IS THEY IS, OR IS THEY AIN'T? Part 3

So what about this independent and disinterested business that I keep harping on with reference to myself as opposed to the other people who claim to be "Dali Experts" and who offer to provide "authentications" of the Master's work? I have recently done a re-evaluation of the topic while writing my book Artful Dodgers in Ireland. My conclusion is that it is a really critical issue.

After all, it's all about credibility and we must not forget that:

If a person has integrity, nothing else matters.

If a person does not have integrity, nothing else matters.

When you are considering having an artwork authenticated it is a very good idea to ask yourself if the person who claims to be an authenticator could possibly benefit financially or in any other way from the opinions they give.

For instance, a dealer may have all sorts of potential conflict-of-interest problems. Has he ever sold this particular artwork? Has he sold another piece from the same edition? Does he have one in stock? Does he have a relationship with the publisher or distributor? Has he ever published an opinion concerning the artwork? You get the idea.

Former "secretaries" to Salvador Dali have played all sorts of games with the "authentication" process because they have had a number of relationships with the Master's work and one has even been known to state that if he did not receive a commission on the original sale, he did not consider the work genuine. Great.

It is also potentially dangerous to rely on an "archivist" as an authenticator, especially if he is not the person who accumulated the archived information, but is, rather, the administrator.

The very best authenticator (that is, one who gives opinions of authenticity) for atworks attributed to Salvador Dali would be one who meets the following criteria:

• Fully independent.
• Disinterested in that he has never bought, sold or brokered a Dali artwork. In other words, he has lived his professional life outside the market.
• Has extensively developed his connoisseurship and seen a great many genuine artworks by the artist, hopefully more than anyone else.
• Has developed his examination techniques and uses the Scientific Method as an Art Detective.
• Has been relied upon by museums and foundations which specialize in Dali's art.
• Has met the major collectors, been trusted by them and had access to their documentation as well as photographs, stories and, of course, artworks.
• Been repeatedly accepted in courts of law at all levels as an expert.
• Served as an expert for numerous law enforcement and regulatory agencies at all levels of government.
• Published articles on the artist.
• Given lectures at museums, galleries and other art venues.
• Never been proved wrong in court or by the IRS or been accused of an ethics violation.

These and other criteria are extensively discussed in my upcoming book Artful Dodgers: Fraud and Foolishness In The Art Market. Where would one find such a professional if one wanted to have a Dali artwork authenticated? I can think of only one place: http://www.bernardewell.com/.

IS THEY IS, OR IS THEY AIN'T?

IS THEY IS, OR IS THEY AIN’T?
AUTHENTICATING DALI ARTWORKS, Part one

While writing about art authentication for my book Artful Dodgers in a cottage overlooking Culdaff Bay in Donegal, Ireland, it occurs to me that it is a useful topic to address in reference to artworks attributed to Salvador Dalí. After all, that’s who I am—the Dalí Expert—and so I do a lot of that. It’s also worth taking a look at the several other sources of “authentication” for Dalí artworks. Some of them are not what and who they say they are.

The first thing to understand about art authentication, however, is that The only person who can authenticate an artwork is the person who created it. If that person is not available (dead, in an asylum, or suffering from dementia) then all you can hope for is to get the best opinions from the best people available. The operable word is “opinion”.

The “best people available” means those who are accepted as experts in the artist’s work through their relationship with the artist (family or collaborator), their authorship of a reliable catalog, scholarship or extensive experience examining the artist’s work and doing research. There are two other critical factors: connoisseurship and the credibility that comes with being independent and disinterested. In other words, they must not have any conceivable way of materially benefiting from the opinion they give.

When the art of Salvador Dalí is the topic, authenticity becomes even more important than it would normally be. Why? Because there are probably more fakes attributed to Dalí than to almost any other artist of any era. After all, he was a sick recluse (or prisoner) for the last nine years of his life and many people proceeded to produce fakes and sell then as genuine with the assurance that the artist would die on Thursday and the values would shoot up. This was especially true of editions (usually 1,000) of prints which were sold with forged signatures—many thousands of them.

So let’s look at the subject of the fake prints first. Since the topic is complex and unraveling it represents the work I’ve done over almost three decades, this must be a somewhat simplified telling of the tale.

Actually I was very fortunate. I benefited from my opportunities to serve as the expert for a long list of federal and state law enforcement and regulatory agencies because each criminal prosecution or civil lawsuit brought me endless opportunities to examine good prints and forgeries of every type as well as piles of files and information. For example, when the Federal Trade Commission went after Pierre Marcand of Magui Publishing, there was a particularly rich windfall.

