The Art Market is a Scam (And Rich People Run It)
Oct 5, 2021
Writing by Sam Denby
Research by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
The Getty kouros is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros. The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, in 1985 for ten million dollars and first exhibited there in October 1986....
The kouros first appeared on the art market in 1983 when the Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina offered the work to the Getty's curator of antiquities, Jiří Frel. Frel deposited the sculpture (then in seven pieces) at Pacific Palisades along with a number of documents purporting to attest to the statue's authenticity. These documents traced the provenance of the piece to a collection in Geneva of Dr. Jean Lauffenberger who, it was claimed, had bought it in 1930 from a Greek dealer. No find site or archaeological data was recorded. Amongst the papers was a suspect 1952 letter allegedly from Ernst Langlotz, then the preeminent scholar of Greek sculpture, remarking on the similarity of the kouros to the Anavyssos youth in Athens (NAMA 3851). Later inquiries by the Getty revealed that the postcode on the Langlotz letter did not exist until 1972, and that a bank account mentioned in a 1955 letter to an A.E. Bigenwald regarding repairs on the statue was not opened until 1963.
The documentary history of the sculpture was evidently an elaborate fake and therefore there are no reliable facts about its recent history before 1983. At the time of acquisition, the Getty Villa's board of trustees split over the authenticity of the work. Federico Zeri, founding member of board of trustees and appointed by Getty himself, left the board in 1984 after his argument that the Getty kouros was a forgery and should not be bought was rejected.
-- Getty kouros, by Wikipedia
The Getty kouros is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros. The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, in 1985 for ten million dollars and first exhibited there in October 1986....
The kouros first appeared on the art market in 1983 when the Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina offered the work to the Getty's curator of antiquities, Jiří Frel. Frel deposited the sculpture (then in seven pieces) at Pacific Palisades along with a number of documents purporting to attest to the statue's authenticity. These documents traced the provenance of the piece to a collection in Geneva of Dr. Jean Lauffenberger who, it was claimed, had bought it in 1930 from a Greek dealer. No find site or archaeological data was recorded. Amongst the papers was a suspect 1952 letter allegedly from Ernst Langlotz, then the preeminent scholar of Greek sculpture, remarking on the similarity of the kouros to the Anavyssos youth in Athens (NAMA 3851). Later inquiries by the Getty revealed that the postcode on the Langlotz letter did not exist until 1972, and that a bank account mentioned in a 1955 letter to an A.E. Bigenwald regarding repairs on the statue was not opened until 1963.
The documentary history of the sculpture was evidently an elaborate fake and therefore there are no reliable facts about its recent history before 1983. At the time of acquisition, the Getty Villa's board of trustees split over the authenticity of the work. Federico Zeri, founding member of board of trustees and appointed by Getty himself, left the board in 1984 after his argument that the Getty kouros was a forgery and should not be bought was rejected.
-- Getty kouros, by Wikipedia
Was Jiri Frel a Spy?
Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino undertook a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI’s file on former Getty Curator Jiri Frel, and posted the FBI file. The FBI was very interested in Frel, sparking rumors over whether Arthur Houghton was tasked with keeping “an eye on” Frel.
Espionage allegations aside, the Frel file is a fascinating study of a complicated personality. It hints at Frel’s famously chaotic love life. More importantly, it demonstrates how adept the charismatic polymath, connoisseur and political shape-shifter was at manipulating situations and spinning answers for his own survival. Colleagues at the Getty knew Frel as an Old World snob who constantly complained about America, its broken education system, its obsession with pop culture, its hot dogs and unpalatable mustard. Indeed, years later, when he was caught conducting a massive tax fraud scheme and falsifying provenance for million-dollar fakes at the Getty, Frel left America and never looked back. Yet during his 1971 FBI interview, the reporting agent noted how Frel gushed that “he considers the United States to be in his words ‘a great and good country.
-- Was Jiri Frel a Spy?, by Illicit Cultural Property, illicitculturalproperty.com
5/24/71
[DELETE] advised there were no records at her institution concerning FREL. His location or activities in the New York City area are unknown to [DELETE]
Inquiry at Princeton University showed he was not employed there.
