Introducing Art Fraud - Episode 6: The $17 Million Jackson Pollock

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went into the Gucci store and bought a handbag. You wouldn't ask the salesperson is this a real Gucci? You know, you would take that as a sort of given fact. So the fact that Nodler, you know, was the oldest gallery in the city. It was a hundred and sixty five years old. It had worked with these artists in their lifetimes, and if you wanted to buy an abstract expressionist painting, that's kind of the place you would go

to do that. By the mid two thousand's, Carlos and as forgery scheme was raking in enormous profits, and yet Era was miserable. Later, she told a federal judge that Carlos beat her frequently, once going so are as to break her nose. The beatings, she claimed, were to keep her from bailing out of the family art business. Quitting wasn't an option. Carlos warned that if she left, he would kidnap their daughters solely and take her to Spain,

and Glyphra would never see her again. Ironically, gas relationship with Ann Friedman was blossoming. Rosalees demanded and received higher fees from Knobler as the fake paintings continued to sell for exorbitant prices. Ultimately, GPA would rake in more than twenty million dollars in her fourteen year forgery career. With

that money came a commensurate lifestyle. In two thousand five, Carlos and Gpa bought an enormous square foot house in the North Shore neighborhood of Sam's Point on Long Island's Gold Coast. The Mediterranean style home came with a two point three million dollar price tag, quite a property for a local art dealer and her seemingly unemployed partner. Friends and neighbors found the home beautiful and impressively furnished, but

not without its quirks. The odd thing about it was they were paintings everywhere, and not just hung on the walls either. One time we went over to pick up the kids, my wife and I were in the house and we were kind of blown away by the art that we saw in the house, because, you know, Glafire always had the appearance of being successful. My name is Brian Scarlatto's I'm an attorney with Costellans and Fink in New York City, and I specialized in criminal tax investigations

and prosecutions. Brian was a family friend of Cfia and Carlos and Sam's point, their children attended the same school. Later, when Golf's legal troubles began, she retained Brian as her attorney. We knew she had a gallery in New York, but when we went into the house, you know, we recognized several pieces that that we knew. There were warholes. I believe there was a Picasso, there was a Rothco, and

others like that. And as I said, there was also very interesting furniture, and there was just so much art that some of it was leaned up against the wall because there wasn't enough room to hang it all on the walls. And you know, my wife and I think just assumed that they were using their art as storage for their gallery. But when you go into somebody's house and you see warholes in a Picasso and a Rothco and other things that you recognize, it's it's sort of,

you know, overwhelming. You know, it was also casual. I remember remarking to my wife on the way out that you know, oh my god, they have this this little dog, Rocky, who was running around embarking. And I remember saying to my wife, what if Rocky were to pee on a Picasso. I mean it just and it seemed like it could happen, because, as I say, things were just stacked up against the wall.

They were always very elegantly dressed, you know, nice cars, in a very nice house, and they seemed to travel the world, and they also knew a lot about art. And so they were my friends who were the art dealers and had a gallery. And Friedman was also living the good life. Ndler was trafficking almost exclusively in the David Herbert collection of fake Rothko's, to Coonings and pollocks, and had a knack for reaching out to buyers that

were exceedingly wealthy but not necessarily well informed. Domenico and Eleanor de Sole walked into the Ndler in late two thousand four in search of a Shawn Scully painting. Scully was a contemporary abstract artist. The Soules, profond of Domenico Disle, was just stepping down as president and CEO of Gucci and was becoming designer Tom Ford's partner in a new

fashion company. The Soles had an ocean front home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and needed art to hang on its walls and didn't have a Shawn Scully painting to sell them. She did, however, have an amazing Mark Rothko, as she had done so many times before, and enchanted her prospective buyers with the story of the ex family, David Herbert and the marvelous downtown art world of the nineteen fifties where artists sold works out of the back

of their studios for cash. The Desoles glowed with excitement. They had never paid anywhere close to eight point four million dollars for a painting before, but it was a Rothco. The very name of the painting, untitled nineteen fifty six, evoked images of the troubled artist in his upper East Side carriage house, working late into the night. Like so many other paintings in the David Herbert collection, the work was notably smaller than a typical Rothco. Larger ones went

