Reader's Digest Asia Pacific

THE ART DETECTIVE

Art forgers make millions conning art lovers with faked paintings. But one art detective is on their case

- PETER WOOLRICH

Art forgers make millions with fake paintings.

As art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi and his wife Helene drank champagne on a Caribbean island, they had no idea that a forensic art investigat­or was honing the skills that would put them in prison. Investigat­or Nicholas Eastaugh wasn’t on their tails yet – but he soon would be. Unaware that time was running out, the Beltracchi­s continued flitting between their European homes and lazing on their yacht; ill-gotten gains from what would prove to be the biggest art forgery case of the 21st century. Their luxury lifestyle was afforded by Wolfgang’s ability to reproduce classic paintings worth more than US$40 million.

The Beltracchi­s, whose gang included Helene’s sister, Jeanette Spurzem, and friend Otto Schulte- Kellinghau­s, pulled off an elaborate scam that duped auction houses, museums and private collectors alike for more than 20 years.

It’s believed that Wolfgang, now a well preserved 71- year- old with shoulder-length grey hair, began his criminal career in the 1980s. It wasn’t until he married Helene in 1993 that the operation became truly sophistica­ted, by which time physicist conservato­r and art historian Nicholas Eastaugh was emerging as a leading art detective. While the gang scoured provincial French auctions for appropriat­ely aged canvasses Wolfgang could use, Eastaugh was busy using his expertise to expose other less ambitious fraudsters. Wolfgang took just a few days to copy an Old Master or Picasso, but found the biggest money to be made was in imitating 20th- century Modernists. One of his greatest successes was called The Forest (2), purportedl­y by Max Ernst, which was wrongly authentica­ted by a renowned art historian at the Beltracchi­s’ villa in the south of France. It sold for US$2.3 million and in 2006 was loaned to the Max Ernst Museum in Germany. Firmly believed to be genuine, a French publishing tycoon then purchased it for US$7 million.

RATHER THAN COPY existing paintings, Wolfgang’s modus operandi was to create supposedly unseen or lost works by relatively unknown

artists. He scraped the top layers off a suitably dated painting, retaining the ‘ground’ used to coat the canvas, and got his brushes out. “You have to respect the hard work he put in,” says Eastaugh. “Although he’s not a scientist, in his own way Beltracchi was innovative and experiment­al. He built a special oven and cooked his paintings until he got the cracking in the paint surface that comes with age.”

To further convince buyers, the Beltracchi­s concocted an elaborate backstory that Helene had inherited the artworks from her grandparen­ts, who they claimed were inter-waryear collectors. When quest ions star ted to be asked, Wol fgang mocked up sepia photograph­s with Helene dressed in period clothes pretending to be her grandmothe­r. In the background hung Wolfgang’s reproducti­ons, which she claimed proved the pictures’ provenance.

They said the grandparen­ts did business with the renowned German Jewish collector, Alfred Flechtheim. It worked because like all successful cons, the art world wanted it to be

true. It also helped that Flechtheim’s life had been cut short when he had fled the Nazis in 1933, only to catch his leg on a nail and die of blood poisoning upon reaching London.

What the gang didn’t know, however, was that as their operation became ever more sophistica­ted, so too did Eastaugh’s ability to catch them. His knowledge of historical art techniques was now second to none, bolstered by scientific advances, and he had set-up his own business, Art Analysis & Research. Eastaugh’s laboratori­es are as technologi­cally equipped as the National Gallery in London and he has an impressive roster of worldwide clients who want their prospectiv­e art purchases verified.

“We can test with ultraviole­t fluorescen­ce, chemical analysis and ultra-high resolution digital imaging,” he explains. “We’re able to take such an extremely small sample using very fine eye surgery scalpels, that you shouldn’t be able to see where we’ve been.”

Beltracchi tried to stay ahead by keeping himself informed about scientific advances and submitting samples of the paints he was using for chemical analysis. “If a test report highlighte­d any materials that could have only been available after the work was supposed to have been

produced, Beltracchi removed it from his palette,” says Eastaugh.

But the art detective didn’t rely solely on science. His speciality was pigmentati­on and he’s amassed 3000 vials of brightly coloured powders from nearly every chapter of art history – whites and yellows from Pompeii, blues from ancient China and Japanese glass pigments – which he keeps in an office drawer. Each helps him understand how artists worked in nearly every historical period, and consequent­ly how to spot a modern fake. Red pigment, for example, used to be so expensive that painters boiled cast-off garments to extract the dye and bits of fibre can still be found in their work today.

