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November 12, 2012

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Conclusions of Interpol's first international conference on counterfeit art

Last month Interpol's first International Conference on Counterfeit Art arrived at a list of "Conclusions" in Lyon.  The conference identified "a rising trend in all forms of counterfeit art, fakes, forgeries and international misattribution of works of art and cultural heritage" causing "significant economic prejudice and non-material damage" by "substantial criminal assets generated by the production and distribution of counterfeit art" due to the lack of awareness and of appropriate national laws and international legal instruments."

The Interpol conference recommended that member countries:
"(1) RAISE public and political awareness of the increasing trend in counterfeit art, fakes, forgeries, and intentional misattribution, and the impact on cultural heritage, the art market and historic and scientific knowledge";  (2) ENFORCE, review and, if necessary, adapt existing national laws to be able to fight the above-mentioned crimes effectively;  (3) CALL FOR counterfeit art to be explicitly included in regional and international laws criminalizing other types of counterfeiting or DEVELOP specific regional and international legislation on this subject;  (4) DEVELOP mechanisms and procedures to fight counterfeit art effectively, if necessary by creating working groups and inter-sectorial commissions;  (5) SUPPORT national  law enforcement agencies in preventing and suppressing the above crimes and in allocating adequate resources;  (6) DEVOTE, where possible; additional efforts and resources to tracing assets generated through the above crimes so as to dismantle the criminal networks involved;  (7) ENHANCE the information exchange on the above crimes through INTERPOL channels, and share experiences and best practices among member countries; (8) DEVELOP AND DISSEMINATE a checklist of precautions to be taken by potential customers to prevent them from acquiring fake objects; (9) DEVELOP AND DISSEMINATE a set of principles for professionals to prevent them from becoming invovled in the commerce of fake objects.
Here's a link to an article published last week in the New York Times: "With rules Murky, Fake Artworks Stay on the Market."

November 11, 2012

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Interpol’s International Conference on Counterfeit Art


By Colette Loll Marvin

Recently, I had the honor of being invited to speak at the first ever International Conference on Counterfeit Art, sponsored by Interpol and held in Lyon, France.  The two-day meeting (October 23 and 24), gathered nearly 70 representatives from law enforcement, private institutions and international organizations from 22 countries, and focused on the need for increased information exchange and for enhanced public and government awareness of art forgery and related crimes. This global trade in illicit art runs into the billions of Euros each year.  Link to press release.

The most exciting part about participating in this conference was meeting law enforcement officials from all over the world, many presenting specific case studies about organized art forgery rings they have been successful in stopping and prosecuting. The German police summary of their work on the Beltracchi case was especially impressive! Also, it was important to hear from several artist foundations and artist right’s holders about their ongoing challenge to protect the cultural legacy of modern masters from the dilution caused by the massive influx of forgeries, many from online sources. The economic, legal, aesthetic and scholarly implications of this crime are far reaching.  I presented a lecture entitled “Fakes, Forgeries and EBay” detailing some of the challenges of investigating Internet art fraud.  I was joined by a materials scientist and an art historian from an art forensic laboratory.

This cultural heritage conference culminated with a collective draft of a very specific set of conclusions that the delegates worked together to create and refine.  Ultimately, the collective hope of the delegates is that this rising trend in all forms of counterfeit art, fakes, forgeries and intentional misattributions of art and objects of cultural heritage can be reversed with increased educational awareness and corresponding increases in law enforcement resources dedicated to this specific criminal phenomenon.

November 10, 2012

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Eleven year old boy finds and returns stolen painting to artist in British Columbia

