Introducing Art Fraud - Episode 8: Alec Baldwin’s “Sea and Mirror” plus Robert Indiana

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. On the Art of Accomplishment podcast. We

love anxiety, anger, sadness, and selfishness. Most people do everything they can to get rid of these emotions, but nothing makes them go away. We, however, welcome them because they give us a healthy advantage if we know how to interpret their signals. Listen to the Art of Accomplishment podcast on the I Heart Radio, Apple Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts to understand yourself and be who you were meant to be. I didn't set out to

immerse myself in the murky realm of art fraud. In two thousand and ten, I found myself waging legal war with a dealer who sold me a painting that wasn't quite right, as they say in the art world. As fate would have it, my story was unfolding just as the Knodler Gallery scandal was taking center stage under intense scrutiny from the press. As an actor, I'm always looking

for what defines a character. All con artists have their own definitive markings, and Friedman and Gupira Rosalees presented themselves as courtly, almost academic, Yet behind their poise and professional demeanor, I always sensed an undertone of loneliness, even despair. To my surprise, these same traits are evident in both our stories in this final episode of the season. Art fraud

is an ever present phenomenon. Not long ago, Intego Philbrick, a dapper, young London dealer, managed to steal some seventy million dollars from his friends and colleagues by selling fractional shares of paintings than trading those shares like monopoly cards. Oftentimes pieces of one painting would be sold entirely twice over in what amounted to a sort of art world Ponzi scheme. Intego was brilliant, says his friend Kenny Shackter, a droll and beloved columnist of the contemporary art market.

Even more than like Gogozian or some other dealers, he could tell you the difference between a two million dollar Christopher Wall painting and a two point two million He would really have a cabal of people in Ago that he would sell work to, and then he would resell it amongst those participants, unwittingly that we're buying and selling art through him. Shackter lost one point seven five million dollars.

When Philbrick vanished, only to be arrested on an island off the eastern coast of Australia, Kenny was left to wonder what had motivated his friend to commit such egregious acts of fraud, just as I had wondered about my dealer, Mary Boone, I suspect the motivation is almost always universal greed. We will get into my sordid story in a bit, but first I want to tell you the story of

artist Robert Indiana, creator of the iconic love sculpture. The whole world knows those four letters to over two that spelled love with its oh at a debonair slant. Long ago. Indiana had lived with artist Ellsworth Kelly on Cowenty's Slip, the Artist's Wharf in Lower Manhattan. But in the early eighties he'd come to the coast of Maine and never left. His home was a rambling Victorian lodge hall on the scruffy island of vinel Haven, about halfway up the coast

of May near Rockland. There his career had stalled for Indiana refused to trademark or copyright any of his work and let tacky commercial spinoffs of love define him. By the end of the seventies, he had moved out of New York City, moved to Maine, and moved to vinyl Haven, Maine, which is an island an hour off the coast that you can only get to by ferry or small engine plane, and so he was as isolated as they can get.

That's Luke Nikos, the lawyer who represented Ann Friedman in the trial, and now found himself fighting a perhaps more noble campaign on behalf of the iconic artist Robert Indiana. He was gone as far as the art world was concerned. Throughout the eighties. He made works here and there, but he wasn't a superstar anymore. He wasn't recognized, and by the end of the eighties he might as well not even have existed in terms of his presence in the fine art world. That was when an art advisor named

Simon Salama Carrow started knocking. Salama Carro had seen his work and was interested in meeting with Indiana to talk with him about rejuvenating his career. He saw a path. He saw a path of reintroducing Indiana's work to our historians, to museums. He saw a path of getting the infringing use of Indiana's images under control. No more shoes, no more trinkets, no more use that was outside of what

