in the David Herbert collection, including

30:36

the Desuls, Rothko, the

30:38

Dosilas demanded evidence who

30:41

was this mysterious Mr x Jr. Through

30:43

whom all these paintings had flowed, who

30:46

was glefi Rosales, for that matter, and

30:49

promised she would soon be learning the identity

30:52

of the mysterious collector herself. The

30:55

Soles were incredulous, and

30:58

had previously told them she know the collector.

31:01

As one of the Dess lawyers

31:03

later put it, the most basic tenet

31:06

of authenticity for the Rothco was

31:08

a lie. Neither Anne

31:10

Freedman nor the n Noodler Gallery knew

31:13

the true identity of their supposed

31:15

client. Among

31:20

the dozen or so victims who began peppering

31:22

the now defunct k Noodler Gallery with legal

31:24

demands for their money back was

31:26

Francis Beatty. To

31:29

her shock and horror, Francis discovered

31:31

that a Clifford Steel painting she had purchased

31:33

from Anne in two thousand was likely

31:36

just another fake from the supposed David

31:38

Herbert collection. Beatty

31:40

had loved Clifford Stills paintings from her

31:42

earliest days. They're

31:44

incredibly exciting. They

31:47

look like sort of lightning

31:49

or jagged cliffs in an abstract

31:52

way. They have enormous electricity

31:55

and sometimes. The colors

31:57

are very I would say, dance

32:00

intense, and they have

32:02

a tremendous sense of movement,

32:06

very dynamic. Finding

32:09

them was a challenge. Clifford stills

32:11

are rare. You don't

32:13

know where in the current

32:16

universe there's going to be a

32:18

Clifford still for sale and

32:21

one that someone might let you get

32:23

your hands on. I mean, they're not sitting

32:25

there in people's inventory.

32:28

I had a colleague who

32:30

came in and said to me, could

32:33

you sell a great Clifford

32:35

still, a great early still? And I

32:38

said, you bet you I can, And

32:40

he said, I know where there is one.

32:43

There's a beauty, and Ann Friedman

32:45

has it. Francis

32:47

rushed over to the notler. She was

32:50

stunned. The painting was perfect, the

32:52

Jagon mountains, the colors, perfect

32:54

size. I had

32:56

sold to pictures of

32:59

this pure so over

33:01

a period. It took me, you know,

33:04

fifteen years to find the first one, twenty

33:07

years to find the second one. But

33:10

of course it had no

33:12

provenance. Oh I

33:14

remember very specifically because

33:17

I said, this

33:19

has no provenance and

33:22

it hasn't been exhibited anywhere.

33:25

And so Anne

33:27

wrote me an email saying

33:30

that it belonged to

33:33

a Mexican who

33:36

had gotten it directly from

33:38

Clifford Still and had been

33:40

in the same family that

33:43

entire time to

33:45

close the deal and made an unusual

33:48

promised to Francis. If

33:50

we did the deal, she would

33:53

reveal the provenance to

33:55

me. I showed

33:57

it to a wonderful

34:00

restorer, very good friend of mine, Alan

34:02

goldrac who had been the

34:06

restorer who had unwrapped

34:08

all the Clifford stills for

34:10

the Metropolitan Museum's retrospective.

34:14

Francis also showed the painting to David

34:16

an fhem as much the Clifford

34:18

still expert as the ultimate connoisseur

34:20

for Pollock and Rothcobe. He had

34:22

liked the picture very much. Despite

34:25

the positive affirmations from experts,

34:27

Francis remained wary. So

34:30

I said to Anne, I need

34:32

a Nodler guarantee, and

34:35

you have to guarantee the

34:38

authenticity of this

34:40

picture with Noler

34:43

behind it, so if the

34:45

authenticity is questioned,

34:48

you return the money to the client.

34:51

And what did she say to that? Fine?