-- FBI Freedom of Information Act Request on JIRI FREL
[Geraldine Norman] The number of Japanese tourists who come to worship at the van Gogh shrine in Auvers, got a big boost when Yasuda bought the sunflowers in 1987. It will be a terrible disappointment to the nation if they discover their famous sunflower picture is not really by Van Gogh.
[To Tom Hoving, Ex-Director Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC] What do you think Yasuda is going to say if they actually have to face the fact that they are landed with a fake?
[Tom Hoving, Ex-Director Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC] Oh, I don't think they'll face it. I think they hope it'll go away. I do not think that the people in charge of the insurance company are going to let regiments of experts in to take it off the exhibition, and look at it, and maybe even do some analysis, and so on. I just don't think they're gonna do that. I think it would be a very great loss of face. I think the picture was purchased because the only other Vincent van Gogh in Japan prior to the United States firebombing of Tokyo, was a sunflowers, which was destroyed.
[Geraldine Norman] It is said that the painting was relined after its arrival in Japan, which may mean that important evidence has been lost. We asked Yasuda if we could talk to them about this, and our views on the sunflowers problem. Yasuo Goto, the chairman of the company, replied, "We have no intention of participating in any discussion of sunflowers' authenticity, as we hold no doubts whatsoever that it is genuine. We also have no intention of answering the questions mentioned in your letter." I personally find it impossible to believe that the Yasuda sunflowers is by Van Gogh. There's too much evidence against it. It's not mentioned in the letters, or other early documents. It first appears in the hands of Emile Schuffenecker, whose name has long been linked with faking. And it is generally agreed that it is visually inferior to the other two. It does disturb me, however, that so many experts still think it genuine. They aren't talking to each other, and don't know each other's arguments. Which is why the muddle persists. If the experts, the Van Gogh Foundation, and Mr. Goto from Yasuda, could be persuaded to divulge what they know, the truth about the Yasuda picture could be found. Using secrecy to protect their reputations and huge investments just won't do. Christie's has both money and reputation at stake, and has opted for silence. They refused to be interviewed, and issued a statement saying, "We see no reason, on the evidence so far produced, to alter our original opinion that the sunflowers is an authentic work by Van Gogh."
[Tom Hoving, Ex-Director Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC] You don't ever get a concert of opinion in art. Very seldomly you get it. And so this, I think, will just kind of go on forever. And since it's not going to ever be for resale, does it matter?
[Dr. Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, Prof. History of Art, University of Toronto] Most of us who know Van Gogh -- and I think a lot of us do, or profess to know a lot about Van Gogh -- know that this very simple man, filled with great humility and compassion for mankind, saw these works as different legacies than financial ones. I think he would be horrified, and distraught beyond anything you can imagine, to see himself somersaulted to such tremendous value, and such crass commercialism. I think it would have been something that he couldn't have ever tolerated.
[url]-- Is Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' A Fake?: The Fake Van Gogh's, Narrated by Geraldine Norman, World History Documentaries[/url]
Unknown to the public, Gene Sharp formulated a theory on non violence as a political weapon. Also he first helped NATO and then CIA train the leaders of the soft coups of the last 15 years. Since the 50s, Gene Sharp studied Henry D. Thoreau and Mohandas K. Gandhi’s theory of civil disobedience. For these authors, obedience and disobedience were religious and moral matters, not political ones. However, to preach had political consequences; what could be considered an aim could be perceived as a mean. Civil disobedience can be considered then as a political, even military, action technique.
In 1983, Sharp designed the Non Violent Sanctions Program in the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University where he did some social sciences studies on the possible use of civil disobedience by Western Europe population in case of a military invasion carried out by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, he founded in Boston the Albert Einstein Institution with the double purpose of financing his own researches and applying his own models to specific situations. In 1985, he published a book titled "Making Europe Unconquerable " whose second edition included a preface by George Kennan, the Father of the Cold War. In 1987, the association was funded by the U.S. Institute for Peace and hosted seminars to instruct its allies on defense based on civil disobedience. General Fricaud-Chagnaud, on his part, introduced his "civil deterrence" concept at the Foundation of National Defense Studies.