Simon thought would really bring the brand back. Salamcarrow steered his work away from schlocky spinoffs to sculptures in what Indiana came to call admiringly the noble materials. He also extricated the artist from an unpaid six hundred thousand dollars in taxes and leans on his home. Such guidance didn't

come for free. Salamcarro worked for the Morgan Art Foundation for profit that held the rights to produce Indiana's best known works, but Indiana could see it had promise Morgan would take the copy rights in the trademarks, would give Indiana of revenue from the use of those images so it would be a split between them, and Morgan would

monitor and clean up the market for Indiana's images. It went all over the world and started bringing infringement suits season desist letters, and ultimately what that did was it created the very clear message that Indiana's imagery could not be exploited. At the same time, Morrigan put millions and millions and millions of dollars of funding behind the fabrication of indiana sculptures, which are extremely expensive to fabricate, difficult

to fabricate. You need real facilities that Indiana did not have. Ten years later, or so fifteen years the Whitney Museum in New York City had a major retrospective of Indiana's work, and he was back on the map again extraordinarily successful. And then what happened? Michael Mackenzie came into the picture in two thousand eight. Advisor Michael Mackenzie had a brilliant idea, why not change Indiana's love to hope and make it

the banner for the surging Obama presidential campaign. As Mackenzie deepened his relationship with Indiana over hope, he began expanding Hope prints on canvas, more Hope sculptures, more colors of hope. Expand, Expand, Expand, and then he bought a studio on Vinyl even near Indiana to have better access to him. Soon, other operators

began swooping in. I spoke with Bob Keys, a longtime reporter for the Portland Press Herald who just published a fascinating book titled The Isolation Artist, Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of Robert Indiana. Keys described the circle of operators well. Jim Brown is a long time attorney in Rock and Maine. He became much more closely involved in Indiana's affairs and in twos sixteen helped change Indiana's will

that made him the executor of the estate. And Jamie Thomas, who was then an island caretaker became much more involved in Indiana's personal affairs, and he became the power of attorney as well as the healthcare power of attorney. And from that point on UH indianas certainly lost control of much of the legal and professional aspects of his life in terms of his legal representation, and Jamie Thomas was authorized at that point to make business decisions for him

as power of attorney. That's when we began to see much more work attributed to Mackenzie start to come out of the UH Indiana studio at a time when Indiana was definitely in failing health and had not made new work in quite a while. Now, is that to say that that it looked to you and others as if what Mackenzie and um Thomas we're doing, and perhaps Brandon as well, was forging. Uh forging is a legal term. I think what they were doing was pushing the boundaries

of what was authentic work. The work was suspicious right away in the eyes of many people who knew it. It didn't seem authentic. My reporting suggests that Indiana probably was aware of its creation but not involved with it and looked the other way, and that was fairly common during that point in his life. And what did it mean that Thomas became beneficiary I guess of the estate. I mean he had nothing to do with making art.

Why was he written into the will? Thomas was written into the will because Indiana at some point surrounded himself with people from the vinyl Haven community who were loyal to him, and Thomas was in that camp. Thomas had a relationship with Robert Indiana that went back many decades. There is a lot of debate among people who worked with Indiana how they were, but it is a fact. At his eightieth birthday party in two thousand and eight, Indiana invited Jamie Thomas to it, and that was a

pretty personal affair, so they definitely had a friendship. Jamie Thomas ultimately convinced Indiana to make him the power of attorney. And then we see Thomas's text messages with Mackenzie up until the point Indiana died, where they were texting back and forth about works that they would create together. You can envision the text W I N E and and

so forth and so on, stacked four letter words. They were texting back and forth that they should create on their own while Indiana was on his deathbed, and so Mackenzie, deep in that relationship, built it with Thomas. Thomas was on the inside. Thomas became involved in Indiana's life at a time when his health was failing, and many people on the island saw him as coming in to help

get Indiana out of some more trouble. But there's no question that in so doing he also isolated Indiana from all of his art world contacts who could no longer reach him an interview him and talk about things. And at the same time, there was a large body of work coming out of his studio and it had the mark of Mackenzie all over it. Fine art friends like legendary Dartmouth art professor John Wilmerding started knocking on the door of Indiana's Vinyl Haven home and getting no response.

John Wilmerging made at least an annual trip to see Robert Indiana at the Star of Hope every summer. I believe the last time he saw Indiana was in the fall or late summer of umerd made a comment to Indiana that it sort of looks like the School of Indiana, and Indiana sort of shrugged and said, I guess in some ways that it is. Wilmerding never saw him again. He tried to reach him, He sent emails that were

not returned. He had ters responses from others in the Indiana camp and basically was told you're no longer going to be able to see him, and other people were peeled away as well. By early two thousand eighteen, attorney Luke Nikos, representing the Morgan Art Foundation, alleged that the trio of art publisher Michael Mackenzie, caretaker Jamie Thomas, and local business partner James W. Brannan had taken control of the eighty eight year old artist. Indiana lived in an

