Andy Menzel: Research Paper Art Forgery

 

Andy Menzel- Today I’m going to talk to you about art forgery and its influence on Art as well as a little bit about its history and what modern historians have done to make it easier in detecting these forgeries.

Andy Menzel- Before we dive too deeply into the proverbial “meat and potatoes” we should talk about the differences between fraud, forgery and fakes. Oxford dictionary describes art fraud as having 4 important and notable things. One, there must be a level of deception, particularly on the side of the defendant. Two, there must be some kind of harm because of said deception. Three, the victim that was involved was deceived and finally there was a level of knowledge and dishonesty about the deception, basically it wasn’t accidental. Art forgery is described as the crime of copying money or documents in order to cheat people. An art fake is described by the oxford dictionary as something that isn’t as it appears to be. So, there’s definitely some intersecting between the three definitions. The main thing that I took away from the three definitions was tricking and or cheating people.

Andy Menzel- Some of the earliest examples of art forgery happen to be by none other than Michelangelo, who of course needs no introduction as an artist. One of his pieces that the artist forged was a sculpture of a sleeping cupid, that the artist then buried in the ground to artificially age it. Of course, this is probably what you or I would do if we wanted to make something look dirty and older. Michelangelo then dug it up and sold the piece to a famous cardinal, unfortunately it was discovered to be a forgery and the cardinal asked for his money back.

            So, as we see, even some of the greatest artists were not exempt from this questionable practice.

Andy Menzel- Moving ahead a few centuries, we encounter an infamous case, Knoedler and company forgery, which JoAnn of course mentioned earlier in the class, so I won’t go too in depth with it. When we talk or hear about cases of art forgery, there seems to be a noticeable pattern and that these cases happen in locations where there is a lot of art such as the U.S., United Kingdom, Paris and other places. Places that either have lots of art museum or really notable and important pieces.

Of course, one of the most famous and financially successful artists on this list is a German artist named Wolfgang Beltracchi. He’s mentioned in a couple other sources I found, and sixty minutes actually did an episode on him in 2014 which I may or may not have watched. But basically, he conned the art world and fooled the experts for forty years and made over 40 million dollars in the process. If we look at the definition provided earlier for then Beltracchi’s case definitely checks out, this obviously qualifies as art fraud, which is also one of the reason’s he did jail time.

            Him and his wife Helene worked together to forge the works, he would paint them, and she would come up with elaborate and fake histories to explain their sudden appearance in the couple’s hands. While he was eventually caught and did even serve prison time (rightfully so) he is an interesting case when it comes to forgers.

Andy Menzel- I say this because rather than make copies of the work of the artist, this man made entirely new pieces, but ones that could have been made by the artist he was copying.

            When asked why he forged so many works, Beltracchi stated that he wanted to essentially complete what the artist’s started. Beltracchi has since gone on to create his own original works inspired by the artists he copied. These new original works have actually begun earning him seven figures. Kind of nice to see that there’s a happy ending in this story.

Andy Menzel- Of course we have to ask ourselves “Why is art forgery bad?”. Theres a few reasons. The same article “A brief history of Art Forgery- from Michelangelo to Knoedler” states that forgery adds no new information or creativity, which is true in many ways. As artists we are adding to the current information that artists before us created. This is similar to when someone gets a doctorate degree, they add new information and then have to defend that information. Forgery also defrauds the artist and negatively affects the economy as many frauds are sold for big bucks. The article also talks about another forger, Ken Perenyi. Perenyi claims that by forging works he is fulfilling the wishes of the deceased artist and that they would be thankful of him if they were alive. Perenyi actually sells his forgery paintings as explicit forgeries to customers legally; however, he has to mention that customers are buying forgery’s.

Andy Menzel- When reading about artists such as Beltracchi and Perenyi I sometimes wonder if I myself could have fallen under the forgery label as an artist. It makes sense when my technical skill comes into play, especially since I came from an orphanage that was quite poor. Obviously, a lot of artists go into forgery because they need the money, and it goes back to what the article said earlier about forgery lacking creativity. That’s definitely true when it comes to making art, coming up with your own ideas can be tough but simply copying something that someone already did, that’s way easier.

Andy Menzel- When discovering art frauds and forgery’s it can be quite difficult, since most of this is going to start with police just like any other investigation. The problem is that most officers are simply not going to have the necessary expertise to deal with something like art fraud, which can draw out the investigation and allow for more time for the perpetrator to get away. Some individuals who do art fraud will even have people on the inside that they can rely on and help them in getting away with their illegal activity. In fact, most countries don’t even have a specialized squad to deal with cases of art fraud on a daily basis (Italy is an exception) (Polk, 12)

Andy Menzel- Let's talk about one of the ways we go about actually telling how something is forged and what modern ways we have at our disposal now thanks to technology. Radiocarbon dating was and is still used to tell how old something is. Recently we’ve begun using artificial intelligence to detect fakes and forgeries. A.I. has actually grown immensely in the last few years and while its still in its infancy the hope is to eventually get models that can think and perfectly replicate human emotions, often called strong A.I. While we’re still a few decades away from such technology, one thing can be sure, art forgery will still be around.

 

good examples of art forgeries next to their originals - Bing images

good examples of art forgeries next to their originals - Bing images

good examples of art forgeries next to their originals - Bing images

 

Works Cited

Amineddoleh, Leila. “A Brief History of Art Forgery-from Michelangelo to Knoedler & Company.” Artsy, 30 Jan. 2016, www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-the-8-most-prolific-forgers-in-art-history-that-we-know-of.

“Best Art Forger in History?” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 24 Feb. 2014, www.cbsnews.com/news/wolfgang-beltracchi-best-art-forger-in-history/.

“The Con Artist: A Multimillion Dollar Art Scam.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 2014, www.cbsnews.com/news/con-artist-wolfgang-beltracchi-on-multimillion-dollar-scam/.

“Fake.” Fake_1 Adjective - Definition, Pictures, Pronunciation and Usage Notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.Com, www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fake_1. Accessed 7 Oct. 2023.

Horberry, Max. “The Artist beneath the Art Forger.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/arts/design/elmyr-de-hory-art-forgery.html.

“How to Spot a Perfect Fake: The World’s Top Art Forgery Detective.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 June 2018, www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/15/how-to-spot-a-perfect-fake-the-worlds-top-art-forgery-detective.

Polk, Kenneth. “Fakes and Forgeries in Art, and the More Specific Term ‘Art Fraud’: A Criminological Perspective.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology, 22 Dec. 2016, oxfordre.com/criminology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-280.

Sutton, Benjamin. “9 Forgers and Grifters Who Conned the Art World.” Artsy, 30 Aug. 2018, www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-forgers-grifters-conned-art-generations.