by Wikipedia
Accessed: 10/17/22
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
Marion True (born November 5, 1948) was the former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. True was indicted on April 1, 2005 by an Italian court, on criminal charges accusing her of participating in a conspiracy that laundered stolen artifacts through private collections and creating a fake paper trail; the Greeks later followed suit.[1] The trial brought to light many questions about museum administration, repatriation, and ethics.
Early years
True was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in 1948, and grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where she developed an interest in Greek Antiquities.[1] True later received a scholarship to study the classics and fine arts at New York University, NYU. True also has a master's degree in classical archaeology from NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, and a PhD from Harvard, where she studied under Emily Dickinson Vermeule.[2][3] True was trained by Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule III, contemporary scholar of Ancient Art and Curator of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1957 to 1996.
In 1982, True joined The Getty as a curatorial assistant and later became a curator in 1986. True created a new policy for The Getty in 1987,[1] which required the museum to notify governments when objects were being considered for acquisitions. Under this new policy, if a government could prove an object had been illegally exported, the museum would return it.
[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
In 1992, True organized a symposium to debate the authenticity of a Greek kouros, which is referred to today as the Getty kouros.[1] The label in the museum reads, "Greek, 530 BCE or Modern Forgery". This Kouros was worth $10 million in 1985 when it was acquired, and it is believed to have been looted from southern Italy.
In 1995, True put in place another acquisition policy that prohibited the museum from acquiring antiquities that lacked thorough documentation, or that had not previously been part of an established collection.[1] Later in 1995, The Getty incorporated the collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman into the museum's collection.[1] During that same year, True obtained a private loan to purchase a vacation home on the Greek Island of Paros; Larry Fleischman offered to loan True the money to repay this loan in 1996.[1] Later, lawyers would question if True and the Fleischmans had a conflict of interest.
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
Trial
In 2005, True was indicted by the Italian government, along with renowned American antiquities dealer, Robert E. Hecht, for conspiracy to traffic in illicit antiquities. She was accused of participating in a conspiracy that laundered stolen objects through private collection in order to create a fake paper trail that would serve as the items' provenance.[4] The Getty issued statements supporting True, "We Trust that this trial will result in her exoneration and end further damage to the personal and professional reputation of Dr. True."[1] The primary evidence in the case came from the 1995 raid of a Geneva, Switzerland warehouse, which contained a fortune in stolen artifacts. Italian art dealer, Giacomo Medici, was eventually arrested in 1997; his operation was thought to be "one of the largest and most sophisticated antiquities networks in the world, responsible for illegally digging up and spiriting away thousands of top-drawer pieces and passing them on to the most elite end of the international art market".[5] Medici was sentenced in 2004, by a court in Rome, to ten years in prison and a fine of 10 million euros, "the largest penalty ever meted out for antiquities crime in Italy".[5]
On October 1, 2005, True resigned from The Getty.[1] In November 2006, The Greek prosecution followed the Italian's lead, charging True with trafficking in looted antiquities due to her involvement in The Getty's purchase of an illicitly excavated golden funerary wreath.[1] On November 20, 2006, the Director of the museum, Michael Brand, announced that 26 disputed pieces were to be returned to Italy.
In a letter to the J. Paul Getty Trust on December 18, 2006, True stated that she was being made to "carry the burden" for practices which were known, approved, and condoned by The Getty's Board of Directors.[6] True testified for the first time in March 2007.
In September 2007, Italy dropped the civil charges against True.[1] The Getty also announced its plan to return 40 out of 46 objects. On September 26, 2007, Getty Center signed a contract with the Italian Culture ministry in Rome to return stolen arts from Italy.[7] Forty ancient art works would be returned including: the 5th century BC Aphrodite limestone and marble statue, in 2010; fresco paintings stolen from Pompeii; marble and bronze sculptures; and Greek vases.
