The biggest fraud in Art History
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| Myatt/Modigliani (fake) (Image: damforstmuseum.org) |
17-1-1995, London: a fire in a student
residence, a Hungarian girl dies. Inspector Higgs is in charge. Before the event, a Japanese girl
saw in the aisle a stranger that was looking for the renter. The fire
started in his room, apparently provoked. The owner has an alibi; among his papers, we can see he had hired a room
in another adress to someone called Batsheva Goudsmid.
They found a deranged, desperate woman. She
would keep asking why they would not investigate her ex-husband, John Drewe,
who kidnapped their children and took away all their money, and who convinced
the Social Services that she abused her kids. She would say also that she was
sure John started the fire because the hirer had broken in his house, taking
away paintings and sensible letters related to art.
Higgs interrogates Drewe, a professor, nuclear
physic and Secret Services assessor; a perfectly dressed man, educated, with
complete self-control: he exposes his own version about Goudsmid. When Higgs
revises Drewe’s history, there is nothing about him: no driving license, no
bank account, no health insurance, nothing at all. He was not known either at
any workplace, and he wasn’t either registered in the Universities he studied
in. Something was not right.
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| John Drewe (Image: Daily Mail) |
Sooner than later, Goudsmid brings a briefcase
full of evidences about falsifications in art, but nothing about the fire. She
had seen Drewe in a cafeteria, and screamed at him. He went away inopportunely,
leaving his briefcase behind. Higgs sends it to his old colleague in New
Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Squad, Ellis.
Drewe was not a stranger to Ellis, he had
already been investigated in 1994 for a presumed art robbery. He was also being
targeted by reports about a great scale falsification in USA, Japan and France.
Sarah Fox-Pitt, Tate Gallery’s doyenne of archive acquisition, had phoned him,
worried for all her archivist’s, Jennifer Booth, suspicions about Drewe (a
respectable donor that had contributed with 20000 pounds, for which he had free
access to the documents). Goudsmid had also phoned him, telling him she
had found more proofs tidying their attic. Among them, pictures of paintings,
Tate Gallery stamps, letters, Victoria & Albert catalogues, British Library
and Institute of Contemporary Art documents, etc.
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| Myatt/Giacometti (fake) (Image: museum-security.org) |
Ellis only had 4 people in his team, so he asks
Searle for help, a detective that had studied Art History in Cambridge. Searle
couldn’t identify what was legit or fake; nonetheless, he could really tell
that the documents from the Museums were stolen. Once he sees the Tate’s stamp,
he speaks to Booth, telling him his theory: Drewe did not steal the documents,
but he manipulated them, making up a history that would certify his
falsifications as legit paintings.[1] Booth supported his theory with
research carried out by Mary Lisa Palmer, director of the Giacometti
Association.
For 2 years, Palmer had rejected certifying as
authentic several paintings, and even if he suspected of Drewe, he had no
evidence. When he gets to know that one of them was going to be sold in
Sotheby’s, he orders to stop the auction, revises the provenance of the
painting and phones the Tate Gallery. With Booth’s help, he analyses catalogues
like Hanover Gallery’s and discovers that some pictures were inserted, and that
some documents were new, leading to incoherencies in the gallery’s register. Casually,
there was another identical catalogue being restored, which never fell into
Drewe’s hands.
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| Myatt/Nicholson (fake) (Image: museum-security.org) |
Searle asks his only witness, Goudsmid, for the
names found in the papers: Berger and Belman, neighbors that acted as middlemen
in the selling of paintings. He did not know either Harris or Stoakes, owners
of the painting. She did not know who had painted the falsifications. But,
suddenly, she remembered having seen some John Myatt retouch a painting.
By 6:30 the following day, the squad knocks
Myatt’s door, who answers: “I’ve been waiting for you”.[2] He asked
them to wait until his children went to school, and then he starts to talk.
(To be continued next week)
This is a short summary of
Salisbury, L.-A.Sujo. The Conman, s.l, Gibson Square, 2010
I would have liked to share more details… If you want to know more, I suggest reading this book!
[1] In art, this is called “provenance”, which is the story of the painting as object, which comes out the artist’s atelier and reaches the last collector. Receipts, letters, records, pictures, and exhibition catalogues are used to determine the authenticity of the painting.
[2] Op.cit., chapter.29, page. 227
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