Reflections on 10 Years in the Art Authentication Business
Life Savers (F. & S. II.353) © Andy Warhol 1985
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Now that Richard Polsky Art Authentication is on the verge of celebrating its tenth anniversary, it feels like a good time to take a moment to reflect upon the state of art authentication for the primary artists who we work with; Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jackson Pollock. As the Grateful Dead collaborator Robert Hunter once famously wrote, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”
The Rise of Art Authentication in the Post-Board Era
Ten years ago, the art market was still coming to grips with the demise of the art authentication boards for Warhol, Haring, Basquiat, Lichtenstein, Pollock, and others. Too many lawsuits (or threats of litigation) had taken their toll. Collectors, dealers, and auction houses had nowhere to turn for authentication advice. This left a void, which we stepped in to fill.
Over time, we’ve discovered a correlation between the growth of our business and the rising value of the artists whose work we authenticate. Not surprisingly, their expanding valuations have led to increased attempts at counterfeiting. We’ve also detected other patterns such as which countries are associated with the most fakes. By far, the hands down winner is Italy - which is somewhat surprising given their historic importance as an art center from the Renaissance to the present. The United Arab Emirates has also been a magnet for forgeries. Mexico is another “caveat emptor country” for acquiring art.
From Authentication to the Auction Block
We’ve also noticed how most people who hire us immediately want to sell their painting if it turns out to be genuine. Their first question is how do Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips feel about a picture which doesn’t appear in the appropriate catalogue raisonné or was never authenticated by the artist’s original art authentication board. I always respond with the same answer; “It depends.”
The top auction houses are offered major paintings on a steady basis. Naturally, their preference is to consign a picture that is documented in a catalogue raisonné or is accompanied by an authentication certificate from the appropriate board. However, the big houses are willing to make an exception if a work is heavily documented. A recent example is Sotheby’s successful sale of 31 Keith Haring Subway Drawings from the collection of Larry Warsh - despite the fact they were never authenticated by Haring’s authentication board (they didn’t authenticate Subway Drawings). As art market followers know, Mr. Warsh is a major collector of art of the 1980s, especially work by Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He even went as far as writing a book titled, Keith Haring: 31 Subway Drawings, that allowed Sotheby’s to auction his collection with confidence.
We’re continually amazed by the number of clients interested in verifying their painting who turn to various forms of forensic analysis - before connoisseurship (which is what we perform). Whether it’s handwriting analysis, artificial intelligence, or scientific analysis, we are forced to explain to them that they are doing everything backwards. Connoisseurship comes first. If you own a possible Andy Warhol Marilyn, you want to verify that your painting compares favorably to other Marilyns known to be genuine. Next you want to confirm its provenance. Assuming both imagery and backstory check out, then you might want to consider hiring a scientific analysis professional to buttress the connoisseurship report.
Provenance, Fakes, and the Stories People Tell
But by far, the biggest issue in the art authentication business is dealing with the diverse (and often difficult) personalities that you encounter. While most people who hire us are reasonable, there’s a subset of owners whose expectations are unrealistic. Sometimes their behavior borders on the downright bizarre - especially when it comes to insisting on the validity of their work’s provenance. Owners will do anything to re-interpret their painting’s backstory to convince me that it’s genuine.
Production from Warhol’s Factory days is especially vulnerable to reinvention. One of the stories we often hear is how an alleged Warhol painting - such as a Little Electric Chair - was taken by an unidentified studio assistant without permission as compensation because Andy never paid him for his time. Technically, that means the painting was stolen - but it’s still real. What actually happened was that someone ran off a group of unauthorized Little Electric Chairs - from the original screen - and began peddling them on the open market.
One of the most common Basquiat backstories centers around how a painting once belonged to one of his drug dealers. Like most scams, there’s a kernel of truth to this story. Back in the day, before Basquiat made it big, he did occasionally swap his artwork for the drug of his choice. But this was a relatively uncommon occurrence. Most of his art was either sold through his dealers or directly from his studio. On the rare occasion that a client furnishes the name of the pusher - he inevitably turns out to be dead. Thus, there’s no way for me to confirm their story.
Haring authentication is rife with deceit. Many of the problems involve his previously mentioned Subway Drawings. As most Haring aficionados know, from 1980-1985, Keith stormed the New York Subways and utilized white chalk to work his magic on blank sheets of black paper which served as placeholders (until an advertising poster could be glued in its place). Under the constant pressure of being spotted by the transit police, Keith would quickly sketch an image from his unique vocabulary of barking dogs, crawling babies, and dancing figures. The problem is that only an estimated 5-10% of the approximate 5,000 drawings he created survived. Based on how many have been submitted to me over the years, you’d think that 90% are still in circulation.
On occasion the Lichtenstein market experiences a few hiccups, thanks to counterfeiters creating knock-off of his 1960s imagery. Specifically, the fakes tend to focus on works depicting female “Blondes.” One of the more absurd stories that I listened to occurred when a client insisted that the painting he wanted me to authenticate was a collaboration between his father and Lichtenstein. The client claimed his father visited Roy’s studio during the sixties. The two of them hit it off and the next thing you knew, his father instructed Lichtenstein on what phrase to use in the cartoon blurb above the blonde’s - something that the artist never would have consented to. This guy then bought the painting, claiming he helped Roy paint it.
The most fantastic provenance lies are associated with Jackson Pollock. For instance, we have heard about a supposed classic “Drip” painting that once belonged to Fidel Castro. Can you imagine the “Beard” acquiring a Pollock canvas to prove to the decadent West that his regime had great taste in Modern art? Then there was the fake Pollock that belonged to the Egyptian ruler Gamal Nasser - undoubtably another connoisseur of Abstract Expressionism. Just last year, an alleged major Pollock turned up in Bulgaria - which has yet to be verified. The only international Pollock story that’s actually true is that the Shah of Iran did indeed purchase a major Pollock Drip painting, Mural On Indian Red Ground. This took place during a brief window when the Shah bought contemporary art for a museum he was building to impress the world with his sophistication bona fides.
The High-Stakes World of Authentication
The above intrigue aside, sometimes the field of authentication can prove dangerous to one’s health. I was once hired to examine a picture which originated in Dubai. Without revealing the artist and the identity of the owner, once I concluded that this painting was bogus, the owner threatened my life. Like a scene out of a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible caper, he said to me, “This is the Middle East - you don’t know who you’re dealing with. We know who you are and where you live.”
Some of my best stories can’t be told because of confidentiality. When you hire an art authenticator, much like an attorney, you enter into a confidentiality agreement. The report the client receives is his to do with as he sees fit - and is never revealed to anyone else. Yet, I once saw a copy of a report that I produced - which had been altered - that somehow got back to me. It involved an Andy Warhol Mick Jagger print whose verso held a collection of signatures including my own and those of Andy, Mick, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood - and Donald Trump!