34:54

And I got her to

34:56

write a guarantee

34:59

of authenticity

35:01

on the Clifford still,

35:04

and I gave a copy of it to the

35:06

client. And at that

35:08

point I thought you

35:11

know what, We're safe if

35:13

the worst thing possibly happens and

35:16

something goes wrong. It

35:18

is a Nodler guarantee, and

35:21

no Ler is the last place

35:24

in the world that would renege on

35:26

any kind of guarantee. With

35:34

that baby and two fellow dealers

35:36

put their money down about one million

35:38

dollars. They sold it for one point

35:40

one million to the collector who had pushed

35:43

for the still in the first place. An

35:46

entire decade passed no issues

35:48

with the painting. Popped up curiously,

35:51

however, and failed to keep her side

35:54

of the bargain with Francis. She

35:56

didn't tell me who she got

35:59

the picture phone. I

36:01

probably should have pressed

36:03

her on that, but I didn't because

36:06

I think once I had obtained

36:08

this Nodler guarantee

36:11

in writing, I thought

36:13

that I had sort of an impregnable

36:17

defense. So fast

36:19

forward to two thousand

36:22

eleven, Pierre Lagrange shouts

36:25

it from the rooftops that he's paid seventeen

36:27

million dollars for a fake Pollock.

36:30

What was your reaction to that news. I'm

36:35

not sure I want to say it on air. I

36:37

mean, holy

36:39

moley, um,

36:42

we were absolutely stunned.

36:46

We went and did the forensic testing

36:48

I think it had some kind of

36:50

white in it that hadn't been invented

36:52

back then. And also the

36:55

pigments were of more

36:57

recent vintage. God,

37:00

so at that point obviously you had to call

37:03

your customer, who who bought

37:05

the painting. We said,

37:07

we're going to give you back your money

37:10

and sue and I think

37:13

we um We sent

37:15

him a check for one million, one thousand,

37:18

but he said to us that

37:20

he thought the picture was now worth three

37:22

million and he was going to sue

37:25

us for that much money. I

37:27

mean the suit must have cost three

37:30

yo dollars. And then we

37:32

finally settled. You

37:34

settled with Ndler, which,

37:37

of course, by now was almost like

37:39

a dead man walking, right. I mean it

37:41

had closed in officially, so you

37:43

were you were negotiating with a company

37:45

that did it even exist. Right. We

37:48

were in the same boat as everybody else. Little

37:50

by little, lots of people were

37:53

settling to get something. So

37:55

we were out the million

37:58

dollars. We were out

38:00

the cost of the litigation

38:02

a million four so maybe it was more

38:05

like a million plus. Well,

38:08

that must have haunted you for a long time. It

38:11

was a terrible thing for the profession.

38:15

I'm the secretary of the Art Dealers Association

38:17

of America. And I'm an art

38:19

historian and I

38:22

love the art dealing profession. It's

38:24

full of wonderful, devoted

38:28

experts and people who love

38:31

art. And this was just a

38:34

devastating blow. So

38:36

it was on everybody's

38:38

lips, and it made you feel like you've

38:41

gone from decades and

38:43

decades devoted to doing

38:45

the right thing and suddenly

38:48

you were all like in cahoots with

38:50

al Capone. Yeah, it was

38:52

hugely distressing. What

38:57

happened to the painting. By the way, it's

39:00

because we got the painting

39:02

back and it was in our basement

39:06

and I really wanted to

39:08

take it out, take it to, you

39:11

know, the Clifford Still Museum, and

39:13

you know, stand it up and

39:16

look at other pictures of that

39:18

vintage and figure out

39:20

how why I had how I had made

39:23

this mistake. There's no question that

39:25

was a fake. But it was so damn

39:27

good. It was in the story

39:30

to Richard Fannigan and Company. And

39:32

when we closed, when Richard

39:34

left that building, I don't know

39:37

where it is and I kind

39:39

of have a mental note of

39:41

trying to track it down

39:44

and find out where it is. By

39:49

March two, twelves

39:52

had a team of lawyers harnessed

39:54

up. Domenico

39:56

Disle was a gentle family man,

39:59

but being cond out of eight point

40:01

four million dollars set of fire

40:03

raging in his Italian soul. He

40:06

wasn't just set on getting his money back.