In November 2007, the Greek criminal charges against True were dropped as the statute of limitations had expired. The wreath and three other items from the Getty's collection were returned to Greece.[1]
Criminal charges
All charges against True were eventually dismissed. Because the statute of limitations had expired, she was acquitted in 2007 of charges relating to the acquisition of a 2,500-year-old funerary wreath, which was shown to have been looted from northern Greece.[8] The wreath in question had already been returned to Greece. In 2010, an Italian court dismissed the remainder of the charges against her, holding that the statute of limitations has expired.[9]
Contested artifacts
Aphrodite of Morgantina was an acrolithic sculpture acquired by The Getty in 1988, it is a 7-foot-tall, 1,300-pound statue of limestone and marble.[10] The Museum and True ignored the obvious signs that it was looted. It was returned to Morgantina in early March, 2011.[11] It is thought that the sculpture actually portrays Persephone or Demeter, rather than Aphrodite.
The Getty kouros
The Getty kouros is an over-life-size statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros.[12] The dolomitic marble sculpture was also bought by Jiří Frel in 1985 for $7 million and first exhibited there in October 1986. If genuine, it is one of only twelve complete kouroi still extant. If fake, it exhibits a high degree of technical and artistic sophistication by an as-yet unidentified forger. Its status remains undetermined: today the museum's label reads "Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery".[12]
The Golden Wreath was bought by The Getty in 1994 for $1.15 million.[4] True was shown the wreath in a Swiss bank vault before purchasing and determined that it was "too dangerous" to purchase, because of its signs of looting. Under the advisement of The Getty's board, True purchased it through Christoph Leon, a Swiss art dealer.[4]
References
1. Combs, Jacob, and Morag Kersel. "A True Controversy: The Trial of Marion True and Its Lessons for Curators, Museums Boards, and National Governments." : 1–15.
2. Christopher Reynolds, "The puzzle of Marion True" Archived 2007-01-12 at the Wayback Machine, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2005
3. Suzanne Muchnic, "Getty curator Marion True, indicted over acquisitions, has often spoken on ethical issues" Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2005
4. Mead, Rebecca. "Onward and Upward with the Arts: Den of Antiquity." The New Yorker 9 April 1007:1–8
5. Men's Vogue, November/December 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3, p. 46.
6. LATimes.com ~ "Getty lets her take fall, ex-curator says"
7. BBC NEWS, Getty to hand back 'looted art'
8. Intl. Herald Tribune "Ex-curator acquitted in case of Greek relic"
9. Jason Felch, "Charges dismissed against ex-Getty curator Marion True by Italian judge (updated)" Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2010
10. Flech, Jason, "The Getty Ship Aphrodite Statue to Sicily: The Iconic Statue, bought in 1988, is among 40 object of disputed origin repatriated." LA Times 23 March 2011
11. Morreale, Giovanni, "Chasing Aphrodite: Venus of Morgantina", Times of Sicily February 16, 2012
12. [J. Paul Getty Museum. Statue of a kouros. Retrieved September 2, 2008.]
*************************
One of the world’s most respected curators vanished from the art world. Now she wants to tell her story.
by Geoff Edgers
The Washington Post
August 22, 2015
Marion True in Newburyport, Mass., where she grew up and her mother still lives. The former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum was indicted in 2005 by an Italian court for being part of a stolen-art ring. All charges were eventually dismissed, but her career was ruined. (Michele McDonald/for The Washington Post)
The reporters staked her out. The investigators said she conspired with crooked dealers. And her museum colleagues seemed content to watch her disappear, as if one of the world’s most powerful, respected and sought-after art historians deserved to be the only American curator brought to trial.
Ten years ago, Marion True, then curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles — the wealthiest museum in the world — was formally accused by the Italian government of taking part in a stolen-art ring. Within months, she would lose her job, her career and leave the country. Once a curator so coveted she turned down a plum offer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, True vanished so completely that one former boss, Barry Munitz, admitted in an interview this summer that he had no idea “where she is or what she’s doing.”