old Mason's home. Is a very old home, big beautiful home, tons of space, but also in need of significant repair that wasn't kept up over time, and so Indiana's bedroom was on the top floor, and near the end of his life, they took the staircase that went from his bedroom out of the house down to his yard out

of the house that completely removed it. We were told by studio assistants that the locks were changed so they couldn't get in to help Indiana, that windows were boarded up so that he couldn't yell out or reach out for help, and so this was total isolation in the extreme to prevent Indiana from reaching out to the people he knew could help him out of this situation. There

was more. Luke learned the Trio had taken over Indiana's email account as Voicemail and had completely controlled every aspect of his life for the last several years. Not only did Morgan allege Jamie Thomas stole money from Indiana and diverted opportunities from Indiana, but Morgan alleged that Jamie Thomas and Michael Mackenzie had conspired to forge works in Indiana's name. The trio had even stolen images that the Morrigan Art Foundation owned and sold those images as Indiana's even though

they weren't. We found a Instagram post a video of someone signing in mackenzie studio Robert Indiana works with an auto pen or a ghost writer, and in the middle of the video, the studio assistant said for jury and posted that Mackenzie her boss, was forcing her to forge paintings and if the police came, she would quote unquote sing like a bird. And so we we filed this lawsuit alleging that Mackenzie had forged these paintings. The very next day, in May of two thousand eighteen, Indiana died.

Despite Indiana's death, the case forged ahead. We jumped into discovery in the case, got more information related to the works that were being made. We have witnesses, We took testimony, and then throughout the case Michael Mackenzie testified that he had absolutely no more works by Indiana in his possession. He wasn't making any works. The entire business was shut

down in that respect. Two weeks ago, I inspected Michael Mackenzie's property to look at the works that were on the property, and it turns out there were over a thousand works on the property that we're supposedly by Robert Indiana stencils that he was using with certain years two thousand fifteen, two thousand seventeen stamped on the back of

the paintings that were used as Indiana signature. So I went to the judge and I asked for more discovery given that we had been denied information, and then was allowed to go out again and inspect the entire studio. And when I was there, I cataloged the entire blueprint of how Michael McKenzie operated the catalog. Resume of Robert Indiana's works was tabbed with post it notes. He had a full composition notebook of drawings of Indiana works he was creating. And so we went back to the court

and said he's forging works. This is the blueprint, this is the forger's den. I received a phone call from one of Michael mackenzie's now former friends and what he said was two things. Number one, Michael Mackenzie still forging works. He just forged a hundred and fifty in his studio. Here's a picture. He's stamping the back of those works with two thousand fifteen stencils, with two thousand seventeen stencils. He's selling them for a lot of money all over

the world. And production was still ramping up when you came to the studio under court order allowed to inspect his property to see what he had created. In the middle of the day and night before you arrived, he shipped seven truckloads of art off the property into a storage facility to prevent you from seeing what he had done.

Luke got a declaration from Mackenzie under oath detailing all of this, detailing the forgeries he was making, detailing how he was using the stencils, detailing Mackenzie's proclivities toward guns and threats, and the way he deals with people in his workplace. And so we got that declaration under oath, went back to the judge, and the judge is now opening up the whole other phase in the case for violation of all of these discovery orders that she's issued.

In the summer of Luke Nicholas demonstrated the automatic signature machine that signed Indiana Prince and showed the tropes of forgeries. With that, three of the parties settled, the Morgan Art Foundation, the artist's Star of Hope Foundation, and the estate itself. Perhaps now top quality Indiana works could be sold again.

Also participating in the settlement where Jamie Thomas, the island caretaker and Jim Brannan the lawyer, left out was Michael Mackenzie, who said he would work with both parties but imply ide the wrangling wasn't done yet. Quote I can take this apart, he warned his partners. In The New York Times. The terms were secret, which struck many as odd since

the Star of Hope is a nonprofit foundation. There are many people who believe that settlement needs to be made public because the Star of Hope Foundation is a public entity in Maine and it's UH the taxpayers and their citizens and residents of Maine have vested interest in the outcome of it, and it's worth maybe a million hundred million dollars the estate, and UH, as taxpayers, we have a right to know at least what it says and and who's going to benefit from the estate and where