Mathew Claxton of the Langley Advance in British Columbia broke the story of an 11-year-old boy who recovered a stolen painting from a neighbor's garage sale.  Artist Reet Herder had 17 artworks stolen from an exhibit at an art gallery in Langley in August 2005.  Matt Hanna, bargain hunter and now probably our youngest art investigator, noticed a painting of sail boats in a cove titled "Harbouring Great Memories".  Hanna Googled it and discovered the painting had been reported as stolen.  I wondered if the boy had used any of the conventional stolen art databases so I too Googled the name of the painting and discovered a website named "Stolen Fine Art", a service of MyArtClub.com so I  emailed one of the website masters, Cam Anderson, who responded to my questions.  This is an excerpt:
The Story of Stolen Fine Art really starts with Reet Herder.  Reet was the first to let us know there was an issue. Reet wrote that she and others had suffered such a devastating loss. I shocked to hear just how bad it was. We always like to respond to artist request for features, or listen to their business issues, and look for ways we can assist. This practice has been wonderful for both the artists and for our development as a service. 
Peter Newell and I put our heads together and figured we could host the images of stolen art as a collection. The MyArtClub site was already set up to host artist groups, so we simply leveraged that as a way to focus on this awful issue.  What we did ask artists for was a police reference number of some kind and police and artist contact information.  We have a form for artists to fill out (available on our website). 
Over the years Reet has been really a founding member of our website and involved in creating the form. Karma has a way doesn’t it? She helped build a service that we host and hope it is of some use to artists, and voila – her art is the one found through the Internet! 
I telephoned Reet to congratulate her on the recovery. Reet is amazed at not only the painting’s recovery but the media attention! “All I did was paint it” she says. This was one of her earlier works, but she was happy with how it had turned out. It was based on a visit to Schooner Cove. The story continues: as might be expected the painting itself was not in the best of conditions. However with luck Reet had prepared to create giclees from this art, and so offered this kind family a giclee in return which they accepted. Reet says “ the giclee’s colours look better”.  She presents it tomorrow to the father at his work.
About us: My wife Heather Anderson and a neighbour Terry Newell, both artists, thought their husbands should get together and do websites for artists.  I was studying Internet Marketing and had many years in Sales and Marketing, and Peter Newell had many years in computer software and project management.
We created the site to be a fair deal. We believe artists deserve assistance with business issues, and we wanted on our part to give back to our community using our skills. Also we found and still do find so many who offer help to artists seem to be out to gouge them. Maybe that is reality – you have to charge high prices to survive, but as we have jobs, we don’t. But look at this example: in the year 2000 a company offered my wife an artist website with 10 images for $1,000. At the time too, most artist websites were static, artists had to repay the site creators to change an artwork. We wanted to fix that.  So we kicked off MyArtClub.Com in year 2000 ( such an early time! Artists then had no digital cameras, and used scanners to create images for their sites).
We set out to launch a service for what is now $45 per year that gives amazing value for an artist website. We had to follow our artist’s wives directive – they should be able to change anything they wished, anytime, instantly. In other words, be in total control.  However, just having a website is not the answer. You need traffic.  We advise artists what they can do to build traffic, and have through newsletters and our blog tried to keep them informed about ideas and opportunities.
We felt a “portal” into the art world would help visitors see more art, and drive traffic to artists’ sites. And yet we provide each artist a standalone website. We thought the name MyArtClub fit as we are here to help both artist and art patrons connect. We also know that many artist belong to collectives, sometimes called clubs although many feel that is a little beneath the professional artist. We decided MyArtClub even if controversial had the right motivations, and buyers liked the name, so we launched it.
While we appear to be local to BC, in fact we have artists who have posted art from all over the world. Some load a free 3 images, so they can link from our portal back to their website. It is our form of links. Others sign up for an artist website, we have many across Canada and some in UK, Australia, Europe even Asia. Sadly we have had very little take up in the USA. We have really not tried hard, but I think the out of country aspect maybe an issue. Anyway, big opportunity when retired!
We are here to help artists with their Internet marketing.  We give free presentations on what artists need to know.  We host a large database which we advertise to increase artists chances of being found online. We have researched the customer base to help our artists understand the who, what, where, when and why of art buyers, and we give this report free to all who ask.  All this and so far we have not taken a single dollar of commissions.
Either we are crazy, or we really do just want to help artists progress with their business.  

November 9, 2012

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UCLA & UC Irvine: Two-day program in Southern California showcases international research on Afghanistan's archaeology and history

Oxford Classics lecturer Llewelyn Morgan, and author of The Buddhas of Bamiyan, spoke yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles at the first of a two-day program at UCLA and UC Irvine, "Beyond the Bamiyan Buddhas: Archaeology and History in the Modern and Ancient Persianate World".