J. Michael Padgett, the Princeton University Museum of Art’s curator of ancient art, spoke of her in the past tense when approached recently at a dinner toasting, of all people, the late dealer, Robert Hecht, who was brought to trial with True.
“She was a symbol,” he said. “And she died for others.”
Except that Marion True is very much alive and now, for the first time in years, has agreed to talk about her professional exile. What’s more, True has roughed out several hundred pages of a potential memoir, a draft of which she shared with The Washington Post.
A decade after her downfall, True knows that she was singled out, with Hecht, by the Italians to strike fear in American museums. The strategy worked. The Getty and others, fearing prosecution, returned hundreds of objects worth millions of dollars.
True was never found guilty — the trial ended in 2010 without a judgment — and the curator maintains her innocence. But today, for the first time, she is talking openly about the way she and her museum-world colleagues operated. Yes, she did recommend the Getty acquire works she knew had to have been looted. That statement, though, comes with a qualifier:
If she found out where a work had been dug up from, she pushed for its return. In contrast, many of her colleagues did little, if anything, to research a work’s source. None of them were put on trial.
The pursuit of True was aided by raids of dealers and a massive leak of internal Getty documents to a pair of Los Angeles Times reporters. That paper trail linked looted sites in Italy to the museum’s Malibu galleries.
Now-retired Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri, reached recently, admits that he never imagined True going to jail.
“She was on trial for one reason,” he said. “To show an example of what Italy could do.”
Marion True leaves the Rome courthouse in November 2005 during her trial on charges of knowingly acquiring lost antiquities for the Getty. (Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Press/Getty Images)
‘A shock to the system’
In her unpublished memoir, True charts her rise from working-class Newburyport, Mass., into the mysterious, swashbuckling universe of ancient art and, finally, into an Italian courtroom. She offers a rare glimpse into the often too-cozy-for-comfort relationships among museums, dealers and collectors. She describes the absurdity of being targeted. Because even True’s detractors knew about her efforts to create collecting standards in a profession that, for decades, operated with the ethical compass of a junk bond trader on 1980s Wall Street.
True’s trial, covered with great fanfare at its start, fizzled out quietly.
“I understand why the Italians did what they did,” True, 66, said in one of a series of interviews in Newburyport, where she maintains a modest, third-floor walkup so she can visit her 91-year-old mother. “It was very clever, and it was very mean, but at least I understand why. What I never understood is why American museums did what they did. And my colleagues and my bosses never, ever stood up for me. They acted as if I had done all this stuff on my own, which would have been impossible to do. They just vanished.”
Former Getty director John Walsh, reached this summer, said that he gave a deposition explaining why True, as a curator, should not have been held responsible for Getty acquisitions. Those purchases were made by the museum’s administrators and board. But his private defense offered little solace to True. As she notes, the Getty did little to support her publicly.
“I don’t think anybody stuck their neck out,” said Max Anderson, the director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “Her indictment was a shock to the system. Everybody was watching with concern for their own fate. I don’t think it was the finest hour of the profession.”
An exile’s memories
It is late one morning, and True has heard about the book-release party, at a Turkish restaurant in New York, to celebrate the publication of Hecht’s memoir. He was the brash, legendary figure who fashioned himself a “buccaneer” during decades of selling ancient art to museums, even when he had reason to believe the works had been looted.
American art dealer Robert Hecht, who was tried along with True, leaves a Rome court in 2006. (Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press)
She is trying to process the idea that the man charged with conspiring with her would now be celebrated over red wine, kebabs and calamari by the aging circle of curators she once called colleagues.
“Even Bob Hecht comes out of it with his book published,” True said.
In person, True is warm, funny and capable of chatting about everything from the Beatles to the proper way to grow a peony. She lives mainly in France now with her French husband, a retired architecture scholar. Her tone shifts when talk turns to the Getty. Unprintable words fly. Tears well up.