the artwork is going to go. Indiana wanted his artwork on view and for public consumption. That's what he cared most about. What I'm struck by in this story is the efforts Indiana made to get his name back and to get the valuation of his work back. And he's successful, but then he runs into these people and it just blows up in his face. Ultimately, this is the story of a brilliant but lonely man whose art may never

have filled the whole in his heart. Certainly he never had another long term partner after Ellsworth Kelly asked for the Vinyl Haven community. Despite welcoming the great artist in early the local fishermen and their families had cut Indiana off amid shocking charges. Indiana had been arrested for solicitation of prostitution and stood accused of paying minors for sex. One local boy testified that he was twelve when the abuse began and that it had continued for six years.

Another accuser also came forward a legal proceeding A quick did Indiana of the charges. In Indiana said he felt lucky to be acquitted, a sentiment that left the Islanders outraged. I feel that Indiana brought on a lot of the problems himself because of his inability to resolve the conflicts. He suffered from a lot of issues in terms of his youth and his lack of trust and his inability to let people close to him, and that really did

affect him at the end. I feel sorry for him because of his lack of personal tools that one needs to navigate the world. He didn't have a healthy youth grown up, and he never figured out how to live in the world in a partnered sort of way. All he was left within the end was hope. After the break, Michael Shnayerson and I will talk about Mary Boone Ross Lechner and a painting I loved and finally was able to purchase sort of Hey, it's your girl, Emily Curl

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United States Fourth Service and the ad Council. In the ninety movie gaslight Ingrid Bergmann found yourself wondering why her possessions are moving and vanishing? Is she losing her mind? I thought about that movie, Alec, when I first heard about your own personal brush with art fraud. So how

did that happen? Well, you know, for a long time I had walked around with this mailing card that I got from Mary Boone and Calorie selling a painting by Ross Bleckner, and I had it with me and you know, kind of stared at it every now and then thought, Wow, I wonder where that painting is. And I mean I I wasn't someone who was keen on researching that and chasing that down. First of all, let's talk about Bleckner

a minute and sort of put him in context. He had come up in the early eighties in a group of young, very dramatic artists represented by the Mary Boot Gallery. They were doing something new, you know, breaking out of abstract and minimalist art that frankly most people were tired of. And Mary saw that the market was ready for big, bold paintings with a lot of color paintings you can understand. So by the early nineteen eighties she had the hottest

gallery in New York. Perhaps not by coincidence, her artists were mostly male, handsome, very dramatic. They were artists who actually looked and acted like artists. Painters like Julian Schnabel with his broken plate paintings, Eric Fishel with his paintings that showed a dark side of suburban life, and David Sally who painted sensuous women among various symbols, and finally Ross Buckner. So what was it about Ross Bleckner that you liked, you know, more than those other artists. I

think just the colors. I mean, you know, my own personal taste, you know. I think that picture just kind of cast a little tiny spell on me, you know what I mean. And I and I, like I said, I wound up carrying that in a sheaf of papers that I had, that a little binder. One day, as luck would have it, I met Ross and a bunch of other people for Ross's birthday, which coincided with another opening he had at Mary Boom, and I went and saw a painting I liked. I had to hustle out

the door because we relate to another appointment. I came back the next day that painting was sold. You went into that event one night, I think you said in two right. We went to the gallery because it was Ross's birthday, and we went to the opening, and then we were hustled out of the opening very quickly. I was like, well, I'd like to spend some time or look at some of the paintings, and they were like, what you know, they weren't there to buy any of

Ross's paintings. His friends. So I came back the next day and I said to Mary, that's the painting I want. She said, well, that's sold, And then you realized, well, of course it did, and she said, when you come in and we can talk, I go to a computer with her and I take her to see a mirror the painting that i'd refer to in the in the mailer that I carried around the Holy Grail here if you will, of Ross's paintings to me, I said that picture, I said, where is that? She goes, I think I

can get that for you. I think that guy would sell that painting. So that was the picture that was literally the image that you had had on your card that you were walking around with. That was the painting see and mirror from She said, I know who bought that, And she said, I think I can get it fair. I presume you thought, well that could be expensive if she's going to persuade someone to sell the painting back to you, But you said, go ahead and try your luck.