40:09

He wanted triple damages, a

40:11

so called WECo penalty for what

40:14

amounted to a conspiracy among

40:16

all of the defendants. A

40:18

trio of top art fraud lawyers

40:21

began inundating the Knodler with

40:23

demands for documents. The

40:26

number of artists, the number of unknown

40:28

works that cheap prices, know they're got them for

40:30

the incredible markups they sold them for. That's

40:33

in the papers we got in

40:35

the first few months. Those are just invoices

40:39

from the nother gallery. I

40:41

spoke with the Disols attorneys, Aaron

40:43

Crowle, Emily royce Baum and

40:46

Gregory Clark at their law offices,

40:49

so we had discovery from

40:51

them relatively early on

40:53

with those documents. So you

40:55

know, that's a big part of the case, right from the beginning,

40:58

right and also early on, before

41:01

Jamie Martin had had the

41:03

opportunity to examine a number

41:05

of different works like he had looked at

41:07

Pierre Le Grange's work. I think he had looked

41:09

at ours. We were telling

41:12

the judge, this is like you go to Canal

41:15

Street and there's a table. You don't have

41:17

to one watches fake. They're all fake. You

41:19

don't have to test them all to know that they're all

41:21

fake. And sure enough,

41:23

Jamie proved that it was the same paint

41:26

for the Pollock, for the roth Cooe.

41:28

You know that spread ten years apart.

41:31

Over the course of the two years between

41:33

when we filed the case and leading guilty.

41:36

Over the course of that time, Jamie Martin ultimately

41:38

had access to eighteen works out of the fort

41:41

on the list, and he

41:43

proved every single one was

41:46

a fake. What emerged

41:50

was what we showed that trial with the witness

41:52

testimony, that there were no experts

41:56

who authenticated these paintings.

41:59

For another it just didn't happen. The

42:01

lawyers came up with six red flags

42:04

clear indicators of a criminal enterprise.

42:07

The one that seems to interest people the

42:10

most is the profits. And you

42:12

know, our expert testified that

42:14

ordinarily in the secondary market,

42:17

the dealer will make twenty to thirty percent

42:19

of a profit. So they buy for a hundred dollars,

42:22

they sell for a hundred thirty dollars, they get to pocket

42:24

thirty dollars. No, there

42:27

was making hundreds from

42:30

the very beginning, making hundreds of percent

42:32

profits, and as the scheme went on, it

42:35

multiplied to six hundred, seven hundred,

42:37

eight hundred percent. Now instead

42:39

of just a little deep in corn on paper, you had a pollock,

42:43

you had a bunch of them, had a bunch of them, and

42:46

so you know, and the profits were

42:48

a loan, a signal. And

42:50

I think this is that hit the jurors the

42:53

most, that the profits were a signal

42:55

that, like, something was wrong here. But

42:58

the number of works was wildly

43:02

off the charts. By

43:06

early two thousand thirteen, the lawyers

43:08

for the Soles had done enough

43:10

discovery to feel they had a rock solid case.

43:13

Jason Hernandez wasn't so sure,

43:16

and assistant district attorney specializing

43:19

in fraud cases in New York City's

43:21

Second District, Hernandez had come

43:23

to be wary of fraud cases

43:25

built on the testimony of experts. That

43:28

was testimony the defense could easily counter

43:31

with experts of their own. After

43:33

all, who was to say which expert would be

43:35

right? Hernandez knew the case would

43:37

be an enormous challenge. There

43:40

were an unusually large number

43:43

of prominent people who seemingly

43:45

were going to stand by the paintings and say that

43:47

they were real. That is uncommon,

43:51

and I could see right away. Well, you

43:53

know, how do you get over that? Because if

43:56

the person selling them is showing

43:58

them to all of these steam people

44:01

and they're saying, yep, looks right to me, looks

44:03

good to me, that's not a criminal case anymore.

44:07

Despite the mountain of lawsuits, only

44:10

one case would go to trial. Eleanor

44:12

and Domenico de Soule versus the defendants

44:15

and friedmanfro Rosalee,

44:18

carlos Bergantino's, Michael

44:20

Hammer and the NLAR Gallery.

44:26

That's next time on art Fraud,

44:31

Why looks so awflyet tragic but

44:34

on a happy face? Smiling

44:37

can work like magic, but

44:40

on a happy face. Take

44:42

off the gloomy mask, tragedy.

44:45

It's not your style. You

44:48

look so good that you'll be glad you

44:50

decided to smile. Art

44:53

Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio

44:56

and Cavalry Audio. Our

44:58

executive producers are Matt del Piano,

45:00

Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner,

45:03

myself and Michael Schneyerson.

45:05

We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach

45:08

McNeice. Zach also edited

45:10

and mixed this episode. Lindsay

45:12

Hoffman is our managing producer.

45:15

Our writer is Michael Schneyerson. Blood

45:20

on a happy face, on

45:25

a happy face.