The Getty Villa in Malibu was built by John Paul Getty to re-create a first-century Roman villa. It opened to the public in 2006 after a $275 million renovation. The original was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)
The Getty Villa, with its sprawling gardens, outdoor theater and galleries overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, was designed to re-create the feel of a 1st-century Roman home. The renovation of the Villa was her life’s work, an eight-year, $275 million project opened to the public in 2006. It is the main reason True turned down the Met when it offered her its top antiquities job.
True literally wrote the book on the Villa, a hardcover available for $39.95 in the museum gift shop. Her forced resignation in October 2005 came in the midst of the antiquities case but was technically for an ethical breach she admits she regrets, borrowing money (at 8.5 percent interest) for a second home from prominent museum donors Larry and Barbara Fleischman.
“I was a very happy person,” she says, looking down and beginning to cry. “I think I was good at what I did. I loved what I did. But when you know that you can’t do it anymore, then it’s over.”
‘Chasing Aphrodite’
So is it a good time to write a book? Even her closest friends wonder.
“It’s not like there’s something still active,” said Karen Manchester, curator of ancient art at the Art Institute of Chicago.
But then she talks about True’s influence, how she mentored Manchester, a junior curator at the Getty in the 1980s, on how to dress professionally and the proper way to carry herself around deep-pocketed collectors. She viewed True as a leader in the 1990s, testifying in Washington and speaking regularly at museum conferences about the need for stricter collection practices. That work sometimes angered colleagues at other museums.
“I’ve always wished and always thought of her as the phoenix who rises from the ashes,” Manchester said. “That there would be a role for her as a grand voice for the field. She has so much to give.”
Vartan Gregorian, the former Brown University president who now serves as president of the Carnegie Corp. of New York, believes a book would give True something she never got in a courtroom: A chance to properly defend herself.
“I told her, ‘If you don’t write your own history, others are going to write it,’ ” said Gregorian, who is also a former Getty trustee.
As of now, much of True’s story has been ceded to former Los Angeles Times reporters Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. The pair relied on interviews and documents leaked from the Getty for their 2011 book, “Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum.” While no longer at the newspaper, Felch maintains a Web site for the book. In 2011, after reviewers argued that they had treated True too harshly, the authors posted a retort, noting that seven in 10 readers on their site “think she was guilty of trafficking in looted antiquities.”
This summer, True offered what, for the first time, is something close to a confession. No, she insists she did not conspire as part of an illicit trafficking ring, as the Italians alleged. But she did acquire art for the Getty that she knew had been stolen. How couldn’t she? It was everywhere.
A gold wreath from the 4th century B.C. was returned to Greece as a result of the True case. True says whenever a piece’s true ownership could be ascertained, the Getty would return it (Giorgos Nisiotis/Associated Press)
“The art is on the market,” True said, describing the Getty’s collecting approach. “We don’t know where it comes from. And until we know where it comes from, it’s better off in a museum collection. And when we know where it comes from, we will give it back.”
This final line, she said, is important. Other curators worried little about where a sculpture or painting came from as they competed to acquire it. But True said that whenever she discovered the source of a looted work, where it came from, the Getty returned it. That wasn’t the case with two of the most prominent museum collectors of her era, men she studied under, Cornelius Vermeule at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Met’s Dietrich von Bothmer.
Bothmer pushed the Met to purchase a 6th-century B.C. vase for $1 million in 1972 even though, True said, he once told her about the Etruscan tomb it had been stolen from. Confronted with this, the museum had to send the “Euphronios krater” back to Italy in 2006. Vermeule once acquired the top section of a Greek statue, known as the “Weary Herakles,” despite the fact that the bottom half was on display in a Turkish museum. Yet Vermeule insisted publicly in the 1990s that he had no way of knowing that the two halves, so obviously connected, were once joined. In 2011, three years after his death, the MFA returned its half to Turkey. Bothmer has also died, and never admitted publicly to buying looted art.