Pierre lived in a mansion in Beverly Hills where he hosted lots of out-of-work actors and actresses who paid their rent by hand-coloring the fake prints he produced on his own presses. At one point he decided he needed a larger mansion. Unfortunately for him, it would not be available for his occupancy until after he was committed to vacating the old one. Consequently he had to move to a hotel for four months and put all of his belongings in storage. He called Beverly Hills Storage and they sent over several trucks and packers.

Within an hour of the arrival of the loaded trucks at the warehouse, everything Pierre owned (except what he had at the hotel) was under Federal Court order and I was on my way from my home in Colorado. For the next couple of weeks I had access to all of Pierre’s stuff. I ignored the personal items, but was elated to have his printing plates and presses, 1,000 sheets of blank paper with (forged) Dalí signatures, 3,000 fake prints and some of the drawings and transparencies used to create the fakes.

Using my art detective techniques, I collected all of the clues the material offered that I was later able to use in Federal Court to prove the prints fakes and the signatures forgeries. Such an opportunity added tremendously to my knowledge and understanding of the activities of the crooks. No one else has had access to this type of material, and I did in case after case.

This is the sort of experience that has permitted me to develop the information, understanding and connoisseurship that makes me the expert I am today. Having examined 53,000 prints attributed to Salvador Dalí, I have more hands-on experience than anyone else. Having actually done the various printmaking techniques myself I am in a unique position and it has added a great deal to my ability not only to determine authenticity, but also to explain it to juries and judges.

I’ll share many more adventures and experiences in future blogs.

BERNARD IN THE FINAL FIVE

BERNARD IN THE FINAL FIVE

The Appraisal Foundation in Washington, D. C. put out a call for applications for appointment to The Appraisal Standards Board—the body which sets the professional rules for the appraisal profession through writing and promulgating The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, known as USPAP. Bernard, believing that he had something to offer after thirty-six years as a fine art appraiser, applied. He thought this would be a good way to contribute to the development of a profession that has been good to him. After all, he hasn’t done much of that since he taught Valuation Law to appraisers at various universities and other venues. It was also about time that the membership of The Appraisal Standards Board included a personal property appraiser.

In time he was contacted by Appraisal Board member Elizabeth von Habsburg and a telephone interview was scheduled. That went very well and Bernard was invited to fly to Newport, Rhode Island for a face to face interview with the nominating committee. The Appraisal Foundation Board was meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Goat Island in the beautiful playground of robber barons and yachtsmen.

Apparently 106 appraisers had submitted applications and five were invited for the all-expenses paid week end so they could be available for fifteen minute interviews.

When the results were reported to the Board, Bernard was not one of those selected for one of the three openings on the Appraisal Standards Board. It turns out the three who were are old time insiders, two of whom had been on the board previously and the third was coming off the Board of Directors, but wanted to remain active..

Bernard refuses to feel rejected. He has been told repeatedly by Appraisal Foundation members that he is “the cream of the cream” and that if he’ll reapply next time there is an opening, he’ll almost certainly be selected. How nice it would be to go into the interview knowing what the questions will be, as the three successful applicants did.

Bernard, who was a week away from departure for Thailand, Cambodia, India and Dubai (and has since spent a month in Mexico and is about to leave for Ireland for a month) actually feels some relief. He has been saved from about forty hours of work a month for three years and has been selected by his peers as one of the best, if not one of the insiders.

ARTFUL DODGERS MOVING AHEAD

ARTFUL DODGERS IS MOVING AHEAD

Here we are at the end of a month in San Miguel de Alliende, Guanajuato, Mexico. It has been a month of rich rewards, lovely friendships, marvelous food, beautiful Spanish colonial city and towns, excursions into the campo and lots of hours spent working very hard on writing Artful Dodgers . It will be the first book to really reveal how the art market works.

Artful Dodgers will explain the fact that there are more than one art market and each works in different ways and is governed by different rules. It will explain the Six Myths That Drive The Art Market, look at the scams, swindles and con men (and women) who populate the market, and give shocking details about the games many people play. The book will also offer the first informed evaluation of the personal property appraisal profession ever. It's a pretty disappointing report, I'm afraid.

The book as a whole, however, is designed to provide an enormous amount of information. The response of many readers is expected to be the same as that which always greeted my columns in ART-talk magazine: "Bernard reveals and states a lot of stuff which I thought was probably true, but no one ever says out loud."