for tens of millions of dollars. Once again, the painting had no real provenance, nor was it in the Rothco catalog resume, but Anne said she had no doubt the magnificent painting they were gazing at would soar in value once it was placed in a future supplement to the catalog resume. The eight point four million dollar Rothko was sold and hung in the Dosoles hilton Head family home. Eleanor later testified that friends would stop by just who and ah over it? But what was a Rothko compared

to a top of the market Pollock. Ever since Anne had hit a wall with the Leavey Pollock, she had pressed life for another. By two thousand seven she had it in hand, a classic drip painting with a silvery cast. Fully deserving, Anne thought of the seventeen million dollar price tag she attached to it. Through a pair of middleman dealers, a transparency of the painting found its way to a

Belgian born financi or named Pierre Lagrange. La Grange was a hedge fund manager, one of the richest men in London. He was drawn to the Pollock, but, like Jack Levy, he wanted assurances that the painting was authentic. Fortunately, Lagrange wasn't asking for an official eye far evaluation of the painting. He did want to be sure that the Pollock Krasner Foundation would authenticate the work. This was a problem for Anne. The Pollock Foundation had stopped authenticating any new works purporting

to be Pollocks. As for the Pollock catalog, resume, its last and final supplement, had been released in nineteen ninety four, and had the clout to arrange a meeting with the Pollock Krausner Foundation lawyers, in part because one of the lawyers was also her lawyer. She talked up the painting and stressed the importance of updating the entire catalog resumee to be reprinted in full color. It was our only

shot to have the painting added. Officially, the lawyers murmur and hummed, but the word authentication never quite entered the room. Anne had to think fast or risk losing the biggest sale of her career. On March eighteenth, two thousand seven, Anne wrote to Lagranges Camp and told them exactly what she thought the English collector wanted to hear. Quote. The Poblock Krasner Foundation has stated that they are intending to update and republish the catalog resume in full color and

also in an online version. Every detail of the email was a lie. Lagrange and his chief lawyer, Matthew Johnson found the email less than persuasive. They wanted reps and warranties, as Donson later put it, which was to say legally binding language that the painting would be authenticated, and that it would appear in the next catalog. Resume Friedman turned indignant. Quote. The distrusting and demanding language in this agreement of sale is not and keeping with the familiar and widely accepted

standards and practices in the art business, she huffed. In her written response, it veers far from the spirit and understanding of our original agreement. I have not been confronted by anything like this in my thirty four years of experience as an art dealer. We have given you our word.

Our invoice is always our legal guarantee, and has previously stated if this painting has proved not to be by the hand of Pollock, the sale would be canceled, the painting return to Ndler, and the full purchase refunded to you end quote. The hypocrisy of the letter was breathtaking, but Ann's huffing and puffing seemed to do the trick. On November six, two thousand seven, Pierre Lagrange completed his

purchase of the silvery Pollock. The Knodler provided a written guarantee that Lagrange's pollock was from a quote private collection of the heir to a collector who had obtained it directly from Jackson Pollock end quote. The air insisted on anonymity. With seventeen million dollars rendered, Pierre Lagrange gave his new painting a place of honor in his London penthouse, unaware that its true value was little more than the canvas

it was painted on. More art fraud in a minute. Hi, this is Bill Clinton, and I hope you'll join us on why am I telling you this? And Why am I telling you this? Why am I telling you this? And why am I telling you this? Because it is your future on the line, where we'll talk about ideas that are improving our world and deserve more attention. After years of being interviewed, I'm looking forward to doing the interviewing to celebrate people's unique gifts that make life more

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Elizabeth Dutton. Wait sorry, do you want to see your name? I'm good, good, go ahead. We're the hosts of Ridiculous Crime. People love true crime, right, the mystery, the intrigue, the human frailty totally. But what a lot of us don't like is the blood and the guts and the mayheman Wait, wait, wait, wait, some of us do like the mayhem. Okay, let's be real, there's nothing funny about murder. Okay, that's our show gives you stories like the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. And

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start exploring. I discover the forest. Do orc Brought to you by the United States Fourth Therapist and the AD Council. Around the same time, Pierre Lagrange was acquiring his seven figure Pollock Glafia, Rosalie's success was perhaps going to her head. An opportunity for new business came up when her old friend Heimi Andrade introduced Cfia to an ex notler dealer named Julian Weissman. Rosalez spoke to Wiseman about potentially cutting ties with Ann Friedman. She wanted a new start, she said.