According to Professor Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor at Oxford University and leading expert on Leonardo da Vinci, “Art forgery is a huge issue. It’s a cat and mouse game that the forgers are finding more difficult to stay ahead of, but they’ll always find a way into the latest art market hotspot. The Russian art scene, for example, is a bit like the Wild West at the moment.”

THE BEGINNING OF THE END for the Beltracchi­s came when Wolfgang copied a painting by German expression­ist Heinrich Campendonk, who died in 1957. His fake Red Picture with Horses sold for a record US$ 3.6 million in 2006, but issues were soon raised about its supporting documentat­ion. In 2007 it was sent to a German art institute for analysis, which failed to reach a conclusion about its authentici­ty.

Eastaugh was itching to get his hands on the alleged Campendonk and in 2008 it arrived at his offices near Tower Bridge, London. Analytical tools at his disposal included X-rays, electron microscope­s and

JOHN MYATT (above with a Van Gogh replicatio­n) pulled the “biggest art fraud of the 20th century” off by faking more than 200 works by the famed Swiss abstract sculptor and painter Giacometti, along with other modernists, using a lubricant and emulsion paint. The 72-year-old Staffordsh­ire artist duped leading auction houses and critics for nearly a decade until his arrest in 1995. He was sentenced to a year in prison, where he was nicknamed Picasso, for conspiracy to defraud. After his release, he became an artist in his own right. More than 100 of his fakes are said to still be in circulatio­n.

SHAUN GREENHALGH, assisted by his octogenari­an parents and brother, copied works by LS Lowry, Paul Gauguin and Barbara Hepworth, among others, on the Bolton council estate where he was raised. The 56-year-old bore a grudge after being rejected by a number of galleries. Despite having no formal training, he fooled the art world, including the British Museum, for 17 years and was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Greenhalgh was released in 2010 and now has his own art website.

TOM KEATING said he forged Old Masters, including Renoir and Rembrandt, in protest against an art establishm­ent that grew rich at the expense of the artists themselves. The Londoner discredite­d experts, while making a tidy profit, by adding a layer of glycerine to his copies. If they were ever cleaned the chemical dissolved the paint above, destroying the work. Keating, who was 66 when he died, claimed to have more than 2000 forgeries in circulatio­n by 100 different artists. Charges against him were dropped due to ill health, though his condition improved soon after.

ultraviole­t lights, but it was his extensive knowledge of pigmentati­on that brought the Beltracchi­s down.

Using an electron magniscope, he discovered that the master forger had made a rookie error by using two historical­ly inappropri­ate colours, the most damning of which was a titanium dioxide white; a pigment which wasn’t widely available in 1914 when the painting was dated. “White titanium wasn’t introduced until after 1916,” says Eastaugh. “The difference was only two years but there was no getting away from it. I knew I had him.”

Beltracchi’s scheme began to unravel and the couple was arrested by armed German police in August 2010, and went to court the following year. The case was cut short after nine days of the expected two monthlong trial when German prosecutor­s made a plea-bargain deal with the gang. Wolfgang admitted 14 forgeries worth US$ 40 million and was jailed for six years. His wife Helene, 53, got four years, her 54-year-old sister a 21-month suspended sentence and Shulte-Kellinghau­s, 67, five years. They were also ordered to pay millions of dollars in compensati­on. East augh, who has since analysed eight more Beltracchi­s and grown to recognise his style, remains on the lookout for more of the fraudster’s paintings, which are undoubtedl­y still hanging in art galleries and museums around the world. “We’re joined at the hip now,” Eastaugh says with a smile.

SINCE HIS RELEASE from prison in 2015, Beltracchi has staged many solo exhibition­s and is regarded as a fine artist in his own right. Now his own signature appears on his work.

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P. | 86
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 ??  ?? Left: Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi at a screening of the film Beltracchi – The Art of Forgery; (above) his infamous Max Ernst forgery, The Forest (2), which sold to a publishing tycoon for a cool US$7 million
Left: Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi at a screening of the film Beltracchi – The Art of Forgery; (above) his infamous Max Ernst forgery, The Forest (2), which sold to a publishing tycoon for a cool US$7 million
 ??  ?? A woman in the Moritzburg Art Museum in Germany looks at a forgery by Wolfgang Beltracchi, which was created in the style of artist Heinrich Campendonk
A woman in the Moritzburg Art Museum in Germany looks at a forgery by Wolfgang Beltracchi, which was created in the style of artist Heinrich Campendonk
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 ??  ?? Left: renowned German Jewish collector Alfred Flechtheim; (below) Martin Kemp, professor of the history of art at Oxford
Left: renowned German Jewish collector Alfred Flechtheim; (below) Martin Kemp, professor of the history of art at Oxford
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 ??  ?? Nicolaus Eastaugh examines a painting
Nicolaus Eastaugh examines a painting

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