Artful Dodgers is being written in a very accessible and understandable style and there is a minimum of "art bull shit". It is a work of narrative non-fiction that I expect will get a lot of attention. Hopefully no death threats.

We now return to Santa Fe were I have a very heavily scheduled month of hard work before we
leave for a month in Ireland at the cottage in Donnegal where I shall continue work on the book in the hope that when I return it will be close to completion. The writing requires that I spend four to six hours a day at my computer, but is exciting and rewarding.

ALONE WITH DALI AND DUNCAN PART 5

Finally we are going to mount the stone steps within the Castel Gala Dali at Pubol, Catalonia, Spain. They lead us to the interior of the castle which Salvador Dali bought for his wife Gala so she could have a retreat--which he could visit by written invitation only. (see Alone With Dali and Duncan part 4)

The Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dali had arranged for my son Duncan and I to have exclusive after-hours visits to both the Teatro-Museo Salvador Dali in Figures and the Casa Dali home at Port Lligat near Cadaques. They had made no special arrangements for our visit to Castel Gala Dali and I was alone since Duncan was in the city of Gerona.

The experience of the Castle of Pubol aka Castel Gala Dali is a mixture of experiences. There is the obvious experience of the physical space, the architecture, the arrangement of rooms etc.

Then there are the surface decorations created by Salvador Dali and they are both decorative and fun. There is the set of rich blue drapes decorated with gold Fleurs-d-Li that flank a shuttered window and double stone window seat that break up one of the plastered walls in the Room Of The Escutcheons. The drapes were painted there by Dali, as is a doorway with open door showing part of the next room. The iron radiators were ripped out durring renovation because Dali thought them ugly. He then replaced them with iron radiators of the same design which he painted on the walls where the originals had been! He must have been having great fun.

The ceiling is painted with an elaborate vaulted double scene of the inside of a dome and the swallow-filled sky, and there are six coats of arms painted on the upper walls. Throughout the castle, these Dali-painted effects can be found. Doorways have painted stone quoining around them and there are other trompe-l'oeil effects.

By far, the most imposing of the Dali wall decorations is to be found over the entrance to the Piano Room. A full-length portrait of Gala appears to be either barring admission or asking the visitor if he is worthy to enter. Her countenance is somewhat severe and she is holding some sort of staff that appears to be a potential weapon. On second look, it becomes apparent that Gala is depiced as a cariatid holding up the corner of a carved stone and brick edifice. Oh, how allegorical.

The pissed-off looking portrait is a notice to all that beyond lie the private apartments of the woman herself. It was within that she entertained a series of beautiful young men, including Jeff Fenholdt, the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar. Neither Gala nor Salvador Dali ever expressed much interest in music and this room was used as a private living room and it was here that Dali spent most of his time when he visited.

A third level of experience at the castle is the furnishings--personal property that had belonged to Gala and Salvador Dali. How nice that Gala's dresses, furniture, bric-a-brack and personal items are displayed here where they lived instead of glass cases in a museum at a distance. It makes it so much easier to imagine the rather extraordinary personalities who walked these halls.

So many of the objects in Gala's apartments were familiar to me from photographs of the surreal couple, because they appear in Dali's paintings, or because I had seen hundreds of the Master's drawings and many were made of random objects around him.

Most people seemed to move through the castle in about thirty to fourty minutes. I needed two hours because in addition to seeing everything I could, I was also trying to feel the presence of Gala or Dali. I was no more successful than I had been at Casa Dali. It just didn't feel as if there was any part of those strong personalities still there. Perhaps next time (I have been back) with much more time.......

After leaving the castle, I again visited the grounds with their grotesque Dali sculptures and other surprises, then walked through the village of Pubol. It really is tiny and all those houses and other buildings really are connected to each other as if for defence. Some villagers were setting up tables in the small plaza and it appeared as if preparations were underway for a festival the next day. Too bad Duncan and I needed to return to Barcelona.

The castle and adjoining church and the conjoined village are all built of rather dark brown stone with little visually breaking up the hulking mass. In all directions, however, the beautiful countryside flows off across fields, streams and clumps of trees.

That is the last of my memories of my first, marvelous visit to Catalonia--Dali Country. It is exciting to see Dali paintings in everything one looks at around the district. Duncan kept pointing out the locations of Dali paintings and various features of the landscape which the Master used as material for his paintings and drawings. We also had great meals at Dali's favorite restaurant.