Here's a link to the Thursday program at Bunch Hall in Westwood and here's another link to the program in Orange County today.  You will notice that the program uses the image of the Buddhas on a postage stamp printed in London for "Postes Afghanistan" (an Afghan banknote in 1939 showed a panoramic image of the Buddhas of Bamiyan).

Dr. Morgan, interviewed here on the blog last summer, was the keynote lecturer with "Oxus: Bamiyan, Afghanistan and the World", highlighting visitors to Bamiyan in the 19th century who saw the importance of Afghanistan's history as that of a path once taken by Alexander the Great.  For example, Lieutenant Vincent Eyre who along with his wife and son were hostages in Afghanistan for nine months after a British retreat during the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842.  Eyre noted in his journal that on a direct road to Cabul he had "Alexander the Great's column in view nearly the whole way" which he described as "one of the ancient relics of antiquity in the East" (The Military Operations at Cabul).  The 15-foot marble pillar was destroyed in 1998.

Tomorrow's meeting in Irvine will again include Dr. Morgan ("Hindu Kush: Boundary and Point of Encounter") along with Frederick Hiebert of the National Geographic Society; Phillipe Marquise, Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan (DAFA),  Kabul (""2002-2012 Ten Years of Archaeological Activities in Afghanistan: A Travel through Cultures"); Touraj Daryaee, UC Irvine, "King Huvishka, Yima and the Bird: Observations on a Paradisaic State"; Jennifer Rose, Claremont Graduate University, "Above the Bamiyan Buddhas: Mithra Rides in Judgment"; and Alka Patel, UC Irvine, "Afghanistan's Palimpsest Landscape: Buddhism and Islam in Material Culture".


November 8, 2012

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Palais Fesch Art Theft Update: Security guard and bartender sentenced to four and two years, respectively

Palais Fesch in Adjaccio, Corsica
On October 26, 2012, two men received prison sentences of two and for years for stealing four paintings from the Palais Fesch in Corsica on February 19, 2011.

Antoine Mocellini, one of the security guards at the museum,  confessed to police that he had taken the Italian paintings as leverage in improving his living quarters, but then lost the paintings before he could return them (see blog post here).  In May 2012, the paintings were recovered in a car at a parking lot north of Adjaccio (see blog post here).

The online publication Le Journal de Arts reported last week that Mocellini was sentenced to five years in prison with one year suspended and prohibited from practicing his profession for another five years.  Mocellini's alleged accomplice, bar manager Christian Andarelli, suspected of having transported the paintings, was sentenced to two years in prison.

November 7, 2012

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Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation Conference Opens Tomorrow: "From Plunder to Preservation: The Untold Story of Cultural Heritage, World War II, and the Pacific"

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

The Lawyer’s Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation is opening its annual conference in Washington DC on Thursday, “From Plunder to Preservation: The Untold Story of Cultural Heritage, World War II, and the Pacific.” Here are links to information about the conference and its program. Here’s a link to the conference program: Panels include The Destruction and Plunder of Cultural Heritage in the Pacific War: A Silent Legacy; Old Records: New Possibilities, and The Legal Framework for Preserving the Pacific’s World War II-Era Past.

Thomas R. Kline, Of Counsel with the law firm of Andrews Kurth, volunteered on behalf of LCCHP to speak about the conference.  Mr. Kline began his work in the recovery of stolen art and cultural property in 1989 when he represented the Autocephalous Greek-Orthodox Church of Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus in litigation against an art dealer in Indianapolis that led to the recovery of Byzantine mosaics that had been stolen from a Church in the Turkish-occupied area of Cyprus.

“We thought no one had done a conference on cultural property stolen during World War II in the Pacific,” Mr. Kline said via telephone from his office in Washington DC where he has practiced for 35 years. “When we tried to find people knowledgeable about losses and restitution in the Pacific arena, it was very difficult to identify such experts.”