As a show of good faith, she consigned three Robert Motherwell paintings to Wiseman's gallery, who works were said to be from Motherwell's Elegy to the Spanish Republic series. The third painting from the series was ultimately sold by Wiseman for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Mark blonde, director of the Irish Kalila Gallery. Blondeau, like Lagrange, wanted authentication and he got it. Jack Flamm and Morgan Spangler, co directors of the Motherwell Foundation known as the Dadalus,

spent hours poring over the Blondo Motherwell. Its lack of provenance bothered them, but they fell obligated to authenticate it. The painting was just that good. Flam and Spangler spent the rest of two thousand seven finishing Motherwell's catalog Resimee. As they did, they noticed a troubling trend more Spanish elegy paintings without provenance. There were seven in all, including the one now owned by the Khalila Gallery. To the foundation's dismay, four of the seven paintings were being sold

by the Knodler Gallery. Jack Flam insisted that all seven Spanish elegy paintings be shown together at the Knodler and resisted as long as she could, but ultimately she caved and agreed. The Spanish elegies were spectacular, but curiously, they were all mind exactly the same way. This was strange for a painter who was known to vary his signature. From picture to picture, three of the paintings had gone from Glafira to Weissman, indicating that Rosalis had played her

side game. Likely to ann Friedman's surprise, now and admitted the obvious. All seven paintings had come from the same source for the moment, she refused to say who that source. Was alarmed, the Dadalus Foundation demanded Ndler higher a widely respected forensic art expert named Jamie Martin, to test two of the disputed Spanish Elegy paintings. Martin also tested genuine

Motherwell paintings for comparison's sake. What Jamie Martin would do is he will take a painting and he will investigate all the aspects of the paint, from the frame to the paints that are used. That's Jason Hernandez, Assistant District Attorney to New York Second District, and the course of his criminal investigation, Jason gleaned a wealth of knowledge about the forensic testing process. He'll take an incredibly small slice

of the paint. He'll investigate the dust that's in the crevices and the cracks of the paint, and he will determine, you know what the composition of those materials are. He will look for what he calls anomalies, meaning things that shouldn't be there. And I'll give you a very very simple example. I think it was the DuPont Corporation at some point patented titanium dioxide, which really makes whites really white. It was patented sometime and I don't know the seventies

I'm going to call it. But what that means is that if I present to you a Pollock painting and it has titanium dioxide in it, we have a problem, because Jackson Pollock was dead before titanium dioxide was discovered and patented. Jamie Martin's report was devastating if found that a red pigment in one of these Spanish elegies hadn't existed until years after the paintings were said to be made. All seven of the Spanish elegies were immediately scrapped from

the upcoming Motherwell catalog Resone. The Kalila gallerby sued the Daedalist, The Dadalist sued Weissman, the dealer. In the end, all parties settled with money changing hands and the Kalila's painting branded on its verso as a forgery. One day, while Jamie Martin was studying the Spanish elegies, Jack Flam had a memorable talk with Ann Friedman. She said, I don't want to get Michael Hammer involved in this. He's very lititious.

Flam later recalled, despite her wish to keep the Spanish elegy debacle off her boss's desk, Friedman and Hammer had forged an alliance right from the start, As a lawsuit would later allege, Anne had kept her boss in the loop the sales of Rosales's paintings from the beginning. She sent Hammer short write ups of every new painting that came in. The writeups detailed how much the gallery paid fear for each picture wholesale and how much Ndler had

sold them for retail to its customers. And yet years later Anne felt afraid of Michael Hammer enough to worry he might sue her. It seemed as if each partner still kept some secrets from the other. From the start, Knoedler's owner, Michael Hammer had kept all but invisible in his spacious office at the gallery. Staffers rarely saw him, and when they did, it was hard not to be distracted by his artificial tan and a wardrobe that could