On my next visit to Catalonia, I was accompanied by my wife Melinda and, in addition to again visiting all three of the Dali locations, I met residents of Figures and Cadaques who knew Dali and shared with me their small collections of original drawings he had given them.

This was and is very important because the only way to develop connoisseurship in the works of an artist is to see a tremendous amount of his work. I really believe that through all of the experiences I have had over the past thirty years as a well-known Dali expert, that I have seen more original Dali artworks than anyone else.

THE ROAD TO PUBOL

THE ROAD TO PUBOL (ALONE WITH DALI AND DUNCAN, PART 4)

This is the fourth posting in the series recounting the trip my son Duncan and I made around Dalí country in Catalonia, Spain about seven years ago.

After our incredible and never-to-be-forgotten visit to Casa Dalí at Port Lligat and an exploration of Cap de Creuz and the surrounding mountains, I was ready for another adventure. Duncan needed some time off. One can only keep up with the Artpro-On-The-Go for so long. First we made the pilgrimage up exhilierating mountain roads to the other “roads”: San Per de Rhodes Monestary. This is the institution that created and exported all over Europe the Romanesque culture and style.

A gorgeous ruin now, it hangs on the side of a crag, on top of which is a ruined castle named San Salvador. Just down the ridge is a ruined abbey named Santa Helena. To Dalí, this was a tremendously significant place because it had the foundation of scholarship and culture and a castle named “Salvador” and an abbey named “Helena” in close proximity on top of a bare and wind-swept ridge. “Helena” was Gala Dalí’s actual name.

I was ready to be off on the search for the tiny village of Pubol and its castle which had been discovered by Salvador Dalí in 1968 (the year he finished the Teatro-Museo Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figures.) He had been promising Gala that he would buy her a castle as her personal retreat for thirty years. The first time he made the promise they were living in Northern Italy during the Spanish Civil War, which was closely followed by the Second World War, most of which they spent in the United States.

Can you imagine living with Salvador Dalí? Gala—an exceedingly strong and domineering woman—wanted a place of her own where Dalí could visit her by written invitation only. Whoa!

With Duncan chillin’, I set out through the labyrinth of farm roads that spider web the Plane of Ampurdam between Figures and Cadaques (and Port Lligat). I eventually was at the base of the slope on top of which was the silhouette of the village, castle and church of Pubol. They formed an almost solid stone mass because most of the buildings were connected to each other like a Southwestern Indian pueblo. (Yes, I know. “pueblo” is the word the Spanish use for tiny villages like Pubol)


Fields, vineyards and orchards flowed down the sloped below this towering, dark edifice. As I approached, I was fascinated to see the mass evolve into individual houses, stables, taverns and small plaza (but all connected). I think this place was built with consideration for defense.

Just above the village (a street’s width away) stood the conjoined church and Castle Gala Dalí. How nice, it was rather modest in its proportions, being basically a tower house, built without extensions for easier defense. No longer very fortress-like, it had served as a home to the Marquises of Blondel and the family now lived in Madrid. As a result, the castle was more of a “fixer-upper” than a great find.

Dalí bought it in 1970 and the restoration began. When it was completed, Dalí spent four months decorating the vestibule and various nooks of the castle. Everyone’s favorite story about that time was that Dalí was offended by the old iron radiators so he had them ripped out—and then painted radiators on the wall where they had stood! What a goof-ball. I think we would have liked each other (although there are many things about his character that I do not appreciate.)

The yard in front of the south-facing arched castle entrance is taken up with a maze of paths among high evergreen hedges arranged so that a visitor frequently turns a corner and is confronted by some very weird Dalí sculpture or construction. The fish pond is pretty wretched, but architecturally attractive.

Oh, incidentally, the exterior north wall of Gala’s castle faces the little plaza in front of the church and is joined at the corner to the church. Imbedded in it are three skulls.

Time to go in. The entrance is a low arch through what is called “The Persian Room” which includes a peep hole through which one can see into the basement—the former dungeon. And what to the wondering eye should appear but a 1976 Cadillac and a carriage that had been used by the previous proprietor. At one time it also housed Gala’s orange Datsun. (Didn’t know about that one, did you?)

The Cadillac de Ville was purchased in the United States in 1976 for $10,000. (Years later I would buy two 1976 Cadillac Sevilles. Beautiful small cars. One I got from my dear friend Marty Gordon, the legendary print dealer and publisher.)

The small court yard between the front wall and gate and the house proper has the feeling of being in a large stone well. The front of the house exhibits various decorative elements, but is dominated by the decorative stone staircase leading up to the front door which is surmounted by a carved coat of arms.

