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Lissa writes:
The Bay Area home I
grew up in was a
place to learn to
love Kandinsky's
artworks and those
of many artists
around him in the
early avant-garde.
But I didn't. I did
try to love them,
and looked and
looked, and became
familiar with those
chaotic, confusing
images—like
living with an
unruly relative just
because he is
family. So I was
ready when I saw one
or another of those
paintings "in
person" in an
exhibition.
Kandinsky had a
certain presence in
the San Francisco
Bay Area through his
American
representative, the
German-born art
dealer, "Galka"
Scheyer. Scheyer was
the fierce champion
who first brought
Kandinsky's work to
California; she also
taught for some
years at the
celebrated Anna Head
private school of
Berkeley (my
hometown), and
played a
foundational role in
our nearby Oakland
Museum of Art
(where, throughout
the 1960s and into
the '70s, we spent
family time scouring
their rental gallery
for a painting to
bring home).
In 1982, right
across the bay, the
San Francisco Museum
Of Modern Art
(SFMOMA) received
from the Guggenheim
in New York the
dazzling exhibition
entitled, "Kandinsky
in Munich:
1896-1914." It was
spellbinding to be
surrounded by the
originals of so many
paintings familiar
to me only singly or
from prints. One,
though, caught my
attention, just as I
was turning away.
Emerging from the
masses of lines and
puzzling areas of
color, I saw it: it
was a
chicken—distinctly
a chicken. And not
only that, it was on
a hat—in fact,
it was a picture of
a woman wearing a
hat with a chicken
on it.
After
that, I couldn't
un-see the chicken
hat, and still today
I often believe
there are one or
more clear images in
a Kandinsky painting
when others are
talking about how
"abstract" it is.
But for years,
without proof, and
even though I had
seen it in A Museum,
I harbored the
feeling that the
chicken hat painting
was a fake. Perhaps
some forger was
thumbing his nose at
gullible viewers.
During the
secretive Soviet
era, what grumblings
there were about
Russian avant-garde
fakes weren't easy
to evaluate. With
the fall of the
Soviet Union in
1991, information
that had been held
back for over 70
years started to
trickle out. The
venerable ARTnews magazine
first published its
article about
Russian avant-garde
fakes in 1996. By
the early 2000s, the
cat was out of the
forgery-bag:
investigations,
whistle-blowing,
scandals, arrests. ARTnews featured an extensive, explosive expose in 2009, entitled The
Faking of the
Russian Avant-Garde—and
yup, there went my
chicken hat.
By now, this notion
of Kandinsky fakes
has captured the
imaginations of so
many on the online
Kandinsky art sites
that commenters are
often swooning over
a painting that's
known to be fake,
while indignantly
proclaiming about
something genuine:
"It's a fake!"
My longtime
writing partner,
Jelena
Hahl-Fontaine, knows
up close and
personal about the
culture of Kandinsky
and Russian
avant-garde fakes.
Here she brings us
the latest on the
real story of the
fakes.
*
Jelena writes:
1.
This is a fake Kandinsky.
Let us start with the latest adventure of those disgraceful events,
where an outrageous number of fakes of the Russian and East
European avant-garde are put on the market in the West. And it is
always Kandinsky who gets first place here. Since he was the best
known early on in the West, he has "deserved" the highest
number of fakes, which is not an honor, but damages his body of
authentic works and his reputation.
Around 2016/17, there were rumors in Belgium that a famous
Russian collector couple, who had around 500 avant-garde works
(Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Malevich, etc.), had an agreement with
the city of Brussels to create a spectacular new museum; the
location had already been chosen, the financing perhaps also ...
(I will not give the name of the couple, to avoid a defamation
lawsuit.) Then, in 2018, scandalous articles in all the
newspapers!!, saying: The exhibition of a small part of the
couple's collection, in the renowned museum of Ghent, is showing
fakes, and the museum's directrice has already been fired on the
spot!! She claimed that she had shown the collection to the truly
renowned American expert, Magdalena Dobrovsky. M.D. said yes,
but that she was shown the collection after the selection for the
show had already been made. (I'm sure she was shown some
authentic pieces; she is a good judge.)
The show of fakes at the Museum Ghent: Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Malevich. More fakes on the wall in the background; on the left, an earlier, cubist
"Malevich."
Well, my husband and I went to see that show: no guards, only
some other silent visitors, all taking photographs. We did, too: all
26 works in the two rooms were outrageous fakes, in particular
the charming chest with a "real Malevich" on every one of its five
sides!!
2.
There was another, similar "Russian Avant-garde" scandal: a
collection that every expert knew consisted of fakes, was being
proudly advertised--till it was forced to be inspected. Due to the
huge costs of performing thorough analyses, only four works were
chosen: the result, of course: fakes! And guess how the
collection's owners then responded to the verdict: "Well, okay, we
were wrong about four works--sorry, it can happen. So we were
right: all the other hundreds of pictures are authentic, WE WON,
hurray!!" And just try to bring a lawsuit against them; you will pay
huge sums for years!
3.
This is a fake Jawlensky.
One day I telephoned my husband from Germany: "Pick me up in
Brussels not at 9 a.m., but at 11 o'clock in the evening, and please
prepare the guest room, I'm coming with a man." -- "???" -- "Yes,
it is the same Russian who had two authentic paintings by
Filonov; and now he is bringing other avant-garde works, insisting
he has original works by Malevich, Larionov, Gontcharova, etc.
No, no Kandinsky! He wants to show them to the well-known
German art dealer lady based in Paris." -- "I hope those precious
works are insured!!" (My husband is a professor of law). --"I
doubt it, everything is, as usual, wrapped in newspapers and put
into plastic bags." The next day I fetched the art dealer lady at the
airport; she was accompanied by an expert whom I knew and who
was said to have given his stamp of approval to those hundreds of
now famously fake Larionov pastels.
I found our living room transformed, with all available lamps in
the house gathered to provide the perfect lighting: the paintings,
none of them signed, looked as good as possible, but not to me.
The lady did not say much, and behind her back the expert who'd
come with her sneaked his own card to the Russian with the
paintings, certainly to be in direct contact. Later my husband told
me that before our arrival, the Russian had gotten more and more
nervous, finally hiding in the bushes outside. He reappeared
exactly on our arrival, mentioning later that he had once had
some trouble with the lady. "He wanted to be sure she wouldn't
arrive with the police," my husband surmised. – The next
morning I put the Russian on the train to Amsterdam to show his
"Malevich" to the best experts. Later from Berlin, where he lived,
he thanked me for my brief help, and assured me that "everything
was sold!"
This is also a fake Kandinsky.
Why did I get involved with that Russian? For the first time in my
experience, I was shown not fakes but authentic works, easily
recognizable small works on paper by Pavel Filonov, purportedly
from the renowned Ezrach Collection. Each was for a million
dollars, but only one of them was to be sold; it was for Filonov's
daughter, for whom that Russian had helped find a good place in
an "old people's home." Since the Lenbachhaus in Munich, where
I was curator, had no interest, I simply wanted to find a suitable
place for at least one, without commission, of course: "I will ask
the curator of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne; I have met her,
and the museum's famous owner, Mr. Ludwig, has the best
Eastern Avant-Garde collection in Germany." -- "Why not the
Gallery G... in Cologne?" -- "But the Gallery lady sells to Ludwig
anyway, so why not ask Ludwig directly?!" -- Strangely, the
curator answered that Ludwig was no longer buying works from
the Russian Avant-garde. A while later when visiting the museum:
big surprise! The Filonovs were hanging there--not just one of
them, but both!
To be continued…
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