charitably be described as extravagance. Hammers roughly two dozen vintage cars, some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, only underscore the sense that here was a man of almost unimaginable wealth, free to do as he wished. By the fall of two thousand nine, news of the fake Spanish Elegy paintings had reached the prosecutor's office in the Second District of New York. Investigators were now sifting through Ann Friedman's seventeen

years as head of the Ndler Gallery. Any hopes and had of keeping Michael Hammer out of the loop were dashed. Seeing law enforcement walk through the doors had jolted Hammer to his core. That October, he terminated Ann Friedman's employment from the Ndler Gallery. Her feet barely touched the floor as security guards swept her through the gallery and out the front doors under the Royal blue awning and was finished.

We'll be back after this. Adoption of teams from Foster Care is a townfect not enough people know about, and we're here to change that. I'm April Dinuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption stories told by the families that lived them, with commentary from experts.

Visit adopt us Kids dot org, slash podcast, or subscribe to Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to you by the U S Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, and the ACT Council. If you love true crime podcasts, you need to check out True Crime Obsessed. Each week, hosts Patrick and Jillian recap a true crime documentary everyone is talking about, and they do it with humor, heart and just the right amount

of sass. When you go camping, you either find the skull or you become the skull. That's the role. Patrick and Jillian have covered everything from the Ted Bundy tapes to Lula Rich, with plenty of art heists in between. With over one hundred million downloads and third prety thousand five star reviews on Apple Podcasts, true Crime Obsessed is one of the most popular true crime podcasts in the world.

Find True Crime Obsessed wherever you listen. From Cavalry Audio, the studio that brought you The Devil Within and The Shadow Girls, comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink Moon murders. The local sheriff believes there may be more than one killery. It's been four days since those bodies were found and there's no arrest as it this morning. They were afraid it's face it out in that area, what if they come back or whatever. It scared me to death, like it scared me, I was very, very

intimidating to live here. Crazy to think you go to sleep one night, maybe snuggling with your loved one and never wake up, or maybe you wake up in a struggle for your life, which you lose. Joint host David Raderman as he explores one fateful night when evil descended upon small town, Ohio, killed eight members of an Ohio family in a pre planned execution. Family was targeted, most of them targeted while they were sleeping. Followed the Pink Moon murders on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts

or wherever you get your podcasts. Back in London, Pierre Lagrange was having trouble of his own. Just two years after buying his seventeen million dollar pollock, he was embarking on a divorce. He was advised to sell his recently acquired pollock and split the proceeds with his soon to be ex wife. Lagrange was shocked to discover that neither Southbes nor Christie's would accept the work. After all, the Pollock had no provenance, and its surfaced only a few

years before. David and Pham, one of the world's most respected authorities on modern American art, was just as skeptical when he personally viewed the painting in Pierre Lagrange's London home. It was the ninth of April two thousand and eight when I paid a visit and all the whole collection, but then suddenly we got to the Pollock. Pierre looked at me. I looked at Pierre's advisor, and I think I said, what do you think? And I wouldcall very clearly,

saying well, that has a history. And they were hoping for some more words. But I never said the west was silence. They were hoping that you would say the painting was right. Yes, that's exactly what I did not say. La Grange had the distinct feeling he was being toyed with, and he was angry. Where was Ann Friedman anyway? News of her firing hadn't yet made its way to La Grange. The Knoedler was playing a vanishing game of its own. The gallery flat out refused to take back Lagrange's Pollock,

nor would it be fund his seventeen million dollars. After all, the gallery insisted the painting was genuine. Lagrange was seeing read he wanted his money, and surfaced in November two with an email meant to lower the temperature. Once again, she insisted politely but firmly, that Lagrange's Pollock was one of several newly discovered works that would be added to a revised Pollock catalog. Resimee Ann's timing couldn't have been worse.