You know, Mary, if you can do it, great, and only the next day, if not even that day, she called you back to say what she said, I got the painting. Yeah, Now the paintings that were contemporary, the paintings that were from that gallery exhibit in and around

that time we're in the high five figures. She then came to me and said, I can get you this painting for a hundred and ninety thousand dollars, and it was more than double the thousand dollars that Ross was getting for the other paintings where they were a five thousand dollar range. So what was her rationale for why you should pay you more than twice? I was buying the six painting. She was saying, how I'm buying it from this collector, and that's what he wants. He wants

a hundred and nine dollars for the painting. I said, great, I'll take it. I was just completely completely overjoyed that I could get the painting. Thrilled with the opportunity he had been presented to finally own his own Holy Grail of paintings, Alec purchased Ross Buck, Nurse c and Mirror from Mary Boone for the agreed price of a hundred

and ninety thousand dollars. A short time later, the painting arrived at Alex's office on the upper side, so we had them hang the painting and when they hung the painting, it reeked very strongly of some chemical like paint thinner, turpentine, some astringent kind of chemical smell like that. And then I called her and I said, that gauzy feathered effect that is on display in this painting in the mirror like no other. I mean, it's probably one of his

gaussiest series of paintings, and very watery. It doesn't look like that at all. It doesn't look like that at all. And I said, what's going on? And it smells at this chemical? She said, well, we took it off the stretcher and we cleaned it because the previous owner was a heavy smoker and we wanted to clean the painting. And I thought, uh huh okay. But and and even though clean, I thought cleaning wouldn't affect the technique of

the painting. It was almost like she was suggesting that the cleaning of the painting had altered the very nature of the painting. It was very bright and very vivid. It wasn't at all like the other paintings. I said, look like a bag of M and M spilled on the floor. Was very bright and very shiny. The colors weren't the same in the original sea and mirror there are really strong. The yellows are very buttery, the reds are very maroon and very burgundy and very strong. And

these are my favorite colors. There's violets that are just all the haunting colors. And then the ones that he did for this picture. I mean, I I sometimes wonder if he even painted this. It was like some assistant or something, because it was really nowhere at all remotely like the original painting. And she said to me, well, we took it off the stretcher in case we had to repair some cracks and stuff. And later on I

consulted with someone else who told me that's nonsense. I just find it so fascinating that, you know, you called Mary and she just had this song and dance about how it was the real painting. It was the painting that you had wanted, that you had carried around a picture of all these years. You know, she could have gone a whole other way here. She could have said, you know, I couldn't get that painting, but here's some others from the series. Well, I mean, you know, I

always live inside a world of alternatives. You know, what might have happened, what choices might people have made? And one of the things that was just clear to me was if you'd come to me and said, I can't get the painting. The guy in California that owns the se in mirror, I either can't find him or he doesn't want to sell. My point is is that if she come to me and said, I'll have them paint you a copy, I'll have him paint you another in a series of these types of paintings, I would have

said great. And it wasn't like I'm saying, oh, when you're gonna charge me eight dollars to like like I was obsessed about the price. The important thing is I would have accepted a copy. Had they told me it was a copy, we could have negotiated the price. But instead she didn't say it was a copy. She put the bin number of the ninet painting on the back of the painting she sold me. She put the date nine nine six on the back of the painting she sold me. All of it was just weeked of foul play,

of speaking. The fact that you're handing me the painting in two thousand ten and you're putting the date nine and it wasn't the painting from nineteen ninety six, you put a fake date on there. When all this went down and she was confronted, legally, the statute of limitations had passed, but she decided to go a completely different way. She insisted that I knew it was a copy. I knew what I was buying. She had never represented to

me that this was the original painting. She swore up and down that I knew I was buying a copy of C and Mirror from, not the original painting, which was not true. And the MO went back to the d A and said, she charged me. I just bought two paintings from her that were freshly made, so to speak, that were freshly baked, and they were in the high five figures. Why would I pay a hundred and nine dollars for a freshly baked Ross? Now that was exhibit A, if you will, and the other was the date and

the bin number. And when this thing was on my wall, I said to myself, and again, I think it's an important point that it wasn't around me all the time I travel uptown, I go to that office, I go, oh, there it is, and I'd say, so that means Ross is a fake. And Ross I was kind of friendly with and I thought, well, this means Ross ripped me off. And I thought or not. I mean maybe Ross was told he's okay with a copy, make him a copy, and I'm gonna sell him this copy. I believe she