Mr. Kline is moderator of the panel on Old Records: New Possibilities:
The National Archives here in Washington contain some historical American records and translations of captured Japanese records. Records on wartime and occupation looting in the Pacific Theatre parallel the European records, but the records on events in Europe have been closely studied and due to the interest in Holocaust-related events. Archives on looting in the Pacific have been largely untouched, but we will have as speakers the people with the most knowledge about those records and how they can be put to use by scholars.
Mr. Kline represented the Church of St. Servatii, Quedlinburg, Germany, in recovering world-famous medieval religious treasures stolen in Allied-occupied Germany by an American officer and mailed home to Texas in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Mr. Kline has represented families of Holocaust survivors and heirs of Holocaust victims in recovering art taken by the Nazis during World War II in the systematic looting of art owned by Jews and others.

Old Records: New Possibilities also includes Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs Specialist for the National Archives and Records Administration; Greg Bradsher, Archivist with the National Archives; and historian Marc Masurovsky.  Mr. Kline explained:
Miriam Kleiman will talk about the history of these archives and how they developed. Greg Bradsher has produced a finding aid for the National Archives and he will discuss the records that exist and how his finding aid can be used.  Marc Masurovsky will discuss the history of losses and restitution in the Pacific.
Mr. Kline discussed the example of Okinawa, one of the outer Japanese islands.
Okinawa was devastated in one of the worst battles of the war, on the level of Stalingrad.  Whatever wasn’t destroyed was stolen later. Japanese soldiers are believed to have looted throughout the Pacific theatre that stretched all the way to India. The scope of Allied looting in Asia/Pacific region is not well understood. Recently an auction in Michigan attempted to sell 125 objects that shared the same provenance – that of an American sergeant who claimed that the pieces had been a gift to him after the Korean War. Fortunately the art market is getting more knowledgeable and more careful and these events are more commonly identified, followed up and referred to Homeland Security.
Mr. Kline mentioned that wartime and military occupation, beyond the loss of life and human suffering, raises many issues for the victor and the vanquished concerning the fate of culturally significant objects and sites.

"Stolen objects may remain concealed for decades in private collections or be donated or sold to a museum," Mr. Kline said.  "Whether or not the object ends up in a private collection or a museum, theft is theft and the ownership of such objects must be considered.”

Wednesday, November 07, 2012 - ,,,,, No comments

Lynn Nicholas spoke as keynote speaker at DePaul's conference "Restitution and Repatriation: The Return of Cultural Objects"

Image of Nefertiti
by Sarah Wilson, Second Year Law Student at DePaul University

Lynn Nicholas, the noted author of The Rape of Europa, presented a captivating and thoughtful keynote lecture at the “Restitution and Repatriation: The Return of Cultural Objects” conference held at the DePaul University College of Law. Hurricane Sandy may have hindered the quantity of speakers that attended the event, but the super-storm could not hinder the quality of Nicholas’ lecture. She addressed several issues surrounding restitution, many of which were raised in the acclaimed film about the dreadful lootings that occurred during World War II.

Nicholas examined Holocaust-era pillaging from a various perspectives, providing the audience with a broad roadmap of the different ideologies surrounding stolen objects. Of particular interest was the work of the Monuments Men (and Women) who dedicated their efforts to protecting the cultural identities of war-ravished countries. This group of American servicemen saved many of Europe’s artistic treasures and preserved much of the continental cultural heritage that came under threat of destruction during the war. Nicholas commented on the dichotomy of stolen objects: on one hand these objects are considered prizes of war, but on the other there is an essential consideration for common justice and decency that desires the return of such objects.

Nicholas raised an interesting point in the stance that Russia takes regarding looted Holocaust art. Russia—following the “prize of war” outlook—approaches restitution with an unwavering determination to maintain possession. This position is echoed in the final scenes of The Rape of Europa movie, and displays the reasons why these issues are not soon to be resolved. The government of the former Soviet Union nationalized all of the WWII works in its control at the close of the war. The country refused then—and still refuses now—to restitute the works to the pre-war owners. Whether this is viewed as the collateral damage to be suffered by other countries as the cost of doing war, or whether Russia simply feels entitled to the works that ended up within its borders, the debate continues: who are the proper owners of looted works?