Just one month after her attempt to band aid the Lagrange situation with yet another lie, Jackson, Pollock expert Eugene Thaw shocked the art world with a declaration of seismic proportions. Thaw declared that Legrange's silvery Pollock looked not right to him. Thaw was in poor health and he wanted to be sure his judgment was made clear, so in early two thousand eleven, he repeated his claim in a videotaped Affidavid. The painting looked fake to him, Thal said, AND's email

was immediately and entirely invalidated. It was now February two eleven. Pierre Lagrange still had no interest in meeting Ann Friedman, but word was that a grand jury was convening to consider charges stemming from the fake Spanish elegies, and Anne was said to be a subject of interest. Lagrange decided he would meet with her after all, and suggested the lounge of the Carlisle Hotel with its serpentine rooms of

overstuffed chairs. Anne arrived early to the Carlyle on a wintry day and shows a small table in a cozy lowlit corner. She recognized Lagrange from his long gray hair and angular face as soon as he walked in, and stood up to greet him and his attorney, Matthew Donson. Pierre Lagrange, I'm Ann Friedman. It's nice to meet you, she said, don't be so sure, Lagrange heath in his Belgian accent. Lagrange ordered a cocktail, the lawyer a coke.

I've been looking forward to meeting you and discussing the painting, and said, cheerfully, let's talk about how I can be helpful. I want my money, the grand said, his voice rising with each word. That's all and tried to stay calm. She leaned forward a bit. It's hard to predict the market, she noted. She said they might have to wait a while before selling the painting, but she and La Grange would be able to help each other out of this fix,

and said assuredly. That was when Lagrange lashed out. Quote. He started screaming at the top of his lungs. I'm going to set you on fire. Do you understand that I'm going to set you on fire and you will have no life. It will be over, and it will hit the press, and you will be done. And tried to reason with the Belgian and financier in a calm voice, as if talking to an unruly child. Taking the painting

back simply wasn't an option. She said all the experts agreed it was real, and so did she, and said she offered to take the painting on consignment and try to sell it to someone else. Lagrange was astounded. Anne's solution was to find some other sap to unload the painting on. Not only was that wildly irresponsible, but surely illegal as well. The two of them would be selling a painting Lagrange now believed was a fake. If Noodler didn't immediately return his money and take back the painting.

Lagrange railed, he would destroy her reputation. He was furious. Lagrange and Johnson stood up. The meeting was clearly over. Everyone by now at the Carlysle was staring. This was a real scene, and recounted. The waiter came over and asked if she was all right. Later, Lagrange would deny A's account of the meeting. He hadn't raised his voice, he said. The calamity at the Carlisle merely confirmed Lagrange's worst fears. He was sure his Pollock was a fake,

and Friedman persona non grata. At the Ndler could do nothing to get him his money back. Lagrange's only move was to squeeze the reclusive Michael Hammer, Noodler's chairman, in whatever way he could to recover his seventeen million. Lagrange had no idea how utterly dependent the gallery was on

the sales of Ga Feara Rosales's paintings. He did note with interest that Hammer had put one of the galleries two adjoining mansions up for sale for more than a year, The seventeen thousand square foot Italian Renaissance building at nine Street had been quietly shopped around town for fifty nine point nine million dollars. That was a high price in a bear market. It remained for sale until February two thousand eleven, when it sold for thirty one million dollars,

half its original asking price. As it turned out, the sale came shortly before the disastrous Carlisle Hotel meeting. Lagrange knew exactly where seventeen million of the mansions proceeds should go, but Noodler had no interest in giving any of that money back to the London Hedge funder. The standoff with Lagrange remained a secret through much of two thousand eleven as lawyers attempted to resolve the situation. Then in October

came news of the Motherwell Spanish elegy settlement. Hi. I'm Patricia co In and I'm a reporter for the New York Times. Patricia's first scoop about the Noodler saga was dated October eleventh, two thousand eleven. I had no idea at that point that that story was going to kind of explode into one of the biggest art frauds of

the last hundred years. I just started digging around and even though that story was relatively short, I quickly realized that there was a much bigger story buried beneath this with with a lot more questions that came up, and then I started digging. Cohen's story in the Times prompted Lagrange to do something he should have done far earlier. He called Jamie Martin, the forensic expert who had analyzed the motherwells, and requested a test on the polit no

