It seems like there is an unending interest in prints by Dali, Picasso, Chagall, Miro and Warhol. So much so, that folks flock like sheep to slaughter to keep buying phony copies of them. And, if they are not buying outright fakes, many are getting duped on cruise ship auctions and overpaying for art that is not collectible. At least not at the inflated prices the auctions charge if you side with those in the $200 million class action suit filed on behalf of art buyers on cruise lines.
New Arrests Shed Light on the Shady Business of Fake Fine Art Prints
In the past week, there has been a slew of news reports of a newly cracked caper of crooks peddling fake prints. I have to ask, did no one learn anything from last year's sensational reports on the $20 million fraud, forgery and income tax evasion case of Kristine Eubanks and Gerald Sullivan? These now convicted felons managed to sell fakes for years over a cable television program they managed, called Fine Art Treasures. Their source for making the fakes was one of the first full-time and most heavily advertised professional giclee printing studios in the industry; an operation they founded.
Here is part of a typical news item on the latest round of crooks being caught from Bloomberg:
U.S. Indicts Seven for Selling Fake Picassos, Warhols
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Andy Warhol were among artists whose works were counterfeited by seven people indicted for two art-fraud schemes that reaped a combined $5 million.
Those charged include three Europeans and residents of New York, Florida and Illinois, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said today in a statement. They sold thousands of fake prints in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe, he alleged.
Is it Time to Stop Limiting Giclées?
This latest barrage of news about con men duping honest folks in yet another ongoing art swindle leads me back to a long held premise, i.e., let's stop limiting giclees. I had several posts on this subject last year, including The Double Entendre of the Artist Selling Out and Is Giclée Passé? There are plenty of other arguments for this decision besides the facts that limited editions can be easily be manipulated by crooks using signed and numbered pieces to jack up prices of fake copies. Read some of the links to get those thoughts. Feel free to chime in with your own on the comments section below.