General Edward B Atkeson, seconded by the US Army to the Director of the CIA, integrates the institute into the apparatus of the US stay-behind network interfering in the affairs of allied states. Focusing on the morality of the means of action avoids debate on the legitimacy of the action. Non-violence, accepted as good in itself and an integral part of democracy, facilitates whitewashing of covert actions which are intrinsically non-democratic.
-- The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network
The East–West Center (EWC), or the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. It is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The East–West Center originated as a University of Hawaii at Manoa faculty initiative with a February 16, 1959, memo from professor Murray Turnbull, then acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to political science professor Norman Meller, then chairperson of the faculty senate, that proposed the creation of an International College of Cultural Affairs. However, University of Hawaii President Laurence H. Snyder stated that budgetary constraints prevented proceeding at the time with the idea.
Two months later, following radio reports of an April 16, 1959 speech in Washington, D.C. by then Sen. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) that proposed the creation of an international university in Hawaii "as a meeting place for the intellectuals of the East and the West," history professor John Stalker and Meller urged President Snyder to respond at once to Johnson's suggestion. With the prospect of federal funding, President Snyder appointed a faculty committee chaired by Turnbull to rapidly prepare a substantive proposal for creating an international college.
On June 9, 1959, Sen. Johnson introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate to establish an educational center in Hawaii to provide for "cultural and technical interchange between East and West," with a companion bill introduced in the U.S. House by Delegate John A. Burns (D-T.H.); the Mutual Security Act of 1959, signed by U.S. President Eisenhower on July 24, 1959, called on the State Department to study the idea and report back to Congress by January 3, 1960.
On May 14, 1960, President Eisenhower signed the Mutual Security Act of 1960 which authorized the creation of a Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West (East–West Center) at the University of Hawaii, and on August 31, 1960, signed the Department of State Appropriation Act, 1961, which appropriated $10 million for the Center (including $8.2 million in capital spending for six new buildings), and on September 30, 1961, President Kennedy signed Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1962, which appropriated an additional $3.3 million for the Center.
On October 25, 1960, the University of Hawaii signed a grant-in-aid agreement with the State Department to establish and operate the East–West Center, and received its first installment of $1.1 million in federal funding on November 8, 1960.
University of Hawaii art professor Murray Turnbull served as interim director and acting chancellor of the East–West Center through 1961,[8] when anthropologist Alexander Spoehr, the former director (1953–1961) of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu, was appointed as the East–West Center's first chancellor, serving for two years before resigning at the end of 1963. University of Hawaii president Thomas H. Hamilton served as acting chancellor of the East–West Center for a year and a half from January 1964–June 1965. In July 1965, he was succeeded by former newspaper publisher and diplomat Howard P. Jones, the former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia (1958–1965), who served as chancellor for three years before being succeeded in August 1968 by linguist Everett Kleinjans, the former vice president of International Christian University in Tokyo, who had lived in Asia for sixteen years.
On May 9, 1961, then U.S. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was a guest at groundbreaking ceremonies for the East–West Center's first six buildings. Five of the new buildings, designed by architect I. M. Pei, were built along the new East–West Road where a new 21-acre (85,000 m2) East–West Center campus just west of Manoa Stream on the east side of the university campus replaced chicken coops, temporary wooden buildings for faculty housing, and the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station. A sixth building built under the federal grant for the East–West Center was Edmondson Hall, designed by architect Albin Kubala and built on McCarthy Mall.
-- East–West Center, by Wikipedia
Einstein sailed permanently for the United States in October 1933 and never went back to Germany. He became a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, a center for research and postgraduate training organized by Jewish educator Abraham Flexner on an endowment by Jewish department store magnate Louis Bamberger and his sister, Caroline Bamberger Fuld.
-- The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses, by Stephen H. Norwood
The governing board of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, called the Board of Managers, reads like a financial statement of the various Rockefeller holdings. Its principal director for many years was the late Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, partner of Kuhn, Loeb Co., the Rothschild bankers in the United States. Strauss listed himself in Who's Who as "financial advisor to the Messrs. Rockefeller." He was also a director of Studebaker, Polaroid, NBC, RCA, and held government posts as Secretary of Commerce and as head of the Atomic Energy Commission. For many years he funneled Rockefeller funds into the notorious Communist front, the Institute of Pacific Relations. Strauss was also president of the Institute for Advanced Study, a Rockefeller think tank at Princeton, and financial director of the American Jewish Committee, for which he raised the funds to publish the propaganda organ, Commentary magazine.