auction house would touch. The tests confirmed Lagrange's worst fears. Various pigments in the painting had not existed in ninety nine, when the painting was supposedly made. It was forensically impossible for the work to be legitimate. The report Lagrange received in late November of two thousand eleven brought full throated legal action. In a searing letter to Michael Hammer, Lagrange demanded that Knodler refund his seventeen million dollars in forty

eight hours or face a lawsuit. The letter would ultimately be the last straw from Michael Hammer to Lagrange's astonishment. Hammer responded by closing the Knoedler's brass doors permanently on November eleven, sixty five years after it first opened for business. Gafara wasn't actually named, but New York Times readers learned the name of Ann Friedman and learned too that she had been accused of selling fake Motherwell's while she was president of Nodler. Was there a sense of starting to

connect the dots sort of? I remember that day very well because it was a big scandal. There was an

b I investigation. We were talking about, you know, many paintings in many millions of dollars, and I knew about the Pierre Lagrange lawsuit, and so I had basically been planning within the next week to have this you know, big expose about this, and then when the gallery closed, it was like, oh shit, we have to cover this, but you know, we've got this really other, big story, but I can't get into all of that yet because

not every single piece had turned down. So essentially I covered that as a new story, um, giving enough detail that we knew something was going on, but also not essentially wanting to kind of expose what we knew was

going to be part of this really big takedown. Incredibly, just two days before Noodler closed its doors and two years since she'd been fired and placed a very strange phone call who noted Clifford Steel expert David and Fam, the same expert who had viewed Pierre Lagrange's fake Pollock in London and telephone on the November twenty eleven. The

game was up. By then, basically we knew that it was all hopes since things were fakes in a truly baffling move and was lobbying an FAM to have the burned fragment of a fake Clifford Steel painting added officially to the Clifford Steel Museum. This was the very same painting Carlos Bergantino's had burned with a hair dryer and told Glyfa to say had caught fire in a car.

I was absolutely astonished that Anne wanted me to write some kind of a letter about the Clifford Store Museum accepting this flagman of the painting, and I told him point blank, it's not up to me to do it. It's if anyone's going to do it. It It would have to be approved by director, by the Bold and so forth. So it was to me um a phone call that

left me spaceless. Even at the time when I wrote it, I bore the exclamation marks after that note because of extraordinary On the morning of December two, two thousleven high pitched scream could be heard from the bedroom of a hotel suite in Miami, Florida. The annual Art Basel Fair was about to begin, and Domenico and Eleanor Desole had arrived early to get premium tickets. Eleanor was scrolling through The New York Times on her iPad when a story

jumped out. Domenico rushed from the shower to see what was wrong. Too shocked to speak, Eleanor handed him the iPad her hands shake. King Patricia Cohen's first story in The New York Times had mentioned the Knoedler and publicly identified Glefara Rosales for the first time, but it was a short piece and the Disules may not have noticed it. That morning's follow up about Pierre Lagrange and his fake

Pollock made the news all too clear. One of the soles first calls that morning was to Ann Friedman and swore to the Disilas that the Lagrange Pollock described in the New York Times was real. So were the rest of the works in the David Herbert collection, including the Disuls, Rothko, the Dosuls demanded evidence who was this mysterious Mr x Jr. Through whom all these paintings had flowed, who was glefi Rosales, for that matter, and promised she would soon be learning

the identity of the mysterious collector herself. The Soles were incredulous and had previous they told them she did know the collector. As one of the Dess lawyers later put it, the most basic tenet of authenticity for the Rothco was a lie. Neither Anne Freedman nor the Nodler Gallery knew the true identity of their supposed client. Among the dozen or so victims who began peppering the now defunct K Noodler Gallery with legal demands for their money back was

Francis Beatty. To her shock and horror, Francis discovered that a Clifford Steel painting she had purchased from Anne in two thousand was likely just another fake from the supposed David Herbert collection. Beatty had loved Clifford Stills paintings from her earliest days. They're incredibly exciting. They look like sort of lightning or jagged cliffs in an abstract way. They have enormous electricity and sometimes. The colors are very I would say, danse intense, and they have a tremendous sense

of movement, very dynamic. Finding them was a challenge. Clifford stills are rare. You don't know where in the current universe there's going to be a Clifford still for sale and one that someone might let you get your hands on. I mean, they're not sitting there in people's inventory. I had a colleague who came in and said to me, could you sell a great Clifford still, a great early still? And I said, you bet you I can, And he said, I know where there is one. There's a beauty, and