played both of us. I believe she said Ross, he wants a copy of c and Mirrors, and she said to me, I'm going to get you the original Sea and Mirrors. He thought one thing, I thought another thing. As it turned out, that's exactly what happened. We reached out to Ross Bleckner for comment, and he was gracious enough to respond. While we don't feel comfortable reading his response verbatim, we can say that Ross's own recollection of

the events is precisely what Alex expected. That is to say, Mary Boone contacted Bluckner and asked him to paint a copy of Cen Mirror for a client. He didn't hear from Mary Boone after that. Once she took possession of the painting. The moment, we subpoenaed her emails and she produced, and Ross produced a bunch of emails, and she produced

almost none. And the judge said, if you don't give me these emails, if you're saying, you don't have emails of your exchange with him that discussed this early on. You know, at the onset, I was amazed at how firm the judge was and how clear of the judge was. The judge says, if you don't do this, I'm going to assume you're hiding something, I'm going to automatically assume

there's something you're hiding. And they were just shrieking up and down that they couldn't wait to have that in a courtroom and overs of the stuff, and I thought, okay, okay. And then once we subpoened all of her emails to any sales of Ross Blacker, because we knew deep down inside that she didn't wake up one day and start doing this with me that day. We wanted to check and see were we in the territory of a class action suit with a grouping of people who had been

treated this way in some way. And the moment we subpoenaed all of her emails to discuss that, they settled and they wrote me a check for a million dollars. I want you to tell me about going to marry Anne Bowski. You were going to see some paintings. She was going to show you a Thornton dial and what happened. That became a real turning point when I said to her that, Mary said, we took the painting off the stretcher in order to repair it and clean it. I

think she said it needed to be repaired. Mary Ann said, well, that's ridiculous. I said, what do you mean? She said, she would never have taken the painting off the canvas and repaired it and cleaned it without your permission. She just took it upon herself. She's claiming to do that. We we just did that for you. And she said, it never happens that way. She said, this is an all likelihood of fake. It looks like a fake, and it smells like a fake because it is a fake.

Mary Anne Bowski has been an art dealer for twenty five years. She started her first gallery and her current gallery on Two Street in New York has been opened since two thousand six. Alec visited with Marianne recently at her gallery. She recalled their original conversation about that ill fated painting. You just said, is it strange that I would have gotten, you know, a painting after I bought it and it would look different than the image that it looked like, and then was told that it was

cleaned and I was like, that's definitely strange. And then we kind of continued talking about it, and I, you know, I had real empathy for you, but there was a terrible situation. But if the painting comes off the stretcher to be cleaned or repaired, that's something that you would affect the value of the painting, not necessarily. So let's say I had a Lesiu s. Gabbage. Someone came back with Alsia s. Gabbage that I sold them in two thousand one, and it had some schmutz on it. Right.

What I would do is I would have a conservator look at it and recommend what needs to be done. Cann be cleaned if you need to in pain? Is there damage? Then I would call Lisa or her if I didn't know her personally, I would call Swarner and I would say I have this, and here's the situation. Does Lisa want to look at it? And she would either say yes or no, or they would say, um,

you know, she'd like to fix it herself. And if she fixes it herself, it's not really going to be um any kind of diminution in value because it's her, you know, just making sure that her work is in good shape. So or if she wanted to clean it, that's not going to change anything except clean it. But if she's then said, you know there's a terror in it and it needs to be fixed, I recommend you go to so and so to fix it, because they're

the best of my work. So now I have this painting that is on consignment and it's been torn and sown, and Lisa has opined on who needs to fix it, and we've gotten it fixed and we spent six thousand dollars fixing it. Whatever it is. Then when I go to offer that painting to someone, I have to tell them you can't see it, but right here, if you look on the back, I do. Yes, there's a little mark here. The artist has looked at it. The artist has approved the work that was done on it and

chose the person to do it. But transparency more art fraud in a minute. Look for your children's eyes to see the true magic of a forest. It's a storybook world for them. You look and see a tree, they see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms outstretched to the sky, they see treasure and pebbles, they see a windy path that could lead to adventure, and they

see you. They're fearless. Guide. Is this fascinating world? Find a forest near you and start exploring a Discover the Forest dot Org brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. Hey everyone, it's Bobby Brown. You might know me as the makeup artist beauty expert. You might also know me as the founder of Jones Road Beauty. But today I'm here with a brand new podcast,

