The Bowdoin Orient

February 16, 2001
Volume CXXXII, Number 16

Art forgery lecture

by MEREDITH HOAR - COLUMNIST

   Professor Olds has decided to awards A's to students in his classes who can who create a convincing copy of a piece of art held within Bowdoin's own collection that was studied within the class. The forgeries will then be mixed up with the real works and it will be the classes' exams to determine who created each work of art.
   Interesting move, huh?
   Too bad it's all a lie.
   Professor Clifton Olds of the Art History spoke on the topic of "The Artist as Criminal: Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries" - beginning the evening off with a "forgery" of his own like the one above - a made-up story about art fraud good enough to fool the audience into believing it. (Well, he fooled me anyway. That's why I thought I'd try to fool some people on my own.)
   February 13 marked the second semester reintroduction of the Quinby House Tuesday Lecture Series. Professor Olds spoke to an audience of about 15- 20 students on the subject of art forgery. The professor admits a "grudging admiration for criminals…[they are] con men who take advantage of other people's greed." It's easy to be awed by the lengths that some forgers will go to to deceive everyone. In a series of stories (which he swore were all true, after his initial forged tale), Professor Olds gave examples of different modes by which forgers had worked.
   The signature of the artist on a painting makes the work more desirable and special. ers either fake a different signature on an existing painting. Sometimes, already established artists will sign the works of their students, so that the paintings will sell for more than they would otherwise.
   Another example was of an artist who had been popular early in his career, and then faded away. This artist backdated a work he did by about 30 years, so he could sell it for the price that a work from his more popular period would command.
   A mind-boggling example of a forger's attention to detail was illustrated with what was thought to be an Albrecht Dürer print. The thousands and thousands of tiny lines making up a picture with a lion in the foreground of a room were all perfectly copied. A student noticed that lion on the so-called print actually was missing a toenail from the known stamp.
   First, it was just thought that Dürer made a print, then altered the stamp again before making the rest. However, they measured the "print," only to discover it measured a few millimeters larger than a real print would have - therefore the whole picture was a forged drawing. Such staggering attention to tedious detail does make one almost admire forgers, for such sheer dedication.
   Some forgeries are really good - some even better, in the opinion of art critics like Professor Olds, than works by the artist being copied.
   He showed the audience slides of two paintings - one a real Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait, the other a forgery. The audience was approximately evenly split over which of the two paintings we liked better.
   However, when Professor Olds told us which painting was the real Van Gogh, most people, including Olds, said that if they were going to have of one the paintings, they would prefer the real Van Gogh to the painting they had chosen as better. It is an interesting idea to think about - are we really appreciating the art for itself, or because of previous experiences with other ideas?
   To get some idea of how difficult it can be to determine if a work of art is a forgery or not, Professor Olds gave this example: Henri Matisse once gave an art dealer 20 drawings. The dealer had them for awhile, but was finally going to sell them. Matisse hadn't signed them, so the dealer called him to have him do so. Matisse studied the drawings, and declared that only 14 of the 20 were his work.
   Though the dealer reminded him that he'd given them to him altogether, Matisse could not be convinced. So he signed only the 14. The dealer was disappointed, but there was really nothing he could do.
   Later in the day, Matisse came back to the office and asked to see the other six drawings again. He studied them, and then, without a word, signed them.
   If it was that difficult for Matisse to recognize his own work, imagine the task that lies before art critics in determining if work is genuine or not. Some estimates say that as much as 50 percent of the work in minor museums is forged.
   Renoir, in particular, has been forged a huge amount - some estimates claim that 75 percent of "his" work around the world is by some one else. If we enjoy the work, does it matter who did it? Or would we prefer to see only real Renoirs? Either answer seems valid, and the answer is sure to be contemplated by those who attended the lecture.
   Stay tuned for more coverage of the Quinby House Tuesday Night Lecture Series as it continues later in the semester.