Cornelius Vermeule in 1972 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He claimed ignorance when he acquired the top half of the statue “Weary Herakles” when the bottom half was on exhibit in a Turkish museum. (Courtesy of Marion True/Courtesy Marion True)
The “Euphronios krater,” a 2,500-year-old Greek vase on the display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was returned to Italy in 2006. Curator Dietrich von Bothmer bought it from Robert Hecht, later True’s co-defendant. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)
The curators were both close to Hecht, who sold the “Euphronios krater” to the Met. And it was only natural that Hecht, who met True through Vermeule in the early 1970s, would count the rich Getty as one of his best clients.
Ferri, the retired Italian prosecutor, said he believed Vermeule and Bothmer — as well as former Getty directors John Walsh and Deborah Gribbon — were just as deserving as True of being prosecuted. But the information he had on True, he said, was fresher.
The rogue in the gallery
True arrived at the Getty as a curatorial assistant in 1982, a day remembered down to her first-day clothes (“my best French suit and a striped silk blouse”) and starting salary, $14,500. There, she encountered Jiri Frel, a former Met curator who built the Getty’s collection during the 1970s.
The Getty did not have the history of the Met or MFA. What it had was money.
Founded by American industrialist John Paul Getty, the original Villa opened in 1974. Getty never saw it. He died in 1976 while in England, leaving the museum $1.2 billion.
Even with that money available, Frel operated like a bookie during Super Bowl weekend.
“A complete rule breaker,” said Sally Hibbard, the Getty’s registrar for decades until her retirement in 2014. “He would sneak things into the museum at night, when I wasn’t there. He came from the Soviet bloc, and that was just a way of life for him.”
Frel lured donors by inflating estimated values of artworks to benefit their tax filings. He forged documents to create fake histories for purchased works. Forced out in 1984, Frel left behind works that, two decades later, would end up on Ferri’s list of demands. That mess would be left for his successor, Marion True.
On a cold night last winter, a vestige of this generation of curators gathered at a Turkish restaurant to toast Hecht.
The collector died in 2012 at the age of 92. His wife, Elizabeth, had recruited coin collector and Corning Glass family member Arthur Houghton, who served as a curator at the Getty in the 1980s, to write a lengthy foreword to a self-published memoir. The hardcover itself is a skimpy read, not even 70 pages. Hecht, who had been banned from multiple countries in the past for his dealings, offered an open letter meant to forward his main argument about antiquities. He did not traffic in stolen works. He “rescued” art by steering it to great museums.
True knew most of the minglers: Jasper Gaunt, the curator of ancient art at Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum; former Cleveland Museum of Art curator Arielle Kozloff; Princeton’s Padgett.
Houghton stood in the front of the room, toasting the known dealer in stolen works. In his foreword, Houghton described Hecht as “an adventurer, a buccaneer” whose life was “a series of capers, of quick-witted moves to buy and sell ancient art” by those who “knew how to evade the long arm of authority.”
“I have to be quite honest,” True said later about the gathering. “I would have loved to go because I think it would have shocked them.”
Marion True in Newburyport, away from museums and art-crowd parties. (Michele McDonald/For The Washington Post)
But she avoided the party, just as she avoids the classical sections of art museums. And as she considers her life in France, of gardening, cooking, family and cats, she begins to wonder whether her memoir might be one more thing to let go.
Last fall, True had been leaning toward whipping the manuscript into shape for a publisher. This summer, she has been pulling back.
“I felt I really had to put it down, from my perspective, as a kind of catharsis,” she said. “But I’ve been wavering. Do I really want to publish a book and turn my life upside down? I just don’t know that it’s worth it. I don’t know.”
Geoff Edgers, The Washington Post's national arts reporter, covers everything from fine arts to popular culture. He's the author of "Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever." He is also the host of "Edge of Fame," a podcast co-produced by WBUR Boston. Follow