The Hermitage Museum admittedly houses numerous items of suspicious origin, both on its gallery walls and hidden in the labyrinth of passageways beneath the building. Russian museums have even gone so far as to publish books about the Holocaust-era objects in their collections, an obvious display of their apathy for persons pillaged during the war. The country’s refusal to participate in restitution efforts displays a further problem: will these looted works ever be returned to the proper owners without a significant effort to harmonize international laws? In Nicholas’ opinion, the answer is no. Restitution may be morally admirable, but it appears that morals are often secondary to possession. Until the affected countries can develop mutually-beneficial methods for dealing with the problem, a solution remains elusive. As the search continues for a global resolution, the focus should remain on providing fair outcomes for all parties. Ex post facto looting from good faith purchasers of stolen objects is not the objective that Nicholas advocates.

Thousands of objects stolen during the war are still unclaimed and unrestituted. Increased litigation in the coming years appears inevitable. This is also due to the passing of the WWII generation, many of whom bequeathed stolen art to their unknowing heirs. Issues of ownership and proper title become increasingly relevant as these works find their way to the marketplace. While lawyers may aim to facilitate the harm suffered by wronged parties, their work may actually exacerbate the injury. Legal professionals often lack a proper understanding of provenance and the importance that it has on restitution attempts, and Nicholas stressed the imperative need of educating lawyers working in this field. Restituting objects becomes increasingly complicated if the ownership line is not given adequate weight. The issue is compounded by the fact that claims for looted works are frequently exaggerated, not only by lawyers, but also by media publicity. Numerous cases that result in amicable settlements regularly go unacknowledged. Nicholas also voiced her apprehension against litigation, claiming that efforts to enact restitution laws may be too political to be effective.

Nicholas served the audience well by using her all-encompassing expertise to educate the listeners about the importance of restitution. Nicholas refrained from giving a rosy-colored outlook of the future of looted objects. However, her candor leads one to believe that the path to global restitution is possible, albeit with several obstructions to overcome first.

Ms. Wilson is President of the Art and Cultural Heritage Law Society at DePaul.

November 5, 2012

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MoMA Director Glenn Lowry's Responds to Hurricane Sandy; NYC museum works with American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team

Yesterday Glenn D. Lowry, director of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, sent an email letter to the art institution's "members and friends" expressing concern for those people affected by Hurricane Sandy:
Our foremost concern has been for our neighbors and friends who have suffered so much hardship and damage.  A MoMA curator and the director of MoMAPS1 put out a call for volunteers from the art community and together they filled a bus with donated supplies and headed to one of the many areas in need of help today.  This is but a small part of the relief effort, but we were humbled by the incredible commitment of the volunteers.  Our staff will continue to play a role in the recovery, and we invite those of you who are able to join us in these efforts.
The Museum of Modern Art's conservation staff and speakers from the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) were scheduled to meet Sunday in "a series of workshops to help the many artists and galleries whose works were affected by Hurricane Sandy":
They will provide suggestions and answer questions on how to safely handle damaged paintings, drawings, books, sculptures, and other artistic and cultural materials.  Visit MoMA.org for more information on this program.  MoMA has also issued Immediate Response for Collections, a document offering step-by-step guidelines for dealing with artworks damaged by flooding, and we will continue to lend knowledge and support to those carrying for collections affected by the storm.
If you are in a position to help others, you may want to visit nyc.gov for information on making donations and nycservice.org for information on volunteer opportunities.  Visitors to MoMA will also find a collection box in the Museum's lobby, with proceeds to be donated to relief efforts in Greater New York.

November 2, 2012

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The Journal of Art Crime, Fall 2012: Columnist Noah Charney on "Counterfeit Money" in Lessons from the History of Art Crime

In the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of Art Crime, columnist Noah Charney writes on "Counterfeit Money" in Lessons from the History of Art Crime:
In this, and the last, issue of The Journal of Art Crime, we have seen excellent academic articles on aspects of counterfeit money (see Mihm, Stephen in the Spring 2012 issue, and Judson and Porter in this issue).  While counterfeit money is its own field of study, it has many parallels with art forgery, and we therefore have seen fit to consider it in this journal.  In doing so, I thought that it might be of interest to present a brief history of counterfeit money, for those unfamiliar with the subject. 
Perhaps the most well-known sort of forgery is the faking of money, whether counterfeiting coins, dollar bills, or treasury bonds.  The United States Secret Service, before they became best-known as the bodyguards of the president, were established in order to investigate counterfeit money printing operations and close them down.
Noah Charney is founder of ARCA and the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Art Crime.