Another prominent director of Sloan Kettering was Dorothy Peabody Davison, a leading New York socialite for some fifty years. She had married F. Trubee Davison, son of Henry Pomeroy Davison, a Rockefeller relative who had been the right-hand man for J. P. Morgan. Davison was one of the group of five leading bankers who met with Senator Nelson Aldrich (his daughter married John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) at Jekyll Island in a secret conference to draft the Federal Reserve Act in November of 1910. The Dictionary of National Biography notes that Davison "soon won recognition from J. P. Morgan, frequently consulting with him, particularly during the monetary crisis of 1907 . . . In association with Senator Aldrich, Paul M. Warburg, Frank A. Vanderlip and A. Piatt Andrew, he took part in drawing up the Jekyll Island report that led to the crystallization of sentiment resulting in the creation of the Federal Reserve System." As head of the Red Cross War Council during the First World War, Davison raised $370,000,000, of which a considerable number of millions were diverted to Russia to salvage the floundering Bolshevik government. His son and namesake, Henry P. Davison married Anne Stillman, daughter of James Stillman, head of the National City Bank which handled the enormous cash flow accruing to the Standard Oil Company. H. P. also became a partner of J. P. Morgan Co.; his brother, F. Trubee Davison, married Dorothy Peabody, the nation's leading philanthropic family. The Peabodys may be said to have invented the concept of foundation philanthropy, the first major foundation being the Peabody Education Fund, set up in 1865 by George Peabody, founder of the J. P. Morgan banking firm; it later became the Rockefeller Foundation. Dorothy Peabody's father was the renowned Endicott Peabody, founder of the Establishment training school, Groton, where Franklin D. Roosevelt and many other front men were educated. Dorothy Peabody was on the national board of the American Cancer Society for many years, as well as director of Sloan Kettering. She was also a noted big game hunter, making many forays to India and Africa, and winning many trophies for her prize animals. Her husband was Secretary of War for air from 1926-32, and was president of the American Museum of Natural History for many years; this was Theodore Roosevelt's favorite charity. Her son, Endicott Peabody Davison, became secretary to the J. P. Morgan Co., and then general manager of the London branch of the firm; he has been president of U.S. Trust since 1979, director of the defense firms Scovill Corporation and Todd Shipyards, also the Discount Corporation. He is a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Markle Foundation, which makes key grants in the communications media. Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, was also related to the Rockefellers through the Pomeroy family.
-- Murder by Injection: The Story of the Medical Conspiracy Against America, by Eustace Mullins
Confidential
This is the lowest classification level of information obtained by the government. It is defined as information that would "damage" national security if publicly disclosed, again, without the proper authorization.
Examples include information related to military strength and weapons.
-- Classified information in the United States, by Wikipedia
George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".
During the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union. His "Long Telegram" from Moscow during 1946 and the subsequent 1947 article The Sources of Soviet Conduct argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts provided justification for the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet policy. Kennan played a major role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, notably the Marshall Plan.
Soon after his concepts had become U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the foreign policies that he had helped articulate. By late 1948, Kennan became confident that positive dialogue could commence with the Soviet government. His proposals were discounted by the Truman administration and Kennan's influence was marginalized, particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed Secretary of State in 1949. Soon thereafter, U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more assertive and militaristic quality, causing Kennan to lament what he believed was an abrogation of his previous assessments.
In 1950, Kennan left the State Department—except for a brief ambassadorial stint in Moscow and a longer one in Yugoslavia—and became a realist critic of U.S. foreign policy. He continued to analyze international affairs as a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1956 until his death in 2005 at age 101.
-- George F. Kennan, by Wikipedia
Seleucus apparently minted coins during his stay in India, as several coins in his name are in the Indian standard and have been excavated in India. These coins describe him as "Basileus" ("King"), which implies a date later than 306 BC. Some of them also mention Seleucus in association with his son Antiochus as king, which would also imply a date as late as 293 BC.