The Important Things. On this new podcast, I'll be joined by my co host and dear friend, international best selling author Attorney and Ted Talk along Angelie Kumar. Together, we want to answer the question how can you lead a life of fulfillment? The ongoing pandemic has given us all the opportunity to examine what really matters most to us

and what brings us true contentment. Each week through candid conversations with friends, thought leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, Bobby and I are looking for ways we can all learn to live more authentic, gratifying lives. You can look forward to learning from our amazing guests, including the incomparable Gloria steinem entrepreneur and designer, Jennifer Fisher, Senator Corey Booker, charity founder

Christy Turlington Burns, and many many more. So join us every other week as we dig deep into the stuff that really matters on the important things. Listen to the important things on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're live here outside the Perez family home, just waiting for them. And there they go, almost on time. This morning, Mom is coming out the front door strong with a double armed kid carry. Looks like Dad has the bags daughter he

is bringing up the rear. Oh but the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers and toys are everywhere. Oh but Mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine or ten, has secured herself in the booster seat. Dad zips the bag clothes and they're off. But looks like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on the roof of the car and there it goes. Ah,

that's a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't sweat the small stuff, just nailed the big stuff, like making sure your kids are buckled correctly in the right seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more n h t s A dot gov slash the Right Seat visits h s A dot gov slash the Right Seat brought to you by NITZA and the ad Council Alec. What did you think of that moment when Mary Ann first told you your treasured seat and mere painting was at all

likelihood of fake Because that was really the moment. So I gather that this hits home. How did that hit you emotionally? Well, I think two things. One is, I had to kind of sort out of my head what Ross's involvement was, because I was very concerned about that in any civil litigation. Now Ross wound up giving me uh that he found up making me a fact simile of seeing mirror that I have in my home. Now

I have the honest copy. I said, give me the copy of the painting that is, and then he gave me another painting to settle our dispute, if you will. You know, it's a funny situation because I mean, yes, it was a fraud, but it was a fraud enacted by the painter who painted the original. See what's funny is when in the litigation he made me the copy of C and Mirror that I have in my home, that is the genuine copy. Well, there it is. It's true. When he wanted to put his mind to it and

get it right, he did. Yeah, that's really bizarre. When the original painting arrives, it's not even close. But when he's told to do it exactly the copy, it's very close. It's it's pretty pretty spot on. Because you wonder how many more copies of it are they're out there? If he could so handily render facsimiles of cing Mirror, than how many more were out there? How many more people were told they were buying the original painting? How many more canvases have wtten on the back and the bin

number that I had? But as I said, once we wanted to open up a can of worms, which would have discussed that, once we wanted to speak in court about where else she might have done this. They settled the case. You know, when all this went down, and I had gone to the d A to investigate our options and see what was going on. You know, one aspect of it was that this was also unnecessary if I had been someone who had had had some difficult

relationship with Mary. If there's been some friction between us, especially in the art world, if wanting to settle a score with me, get even with me. I didn't really know Mary on a personal level, so there was really nothing between us that engendered that kind of treatment. I couldn't understand why she would do that to me. That's that's what really really upset me. And then I thought to myself, that's the whole point. You can walk in as a very innocent person who just as a lover

of arts. I mean, I realized, I'm not spending tens of millions of dollars on a on a Pollock. It's not like the Lagrange case and and Friedman and Noodler and all that kind of stuff. I'm a guy walking in buying something in the high five figures the low six figures. But I'm wondering, I'm assuming that some of us are like some of the bread and butter of that business. And and even if we aren't, what's the amount of money I need to spend on the paving

for you to treat me fairly. If I walked in the door and you said, let me just tell you this privately, Mary, what's saying now? I'm going to sell you a knockoff of bogus painting for the amount of money you're willing to spend. But if you spend more money, if you're willing to give me more money, I'll actually go get you the painting you want. I won't rip you off. I mean it was which was what did I need to do to deserve the fair treatment? I