Ann Friedman has it. Francis rushed over to the nler. She was stunned. The painting was perfect, the Jagon mountains, the colors, perfect size. I had sold to pictures of this period, so over a period. It took me, you know, fifteen years to find the first one, twenty years to find the second one. But of course it had no provenance. Oh I remember very specifically because I said, this has

no provenance and it hasn't been exhibited anywhere. And so Anne wrote me an email saying that it belonged to a Mexican who had gotten it directly from Clifford Still and had been in the same family that entire time to close the deal and made an unusual promised to Francis. If we did the deal, she would reveal the provenance to me. I showed it to a wonderful restorer, very good friend of mine, Alan goldrac who had been the restorer who had unwrapped all the Clifford stills for the

Metropolitan Museum's retrospective. Francis also showed the painting to David an fhem as much the Clifford still expert as the ultimate connoisseur for Pollock and Rothcobe. He had liked the picture very much. Despite the positive affirmations from experts, Francis remained wary. So I said to Anne, I need a Nodler guarantee, and you have to guarantee the authenticity of this picture with Noler behind it, so if the authenticity is questioned, you return the money to the client. And

what did she say to that? Fine? And I got her to write a guarantee of authenticity on the Clifford still, and I gave a copy of it to the client. And at that point I thought you know what, We're safe if the worst thing possibly happens and something goes wrong. It is a Nodler guarantee, and no Ler is the last place in the world that would renege on any kind of guarantee. With that baby and two fellow dealers

put their money down about one million dollars. They sold it for one point one million to the collector who had pushed for the still in the first place. An entire decade passed no issues with the painting. Popped up curiously, however, and failed to keep her side of the bargain with Francis. She didn't tell me who she got picture phone. I probably should have pressed her on that, but I didn't because I think once I had obtained this Nodler guarantee in writing, I thought that I had sort of an

impregnable defense. So fast forward to two thousand eleven, Pierre Lagrange shouts it from the rooftops that he's paid seventeen million dollars for a fake Pollock. What was your reaction to that news. I'm not sure I want to say it on air. I mean, holy moley, um, we were absolutely stunned. We went and did the forensic testing. I think it had some kind of white in it that hadn't been invented back then. And also the pigments were

of more recent vintage, right. God, So at that point, obviously you had to call your customer, who who bought the painting. We said, we're going to give you back your money and sue and I think we um We sent him a check for one million, one thousand, but he said to us that he thought the picture was now worth three million and he was gonna sue us for that much money. I mean the suit must have

cost three yo dollars. And then we finally settled. You settled with Ndler, which, of course, by now was almost like a dead man walking, right. I mean it had closed in officially, so you were you were negotiating with a company that did it even exist. Right. We were in the same boat as everybody else. Little by little, lots of people were settling to get something. So we were out the million dollars. We were out the cost of the litigation a million four so maybe it was

more like a million plus. Well, that must have haunted you for a long time. It was a terrible thing for the profession. I'm the secretary of the Art Dealers Association of America. And I'm an art historian, and I love the art dealing profession. It's full of wonderful, devoted experts and people who love art. And this was just a devastating blow. So it was on everybody's lips, and it made you feel like you've gone from decades and decades devoted to doing the right thing and suddenly you

were all like in cahoots with al Capone. Yeah, it was hugely distressing. What happened to the painting. By the way, it's funny because we got the painting back and it was in our basement and I really wanted to take it out, take it to, you know, the Clifford Still Museum, and you know, stand it up and look at other pictures of that vintage and figure out how why I had how I had made this mistake. There's no question that was a fake. But it was so damn good.