October 31, 2012

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Kunsthal Rotterdam Art Theft: Journalist Colin Gleadell on "overvaluation" of the seven stolen paintings

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog

So much has been written about the October 16 theft of seven paintings from the Triton Foundation on display at the Kunsthal Rotterdam that it takes a long time to sift through so much of the published material to find original information on the internet.  However, Colin Gleadell writing for Britain's Telegraph grabbed my attention with the headline "Stone Dutch works wildly overvalued".

Last week ARCA's CEO Lynda Albertson wrote about the Triton Foundation here on this blog, finding that the collection assembled in the last two decades had been infrequently exhibited, had no website and had its first big show of 150 of the works this month at the Kunsthal Rotterdam ("Avant-Gardes").

This December, Yale University Press is publishing "Avant-Gardes, 1870-1970, The Triton Collection" ($125, cloth) , a 568-page book by Sjraar van Heugten, an independent art historian and a former Head of Collections at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (about 60 kilometers north of Rotterdam).  The Triton Foundation's collection contains approximately 250 paintings, drawings, and sculptures from more than 170 Western artists dating from 1870 to 1970  including George Braques, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Willem de Kooning, Lucien Freud, Roy Lichtenstein, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol ("Avante-Gardes").

The statement attributed to the director of the Kunsthal Rotterdam Emily Ansenk posted on the art gallery's website identifies the stolen paintings adding that the investigation will be handled by the police.  As to the seven stolen paintings, Ansenk states: "Perhaps we should add that all stolen works have been internationally registered and described and are therefore unsaleable.  We are not prepared to comment on the value of the works."

Historically, published accounts of art thefts have attached a value to the paintings which thieves have used as a basis for a ransom demand.

However, Gleadell, who has written extensively on the art market, assesses the value of the seven stolen paintings between "£12.5 million and £16 million" based on experts familiar with the collection who wished to remain anonymous:  
Some pictures that were thought to be oil paintings were in fact much less valuable pastels or drawings on paper, and none of the stolen pictures measured more than 13in by 16in – handy enough for the thieves to tuck under their arms. Monet’s oil paintings of the Thames, made when he stayed at the Savoy Hotel in 1901, have fetched as much as £18 million at auction. But the two stolen Monets were small pastels the likes of which have never sold for more than £250,000 at auction.
The Picasso, a late work, was also a small coloured drawing on paper, not an oil painting.
Picasso’s large, late oil paintings have made £10 million at auction, hence a guesstimate by Forbes of £9.7 million. But late drawings of this size have never sold for over a million pounds, though the quality of this one may lift it to seven figures.
The International Herald Tribune came up with a punchy $130 million figure for the Picasso and Matisse alone, and while the Matisse was indeed an oil painting – larger, more sumptuous interiors of seated or reclining women have made £10 million or more – the small scale of this work and less seductive pose of the sitter led our experts to place a value of between £3 million and £4 million on it. 
Similarly, the Gauguin is an early painting from 1888, so is of historical interest, but would not command anything like the sums generated by his sought-after Tahitian pictures. Our experts granted it a £3 million to £4 million estimate. 
The self-portrait by the lesser-known Dutch painter Jacob Meyer de Haan is more difficult because so few of his works have been sold at auction and none for more than £600,000. A friend of Gauguin’s, he painted this when the two were in Brittany in the late 1880s. And while it is stylistically related to the Frenchman’s work of the time, it is a small masterpiece by de Haan; thus a figure of £2 million has been suggested. 
The only contemporary work to be stolen was a portrait of the young journalist Emily Bearn by Lucian Freud, painted in 2002. Although Freud’s late work tends to be less sought after, this is a remarkably tender portrait and has been included in several museum exhibitions. Our experts estimate that it should be worth about £3 million. 

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