As an aside, I am reminded that later King Juan Carlos granted Salvador Dalí the title of Marquis of Pubol. Sort of like children playing kingdom in the living and dining rooms and one of them being designated Duke of the Red Chair.

The wonders that I found inside Gala’s Castle will be the subject of my next posting. Since I’m behind, I’ll try to get to it in a few days. I may be here to write, but I’m also on vacation.

ALONE WITH DALI AND DUNCAN PART 3

ALONE WITH DALI AND DUNCAN PART 3

While we waited to enter the Casa-Museu Salvador Dali at Port Lligat, we walked over to look at the doors on the Clock Hut which now serves as the coatroom for the main attraction. Dali asked the fishermen for years to finish off the paint and dry their brushes after they painted their boats. The doors are thus painted with many shades in what Dali called "the best abstract pictures in the history of painting."

As we climbed the stairs to the front door and entered "The Hall Of The Bear" (dominated by a stuffed polar bear), we again glanced out over the island-choked bay. There lay one of the artist's greatest inspirations. Later. looking out the windows facing the bay in the Bedroom, The Bird Room, The Yellow Room and, of course, the studio we were struck with the fact that every window serves as a living Salvador Dali painting. Each is so beautiful.

For me the greatest rewards came in the studio where I could see up close (but not touch) the brushes, paints, and paraphernalia. I learned so much in that room and only briefly thought about how much one of the hundreds of brushes or one of the palettes hanging on the wall would add to my collection in Santa Fe.

I think Duncan liked the pool-side terrace most. There they were, the famous penis-shaped swimming pool, a Mae West lips couch in painted cement, the Firelli tire signs, and all the other decorations that are so familiar from numerous post-1968 photographs. So much to see. So much to discover. So much to point out to each other. When I took my wife Melinda a couple of years later I could barely restrain my anxiousness to show her things. As always, she was patient with my enthusiasm.

As with the Teatro-Museu in Figures, we were completely alone. When the caretaker left, she instructed us to push a wall-mounted door bell when we were ready to be let out. For a couple of hours we explored the multi-layer house and tried to figure out the nine stages by which it had grown and expanded up the hill absorbing one fisherman's cottage after another.

We took pictures of each other in various locations (but stayed off the bed) and identified objects we knew from our research.

For instance, in The Yellow Room was a lumpy plaster globe with a clock and various nails and screws pressed into the plaster when it was wet. "That," I told Duncan, "is a bomb. It contains nails and screws and when Dali set a similar bomb off inside a box made of six zinc printing plates, the plates were marred in ways that Dali enjoyed turning into printable images."

I was disappointed, however, that the Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dali--who owns the house museum and arranged our solitary visit--had removed all of the Master's books. They, like the paint brushes and paper, would have carried much information for me.

After seeing hundreds of photographs of Salvador, Gala, the Reynolds Morses, Giuseppe and Mara Albaretto, Pierre Argillet, the Tibetan monks, hippies and a great many other visitors, I was a bit surprised not to feel the presence of any of those personalities. The place was stuffed with objects that I associate with the painter, but it didn't feel as if he had been around for a very long time. He seemed even more remote on my next visit when small groups of people were being toured though the house.

There are a great many fantastic things to see and visitors seem always to enjoy themselves. One of the favorites is the dovecote, a plastered and white-washed tower which Dali designed and decorated with wooden Catalan grape forks that stick out on all sides to serve as perches for the doves. The forks are carved from young trees that are trained to grow in the appropriate shape for long-handled implements that are used in the vinyards to life the low-growing grapes off the ground.

Near the barbecue is found a telephone booth. It was one of the first in Spain and Dali like to provide it for his guests to make calls. I can only immagine what it was like stringing those first wires over the ridge from Cadaques and down across the stone terraces. If not burried, the wires would become goat snacks.

Another favorite of mine was the half-dozen six-legged chairs that sat around the terrace. I was told by one of Dali's old friends who generously shared his private collection with me (as did several others) that his father had built them for their painter friend who liked to lean back in a straight chair and was known to sometimes tumble over backwards. That's why two additional legs had been added at an angle at the back so the chair would lean securely back on them.

The Foundation has made an enormous amount of money from admissions to the Teatro-Museu, the Casa-Museu Salvador Dali (the house) and the Castell Gala Dali at Pubol. The last is the castle that Salvador bought Gala so she would have her dream of a retreat from him where he would be summoned by written invitation only.

My visit to Gala's hidaway is the subject of the next posting. See you then.