It was in the story to Richard Fannigan and Company. And when we closed, when Richard left that building, I don't know where it is and I kind of have a mental note of trying to track it down and find out where it is. By March two, twelves had a team of lawyers harnessed up. Domenico Disle was a gentle family man, but being conned out of eight point four million dollars set of fire raging in his Italian soul.

He wasn't just set on getting his money back. He wanted triple damages, a so called ko penalty for what amounted to a conspiracy among all of the defendants. A trio of top art fraud lawyers began inundating the Knodler with demands for documents. The number of artists, the number of unknown works that cheap prices, know they're got them for the incredible markups they sold them for. That's in the papers we got in the first few months. Those

are just invoices from the nother gallery. I spoke with the Disols attorneys, Aaron Crowle, Emily rice Baum and Gregory Clark at their law offices, so we had discovery from them relatively early on with those documents. So you know, that's a big part of the case, right from the beginning, right and also early on before Jamie Martin had had the opportunity to examine a number of different works like he had looked at Pierre le Grange's work. I think

he had looked at ours. We were telling the judge, this is like you go to Canal Street and there's a table. You don't have to one watches fake. They're all fake. You don't have to test them all to know that they're all fake. And sure enough, Jamie proved that it was the same paint for the Pollock, for the roth Cooe. You know that spread ten years apart. Over the course of the two years between when we

filed the case and leading guilty. Over the course of that time, Jamie Martin ultimately had access to eighteen works out of the fort on the not list, and he proved every single one was a fake. What emerged was what we showed that trial with the witness testimony, that there were no experts who authenticated these paintings. For another it just didn't happen. The lawyers came up with six

red flags clear indicators of a criminal enterprise. The one that seems to interest people the most is the profits. And you know, our expert testified that ordinarily in the secondary market, the dealer will make twenty to thirty percent of a profit, so they buy for a hundred dollars they sell for a hundred thirty dollars, they get to

pocket thirty dollars. No, there was making hundreds from the very beginning, making hundreds of percent profits, and as the scheme went on, it multiplied to six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred percent. Now instead of just a little deep in corn on paper, you had a pollock, you had a bunch of them, had a bunch of them, and so you know, and the profits were a loan, a signal. And I think this is that hit the jurors the most, that the profits were a signal that, like, something was

wrong here. But the number of was wildly off the charts. By early two thousand thirteen, the lawyers for the Soles had done enough discovery to feel they had a rock solid case. Jason Hernandez wasn't so sure, and assistant district attorney specializing in fraud cases in New York City's Second District, Hernandez had come to be wary of fraud cases built on the testimony of experts. That was testimony the defense could easily counter with experts of their own. After all,

who was to say which expert would be right? Hernandez knew the case would be an enormous challenge. There were an unusually large number of prominent people who seemingly were going to stand by the paintings and say that they were real. That is uncommon, and I could see right away. Well,

you know, how do you get over that? Because if the person selling them is showing them to all of these esteemed people and they're saying, yep, looks right to me, looks good to me, that's not a criminal case anymore. Despite the mountain of lawsuits, only one case would go to trial Eleanor and Domenico de Soule versus the defendants and friedmanfro Rosalee, carlos Bergantino's Michael Hammer and the NLAR Gallery. That's next time on art fraud, Why looks so awfleet

tragic but on a happy face? Smiling can work like magic, but on a happy face. Take off the gloomy mask, tragedy. It's not your style. You look so good that you'll be glad you decided to smile. Art Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our exact of producers are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself and Michael Schneyerson. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay

Hoffman is our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneyerson. Happy, Happy, m Hey Elizabeth, you're the co host of that new podcast, Ridiculous Crime. Yes, I am. You know what's ridiculous? Carpeting in kitchens and bathrooms? Oh wow, you are good. But you know what's also ridiculous? A sixteen year old who breaks into a car dealership and steals guy theories, Lamborghini, what yes to impress a girl. I'll tell you all about it on Ridiculous Crime, our podcast about absurd and

outrageous capers, heist and cons. It's always murder free and ridiculous. Listen to Ridiculous Crime on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Go. It's me Carolyna reviewed as with my front Honey German, and we're excited to announce season three of our podcast Life in Spanglish. We are the admanas you wish you had, talking to you about all life has to offer, with

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