didn't understand any of why this happened. I guess I'll never know. Alec. We started working on this podcast a little over a year ago, and I remember at the time you said that you believed and Freedman. Your opinion was that she didn't know the paintings were fake and she hadn't sold them as fakes, and I said I felt just the opposite. And so I wonder, after a whole year of immersing ourselves in this podcast and talking to over two dozen experts, artists, lawyers, and journalists, have

your beliefs held firm? Do you still think a Freedman had no idea she was complicit in a forgery scheme? Well, I think that what has changed is this idea that something hinges on everybody doing something they've never done before. Whenever people walk into a room and there's a time honored process they have as a protocol they have, and all of a sudden they throw that out the window. To the tune of tens of millions of dollars made, seventy million dollars and fake aren't there was sold here

this gallery. There was no excuse. These people have no excuse, and Friedman hammer everybody involved in this case. These were the top people in the field. And what they didn't know. They summoned experts to come in and aid them and to counsel them on what to do. What I believe now is Anne knew she shouldn't have done what she did, but she pressed forward. Well, then, my friend, we are in agreement. I really believe that people arrive at a place and they believe only as it turns out that

there's no turning back. Turning back in their mind was almost worse. They thought, let's see what happens if we get away with it. And if they got away with it, then everybody would be walking around staring at a fake Rothco and everybody would be happy. Who know, right? Really, the person I think who is the hammer that just shatters the whole stone work of this thing is Lagrange. When La Grange flies over here and has an apoplectic fit against this woman, I mean, this is a guy

who's just not going to be denied. I agree with you. And then also just the sheer number of fakes that began to come forward. You know, you could believe a couple of them lacked provenance, when you're up to forty

had all lacked provenance. This is something that occurred to me when Fara came to speak with us, and that is I thought, if this woman had gone into Anne and she'd had the least bit of a whiff of insincerity since of theater, or something being fabricated or false about her when I met her, it all fell into place. I thought, who could go in and do this to Anne? Who could fool Anne? Who wouldn't have to be enough to be somebody who she's like a school teacher, She's

like a kindergarten teacher. Yes, I think that very day you said to me, you know, I believe her. You didn't believe Anne, but you did believe Gofira. One thing I know for sure. There were sixty or so fake painting sold by the Wiseman and n Oldler galleries, and it leaves me with a haunting thought, where are those paintings today? We know the souls fake Rothko ended up in Attorney Luke Nichols office a story to tell curious clients.

Francis babies. Fake Clifford still found its way to the basement, only to get misplaced and free. Men's own fake Pollock with the misspelled signature was still hanging in her home last we heard. We also know a few of the paintings made their way into legal proceedings from various lawsuits. But what about the fifty or so others. How many of those fakes have been sold very quietly by buyers eager to expunge the stain of fraud from their walls,

Buyers who may have recouped their losses illegally. Of course, perhaps they even profited, as Anne Friedman assured them they would with paintings from the David Herbert collection. And that's it for art fraud. Most of the listeners of this show will never purchase a piece of fine art in their lives. We hope you've enjoyed this show. Nonetheless, and for those who are real collector. Remember, if you can fool and Friedman, you can fool anyone. Kiss today you

could buy the sweetness and the sorrow. Wish me luck the same tim you. But I can't regret what I did for love, what I did for love. Look my eyes are drum art. Fraud is brought to you by My Heart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself at Michael Shnayerson. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zack also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer.

However writer is Michael Schneerson. On a cold morning in Sandy Beale was found shot to death in her car. There's no way, it's just it's just no way that it's going to be. Sandy's death was ruled a suicide, but her family has always questioned the official story to this day. They believe the police knew more than they let on. I didn't take any of that crap because I could tell that they were hiding something. Listen to what happened to Sandy Beale on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a trivial accusation started on an anonymous internet forum, the Korean hip hop star Tableau was at the top of his game, but then rumors started to spread that he wasn't who we said he was. I'm Dexter Thomas, the host of a new podcast from Vice about a bizarre conspiracy. It turned into an international obsession. Listen to Authentic the Story of Tableau on the I Heart Radio apps, Apple podcast

or wherever you get your podcasts. The Laundronauts a potentially untrue tale based on actual events. A young boy is shoved into a washing machine and vanishes. His friends try to rescue him, only to discover a magical world beyond the machine. Season one stars Ed Asner and Me John Cameron, Mitchell Fine j D. Belzell and bring him back home safely. Listen to The Landernauts on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yes,