Knoedler
M. Knoedler & Co. (/ˈnoʊdlər/)[1] was an art dealership in New York City founded in 1846. When it closed in 2011, amid lawsuits for fraud,[2] it was one of the oldest commercial art galleries in the US, having been in operation for 165 years.[3]
History
Knoedler dated its origin to 1846, when French dealers Goupil & Cie opened a branch in New York. Goupil & Cie was an extremely dynamic print-publishing house founded in Paris in 1827.[4] Michel (later Michael) Knoedler (1823–1878), born in Kapf near Schwäbisch Gmünd in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, started to work for Goupil & Cie in Paris in 1844, and moved to New York in 1852 to take charge of the New York branch.[5] He purchased the U.S. arm of the business in 1857, and was later joined by his sons Roland (1856–1932), Edmond and Charles, with Roland taking the lead after his father's death in 1878.[5]
With dealer
After Roland Knoedler retired in 1928, the management of the firm passed to his nephew Charles Henschel, with Carmen Mesmore, Charles Carstairs and his son Carroll Carstairs. Henschel died in 1956, and E. Coe Kerr and Roland Balay (Michael Knoedler's grandson) took over. The firm was sold to industrialist and collector Armand Hammer for $2.5 million in 1971.[5] Five years later, the last member of the Knoedler family - Roland Balay - ceased his involvement in the management of the firm. It increasingly concentrated on contemporary art from the late 1970s. After Hammer's death in 1990, the Hammer foundation continued to hold a controlling interest in the gallery until it closed in 2011, when Michael Armand Hammer (Armand Hammer's grandson) was its chairman.[8]
Locations
The art dealership occupied eight different locations, starting on
Knoedler held a 150-year retrospective in 1996, exhibiting works such as
In February 2011, the gallery sold its premises at 19 East 70th Street for $31 million.[10] In 2012, the gallery attempted to auction a portion of its remaining inventory of artworks.[11]
Alleged connection to Nazi looted art
Knoedler was involved in several high profile lawsuits involving Nazi looted art, including a
In 2003 the Springfield Library and Museum Association sued Knoedler for loss of a $3 million painting that it had to return to the museum to Italy as war loot.[14]
Knoedler was also involved in the long-running Cassirer v Thyssen case concerning a
Art fraud scandal and closure
The gallery's president Ann Freedman[17] resigned in October 2009,[18] amid rumours of forged paintings supplied to the gallery by Long Island art dealer Glafira Rosales.[19][20]
It was later discovered that between 1994 and 2011, under Freedman's direction, the gallery had sold almost 40[21] faked Abstract Expressionist paintings of works by Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, among others.[22] Freedman had purchased the paintings for Knoedler from Glafira Rosales, who had in turn obtained the fake paintings from the art forger Pei-Shen Qian (Chinese: 錢培琛).[23][24] Qian had reportedly painted the forgeries in a garage in Queens, New York.[25] Qian was able to imitate the styles of the masters, and give the paintings an illusion of age by using tea or dirt from a vacuum cleaner, dirtying their appearance.[26] He is reported to have received less than US$9,000 for each painting from Rosales, while Rosales sold the paintings for millions of dollars to Knoedler.[27]
A statement issued on 28 November 2011 by Knoedler stated simply that it was closing permanently for business reasons,[18] unrelated to the lawsuits it faced over the sale of forged paintings.[28]
By 2012, the
Spanish art dealer José Carlos Bergantiños Díaz (Rosales' boyfriend) and his brother Jesús Ángel Bergantiños Díaz were also indicted in US District Court for the fraud.[35] The Díaz brothers were arrested in Spain,[36] and released on bail, in 2014. In 2016, a Spanish court ruled that Jesús Díaz could be extradited to the US.[37] Later that year, a Spanish court ruled that Jesús' brother, José Díaz, could not be extradited to the US due to health reasons.[38]
The art forger who painted the fakes, Pei-Shen Qian, was indicted but avoided prosecution by fleeing to China.[23] Authorities said at the moment of the trial that he earned sums ranging from several hundred dollars to as much as $9,000 to create a work.[39]
In 2020, filmmaker Barry Avrich directed and produced the Netflix film, Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art, a documentary on the Knoedler Gallery forgery scandal.[40] Daria Price's feature documentary about the scandal and trial, Driven to Abstraction, premiered in London in 2019.[41]
In 2003, Goldman Sachs executive Jack Levy bought an untitled Jackson Pollock painting for $2 million, but when the International Foundation for Art Research declined to authenticate the work,[5] Levy asked for and received his money back.[42]