-- Seleucus I Nicator, by Wikipedia
In the early 1980s, the antiquities department at the J. Paul Getty Museum was a hotbed of whispered political intrigue. Rumors swirled that the department’s Czech curator, Jiri Frel, was a Communist spy. And many believed the deputy curator, former State Department official Arthur Houghton, was a CIA plant tasked with keeping an eye on Frel’s activities....
As for Houghton and his ties to the CIA, the rumors were not far off. Before coming to the Getty in 1982, he had spent a decade working for the State Department, including time in its bureau of intelligence and research as a Mid East analyst. Houghton was fond of cultivating his image as a man of mystery. In truth, he had burned out on the diplomatic bureaucracy and chose a career that brought him closer to his long time passion — ancient coins. Houghton remains active in the field to this day.
-- Jiri Frel: Scholar, Refugee, Curator…Spy?, by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
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Seleucus apparently minted coins during his stay in India, as several coins in his name are in the Indian standard and have been excavated in India. These coins describe him as "Basileus" ("King"), which implies a date later than 306 BC. Some of them also mention Seleucus in association with his son Antiochus as king, which would also imply a date as late as 293 BC.
At the great marriage ceremony at Susa in the spring of 324 BC, Seleucus married Apama (daughter of Spitamenes), and she bore him his eldest son and successor Antiochus I Soter, at least two legitimate daughters (Laodice and Apama) and possibly another son (Achaeus). At the same event, Alexander married the daughter of the late Persian King Darius III while several other Macedonians married Persian women. After Alexander's death (323 BC), when the other senior Macedonian officers unloaded their "Susa wives" en masse, Seleucus was one of the very few who kept his wife, and Apama remained his consort (later Queen) for the rest of her life. -- Seleucus I Nicator, by Wikipedia
MINT X
ANTIOCHUS I
Obv. Head of Heracles in lion's skin r.
Rev. [x] (in exergue) ANTIOXOY (to r., upward); Zeus seated I. on throne, holding scepter with l. hand and eagle in outstretched r.; to l., [x].
Group 1: [x] beneath throne.
Tetradrachms
A1-P1 ↑ 14.32. BM (Oman Coll.). WSM, p. 35, cited as 755[x] and noted as being from the Punjab. Plate 1, 1.
A1-PI [x] 16.62. ANS (Newell Coll.). Hamburger, June 1930, 412. ESM 755. Plate 1, 2.
A1-P1 ↑ 17.43. SNGFitz 5524; WSM, p. 35, cited as 755.F.
A1-P1 ↑15.65. Kovacs 4, 8 Aug. 1983, 103 (ex ANS, Kelley Collection: see H. A. Troxell and N. Waggoner, "Robert F. Kelley Bequest," ANSMN 23 (1978), p. 37, 45); Glendinning, 18 Apr. 1955, 567. Possibly the same as the Sydenham coin, below. Plate 1, 3.
A1-P1 ↑ 15.42. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. ESM 755y.
? ? = 15.65. Ex. Sydenham Coll. WSM, p. 35, cited as 755[x].
Group 2: [x] beneath throne.
Tetradrachm
A1-P2 14.90. The inscription has been extensively recut and the monogram is not fully clear. Naville 10, 15 June 1925, 836; ESM 755a ("cast?"). Plate 1, 4.
Hemidrachms
ai-pi [x] 1.88. BM. Plate 1, 5.
aii-pii ← 1.99. The monogram beneath the throne may be [x]. ANS. Said to be from Afghanistan. ANSMN 23, p. 37 (where the lower monogram is recorded as [x]). Plate 1, 6.
Group 3: [x] beneath throne.
Tetradrachm
A2-P3 ↓ 15.53. BM. WSM, p. 35, cited as 755§ and noted as being from Chanda Mall (Pakistan). Plate 1, 7.
Drachm
a1-p1 The monogram appears to be [x]. Sotheby's, 20 Feb. 1980, 286. Plate 2, 8.
Group 4: [x] beneath throne.
Drachm
a2-p2 [x] 4.14. From Iran. Houghton 1308.9 Plate 2, 9.
Group 5: [x] beneath throne.
