Displaying items by tag: Fake Painting

Three paintings left to the National Museum Wales in 1951 by notable Welsh collectors, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, have been reclassified as authentic after spending decades in storage. In 1956 it was decided that that the paintings, Off Margate, Margate Jetty, and The Beacon Light, were either fake or not fully by the English Romanticist J.M.W. Turner’s (1775–1851) hand.

Turner experts have examined the paintings intermittently during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s to similar ends. Thanks to today’s modern methods such as X-ray, infrared, and pigment analysis, the seascapes were finally vindicated. The process unfolded on the BBC program, “Fake or Fortune,” proving that the paintings’ materials were consistent with the materials notably used by Turner.  

Although the three paintings’ values have subsequently skyrocketed, they will remain in the National Museum’s collection. The Davies sisters who built one of the most important Impressionist and 20^th century art collections in Britain, bequeathed seven Turner paintings to the Museum in the early 1950s. All of the paintings will go on display together starting September 25^th.

New York Magazine's art critic Jerry Saltz loves Gerhard Richter's paintings. A lot. So much so that on his Facebook page, the three-time Pulitzer nominee offered either $1,000 or a sex act (plus the cost of materials) to any artist who can make me a Richter that looks EXACTLY like an abstract Richter - more or less indistinguishable from the real thing. (You can sign your own name on the back of the damn thing; I just love these and want one.)...Offer: $1000.00 plus materials. I'd like a biggish one.

After several hundred comments and offers responding to his Facebook posting, Saltz further clarified his immodest proposal:

1. We agree that you will make me a Richter. 2. We agree on size and cost. 3. You make it. 4. A curator from a MAJOR NY Museum inspects it. 5. IF he/she cannot distinguish it (more or less) from real thing, then I

A. I pay you the amount of money we agreed on previously.
B. You get a bj or female equivalent.

Saltz, a judge on the Bravo television program Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, is married to New York Times senior art critic Roberta Smith, and has a reputation for being -- as behooves a critic -- outspoken, irreverent and pranksterish. He relishes discourse and uses his Facebook page as a forum for discussion, bantering and repartee.

So is this offer Saltz's way of provoking, of trolling to see what kind of a response/reaction a call for a Richter manqué will get, to subversively question and explore the value of art? Is a painting worth $18 million solely because of the artist's name and reputation? Can a $1,000 version of an artist's work by another artist inspire the same awe as an original? And wouldn't you rather spend that cash on one or two emerging artists' originals that you love, rather than ordering up a replica much like lunch delivery from the local deli?