Also in 2003 the Springfield Library and Museum Association sued Knoedler for loss of a $3 million painting, Spring Sowing by Jacopo da Ponte (Il Bassano) which Springfield had been obliged to restitute to Italy after the painting was proven to have been war loot.[43]
The day before the gallery closed in November 2011,[18] Belgian hedge-fund manager Pierre Lagrange sued the gallery in relation to the work Untitled 1950, which Knoedler attributed to Jackson Pollock.[28] Lagrange had purchased the painting for $17 million in 2007, on the understanding that it would be included in a supplement to the Pollock catalogue raisonné.[44] It was later claimed[by whom?] that no such supplement was planned; tests later showed that some of the paint used was not available until some years after Pollock's death.[5] The suit was settled out of court in 2012.[45]
In 2012, Domenico De Sole and his wife Eleanore claimed that the gallery sold them a fake Mark Rothko, Untitled 1956, for $8.3 million in 2004.[29] The lawsuit, with Knoedler and Ann Freedman as defendants, went to trial in January 2016. The Soles settled out of court with Freedman on February 7, 2015,[46] but continued their suit against Knoedler.[25]
Wall Street executive
In 2021 the estate of
Archive
In 2012, the Getty Research Institute announced that it had purchased the majority of the gallery's archives, dating from 1850 to 1971.[50] The Getty subsequently digitized parts of the archive and made them available online. With the exception of the reference library, which the Knoedler Gallery sold separately in January 2012, and which consists of titles already in the Getty Research Institute's library, this acquisition represents the complete archive of the gallery's operations from the 1850s to 1971, when it was acquired by Armand Hammer. The archival material includes business records; correspondence among clients, artists, and Knoedler staff; card files on clients and artworks; photographs; prints; rare books; sales catalogs dating to the 18th century; and gallery installation plans.[51]
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London holds the Frank Simpson Archive, a substantial proportion of which comprises records from the London office of M. Knoedler & Co., dating from the early 1900s to 1971, which were acquired by Simpson whilst working there as Librarian from 1958-1971.[52] This material includes over five hundred files which contain correspondence, images and pedigree information concerning approximately four to five thousand works of art, the majority of which passed through Knoedler salerooms.
References
- ^ "Meet Ann Freedman". UC Berkeley School of Law. August 22, 2022. Retrieved October 18, 2023.
- ^ "Knoelder Gallery again accused of fraud in new lawsuit". blogs.nytimes.com. January 30, 2013.
- ^ "How to Spot a Perfect Fake: The World's Top Art Forgery Detective".
- ^ "Finding aid for the M. Knoedler & Co. records, approximately 1848-1971".
- ^ a b c d e Shnayerson, Michael (23 April 2012). "A Question of Provenance". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Goldstein, 2003, p. 167
- ISBN 978-1472438065..
- ^ Corbett, Rachel. "LAWYERS CHASE ELUSIVE FIGURE IN KNOEDLER LAWSUIT". Artnet.com. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b c Gray, Christopher (8 March 2012). "When Elegance Sold Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Grant, Daniel. "READING THE TEA LEAVES IN THE KNOEDLER MESS". Artnet. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Corbett, Rachel. "Works From Knoedler Gallery Bomb at Doyle New York Auction". Blouin Artinfo. Archived from the original on 22 February 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Dobrzynski, Judith H. (4 August 1998). "Seattle Museum Is Sued For a Looted Matisse" – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ "El Greco Nazi Loot Returned". artnet News. 24 March 2015.
- ^ "The Springfield Museum sues Knoedler". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2022-02-02.
- ^ "Case 2:05-cv-03459-JFW-E Document 621 Filed 04/30/19" (PDF). UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.
- ^ "No. 20-1566 In the Supreme Court of the United States" (PDF). supremecourt.gov. Supreme Court of the United States.
- ^ Miller, M.H. (5 February 2016). "In Court, Experts Say Knoedler Ignored Warnings About Forgeries". Artnews. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b c Cohen, Patricia (December 2011). "A Gallery That Helped Create the American Art World Closes Shop After 165 Years". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Volen, Guelda (12 August 2015). "Now Defunct Knoedler Gallery Settles Lawsuits for Fake Rothkos". The Observer. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ "The Knoedler-Rosales Case - artnet Magazine". artnet.com. 4 April 2012.