Drachm
a3-p3 ↓ 3.64. Said to be from Afghanistan. Private U.S. Coll. Plate 2, 10.
Uncertain Group
Hemidrachm
aiii-piii ↓ 2.05. Monogram beneath throne, if any, off flan. Ashmolean. WSM, p. 36, 755A. Plate 2, 11.
MINT Y
ANTIOCHUS I
Obv. Head of Heracles in lion's skin r.
Rev. [x] (in exergue) ANTIOXOY (to r., upward) Zeus seated l, on throne, holding scepter with l. hand and eagle in outstretched r.
Drachms
a1-p1 ↑ 3.84. To l., uncertain monogram; beneath throne, [x] Private U.S. coll. From Afghanistan. Plate 2, 12.
a2-p2 ↑ 3.64. King's title off flan; to l., [x] ; beneath throne, [x]. Private U.S. coll. From Afghanistan. Plate 2, 13.
a3-p3 ↑ 3.47. To l., [x]; beneath throne, traces of monogram. BM. Plate 2, 14.
Ashoka, 3rd Mauryan Emperor, Reign: c. 268 – c. 232 BCE, Coronation: 268 BCE -- -- Ashoka, by Wikipedia
The Getty kouros is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros. The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, in 1985 for ten million dollars and first exhibited there in October 1986....
The kouros first appeared on the art market in 1983 when the Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina offered the work to the Getty's curator of antiquities, Jiří Frel.During his tenure as curator, Frel considerably expanded the collection of Greek and Roman artifacts, transforming it to one of the leading museums of the world. He also recruited collectors to donate their items to the museum, apparently frustrated by the refusal of the management to buy new items which were not high-profile. To facilitate this, Frel designed a tax evasion scheme in which fictitious donors paid to an intermediary to get tax reductions for donations of artifact they have never seen. The scam was uncovered by Thomas Hoving, and Frel had to resign in 1984. Before leaving the Getty Museum in 1986 he hired Marion True, the new curator, who was later charged with laundering stolen artifacts.
-- Jiri Frel, by Wikipedia
Frel deposited the sculpture (then in seven pieces) at Pacific Palisades along with a number of documents purporting to attest to the statue's authenticity. These documents traced the provenance of the piece to a collection in Geneva of Dr. Jean Lauffenberger who, it was claimed, had bought it in 1930 from a Greek dealer. No find site or archaeological data was recorded. Amongst the papers was a suspect 1952 letter allegedly from Ernst Langlotz, then the preeminent scholar of Greek sculpture, remarking on the similarity of the kouros to the Anavyssos youth in Athens (NAMA 3851). Later inquiries by the Getty revealed that the postcode on the Langlotz letter did not exist until 1972, and that a bank account mentioned in a 1955 letter to an A.E. Bigenwald regarding repairs on the statue was not opened until 1963.
The documentary history of the sculpture was evidently an elaborate fake and therefore there are no reliable facts about its recent history before 1983. At the time of acquisition, the Getty Villa's board of trustees split over the authenticity of the work. Federico Zeri, founding member of board of trustees and appointed by Getty himself, left the board in 1984 after his argument that the Getty kouros was a forgery and should not be bought was rejected.
-- Getty kouros, by Wikipedia
[Narrator] But the paintings were only one element of the con. In a master stroke of cunning, Drewe painstakingly ensured that the legitimacy of the fake paintings were never questioned.
[John Myatt] The way he wanted to take it, you have to provide the paintings with a history with what they call a "provenance," which is pretty much the same as a service history with your car. You know, stamps in the book, and all the rest of it. And he made it his job to do that.
[Peter Nahum, Art Dealer] The point about authenticating a painting is, the first and most important thing is, looking at the picture, and judging the paint, the calligraphy, the way the brushstrokes are put on, and the color balance, etc., with authenticated works by the artist. The second most important thing, which is very important if the picture has provenance, histories of previous owners, especially if it takes you back to the artist, and also exhibitions the pictures have been in. So provenance is very important.
[Jonathan Searle, Fraud Squad, New Scotland Yard] And if you've got the provenance that's there, and the provenances were very, very professional. I've never seen anything like it. And if I had been a dealer, I'd have most certainly been fooled.