- ^ Miller, M. H. (2016-04-25). "The Big Fake: Behind the Scenes of Knoedler Gallery's Downfall". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
- ^ Boucher, Brian. "Knoedler Gallery Not Profitable Apart From Fakes, Says Accountant at Fraud Trial". Artnet news. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b Hays, Tom (February 2016). "New York City jury hears how a forger's fake fooled art buyers". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Rashbaum, William K.; Cohen, Patricia; Maslin Nir, Sarah (17 August 2013). "Struggling Immigrant Artist Tied to $80 Million New York Fraud". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b Moynihan, Colin (8 February 2016). "Suit Against Knoedler Gallery Over Fake Rothko Continues After a Settlement". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^ Cohn, Scott (2018-08-17). "Think you can spot a fraud? This $80 million art scam fooled experts". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2019-07-03.
- ^ Wang, Yanan. "N.Y. art gallery thought it spent $80 million on Modernist classics — but they were all 'genius' copies". The National Post. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b "The Knoedler's Meltdown: Inside the Forgery Scandal and Federal Investigations". Vanity Fair. 6 April 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^ a b Cohen, Patricia (29 March 2012). "Second Suit Accuses Knoedler Gallery of Selling Fake Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Cohen, Patricia (6 May 2012). "Artist's Family Says Gallery Ignored Warning of Fakes". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^ "Indectment of Glafira Rosales: Authentication in Art, Art & Law".[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Art Dealer Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to $80 Million Fake Art Scam, Money Laundering, and Tax Charges". Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Government. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ a b c "Glafira Rosales Ordered to Pay $81 Million to Victims of the Knoedler Art-Fraud Scheme". artnet News. 2017-07-10. Retrieved 2019-07-03.
- ^ "NYC Dealer Who Scammed Art World of $80 Million Gets House Arrest". NBC New York. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
- ^ "Bergantinos Diaz Qian Indictment" (PDF). US Department of Justice. United States Government. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Swaine, Jon (22 April 2014). "Artist at centre of multimillion dollar forgery scandal turns up in China". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Clendenning, Alan (16 February 2016). "Extradition to US for Spanish dealer in big art fraud case". The Associated Press. Archived from the original on 18 February 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
- ^ "Spanish Court Denies US Extradition Request for Member of Knoedler Forgery Ring". Artforum. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
- ^ Bowley, Graham; Moynihan, Colin (January 24, 2016). "Knoedler Gallery Heads to Trial in Sale of a Fake Rothko". The New York Times. pp. Section C, Page 1. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
- ^ [1] Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art
- ^ "Dueling documentaries take aim at one of the biggest scams in recent art history". TheArtNewspaper. 28 March 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
- ^ Warnica, Richard. "How did David Mirvish end up in the decade's most shocking art forgery scandal?". Canadian Business. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ "The Springfield Museum sues Knoedler". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 2021-03-09. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
- ^ Klasfeld, Adam. "Collector Calls $17 Million Pollock a Phony". Courthouse News Service. Archived from the original on 1 March 2016. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^ Pettersson, Edvard; Hurtado, Patricia. "Closed New York Gallery Settles Suit Over 'Forged' Pollock". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Moynihan, Colin (8 February 2016). "Knoedler Gallery Director Settles Lawsuit Over Fake Rothko". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ Neuendorf, Henri (4 December 2015). "Knoedler Gallery Reaches Out-Of-Court Settlement Over $4 Million Fake de Kooning". Artnet news. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ "CRANACH DIGITAL ARCHIVE". 2022-02-14. Archived from the original on 14 February 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
- ^ Villa, Angelica (2021-04-16). "Cranach Painting Sold Under Duress During World War II to Be Auctioned as Part of Legal Settlement". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
- ^ Vogel, Carol (18 October 2012). "Getty Institute Buys Knoedler Gallery Archive". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ^ "Knoedler Gallery archive". Getty Research Institute. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
- ^ "M. Knoedler & Co. Records in the Frank Simpson Archive". Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Paul Mellon Centre. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
External links
Media related to Knoedler and Co. at Wikimedia Commons
- M. Knoedler & Co. records, approximately 1848-1971
- Frank Simpson Archive - Records from the London office of Knoedler and Co., ca. 1900–1970
- Podcast by Reveal on fraud story, reported by Gisele Regatão and Emily Harris from December 2023.