[Narrator] And to make the scam work, John Drewe presented himself as a darling of the art world.
[Jonathan Searle, Fraud Squad, New Scotland Yard] John Drewe gave a donation of twenty thousand pounds to the Tate, and as a result of that, he was naturally thought of as a supporter of the arts. And he said he was interested in looking up the old archives -- which he did -- in the Tate. And he set to work. A very busy little bee. To my knowledge, the type of forgery of archival material, has never been done to this extent with paintings. And not on such a scale, and not so audacious. Because this was full-penetration of the Tate archives, and the V&A archives, and a number of other archives as well.
[John Myatt] He would fabricate catalogues of exhibitions, by taking a catalogue out of an archive, inserting one of my new paintings into the catalogue, returning it to the archive, and then a researcher will say, "Oh yes, well, you know, that was obviously exhibited in in Brighton Art Gallery, or something, And that is the history which validates the painting -- however poor the quality.
-- Inside Criminal Minds ... Con Men, [The Cunning Genius Who Fooled The Art World: John Myatt], Narration by Anthony Wilson
Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman papers, 1837-1984, bulk 1935-1979
Biographical Note
Lawrence Fleischman (1925-1997) of New York City was an American art collector, patron, philanthropist, and benefactor. He and his wife, Barbara Greenberg Fleischman, assembled an impressive collection of art and artifacts that they shared with the public as part of their philanthropic activities aimed at fostering a wider appreciation of the arts around the world.
Lawrence Fleischman was born on February 14, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Stella and Arthur Fleischman, the owner of a large carpet business. He attended the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, and studied engineering at Purdue University. In 1942, he interrupted his studies to volunteer for service in the U.S. Army during World War II. While serving in France, he met a doctor who further fostered Fleischman's ever growing interest in American art. Following the war, he graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Detroit. Fleischman met Barbara Greenberg in Detroit and they were married in 1948.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Fleischman established a fledgling television station, developed holdings in real estate, and began purchasing art work. Initially the Fleischmans collected undervalued 20th century American art and were friends with several artists, including John Marin, Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis, and Ben Shahn. They also expanded the scope of their collection to include 19th century American works.
During the 1950s, Lawrence Fleischman realized how there were few American art historians and college departments, as well as a lack of primary source material. Fleischman worked with Edgar P. Richardson, then director of the Detroit Institute of Art, to raise funds and they founded the Archives of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Art in 1954. The Archives of American Art was, and still is, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and study of primary source records that document the history of the visual arts in the United States. Lawrence A. Fleischman is a founding Trustee of the AAA and served as the Chairman of the Board from 1958 to 1966. His wife, Barbara joined the Board of Trustees in 1997 and served as Chair from 2003 to 2007. She is a Trustee Emerita.
Lawrence Fleischman's business and philanthropic interests included the Arthur Fleischman Carpet Company, the Lee Plaza Hotel-Motel in Detroit, Art Adventurers, the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit, the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Cultural Committee of the United States Information Agency, and the Art Commission of Detroit, which governed the Detroit Institute of Art. He also served as an officer of the Board for many of the arts-related organizations.Former USIA Director of TV and Film Service Alvin Snyder recalled in his 1995 memoir that "the U.S. government ran a full-service public relations organization, the largest in the world, about the size of the twenty biggest U.S. commercial PR firms combined. Its full-time professional staff of more than 10,000, spread out among some 150 countries, burnished America‘s image and trashed the Soviet Union 2,500 hours a week with a 'tower of babble' comprised of more than 70 languages, to the tune of over $2 billion per year". "The biggest branch of this propaganda machine" was the USIA.
-- United States Information Agency, by Wikipedia
In 1996, the Fleischmans moved their family from Detroit to New York City, where Lawrence Fleischman became a partner in the Kennedy Galleries.
The Fleischmans philanthropic activities include generous support of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Cleveland Museum, the British Museum, the Vatican Museum, and lifelong support of the Archives of American Art.
Lawrence Fleischman died on January 31, 1997 in London, England. Barbara Fleischman lives in New York City and continues to be an active supporter of the visual arts.
-- Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman papers, 1837-1984, bulk 1935-1979, by The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
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