Real or fake, the art business didn’t care
As Tony Tetro discovered, there was a fortune in forging art. Until, that is, he was caught…
JAPANESE artist Hiro Yamagata was strolling through beverly Hills one summer day in 1988 when he spotted some of his own paintings in a gallery window. Yamagata was surprised to see them because he had an exclusive contract with a gallery nearby. Taking a closer look, he spotted the problem. ‘I did not paint those paintings!’ he yelled in fury.
With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps the fakes shouldn’t have been displayed quite so close to the artist’s official outlet. It was a mistake which ended the lucrative career of Tony Tetro, described after his arrest as ‘the largest forger of artworks in the United States’.
nobody likes a conman. Yet we seem to make an exception for art forgers. Remember Tom Keating, the so-called ‘loveable rogue’ whose fakes became collectors’ items in the 1970s and 1980s?
Perhaps we secretly admire somebody who pricks the pretensions of the art world.
Or perhaps we’re impressed by the forger’s undoubted skill and hard work.
Tetro was a largely self-taught artist who turned out convincing fakes on an industrial scale. He enjoyed such a lavish lifestyle on the proceeds — a Rolls- Royce, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a month in Monaco every summer — that even friends thought he was a drug dealer.
He began copying in a small way, just to learn the techniques of the great masters. During the day he sold furniture at a department store. In the evening, he copied Rembrandts and Monets on his kitchen table.
It was when he read a book about a Hungarian forger called elmyr de Hory that he decided: ‘ I could do this’.
at first, Tetro wasn’t cut out for a life of crime. He managed to sell a fake Chagall drawing to an La gallery for $200, but — stricken by guilt — he went back and confessed.
His second attempt was equally unsuccessful. He approached an auction house with what he claimed was an unknown drawing by Modigliani: supposedly an early sketch of a well-known nude by the Italian painter.
The head of the auction house paid $1,600, but discovered by chance (from Tetro’s first victim) that it was a forgery. The auctioneer was furious, but immediately signed up Tetro to produce a string of fakes for his business.
He also painted two Picassos and offered them to an La gallery, who knew they were fakes. Two weeks later he received a cheque for $150,000.
It seems that art dealers back then didn’t care very much whether a work was genuine — as long as it sold. ‘Real or fake, the art business rolled on,’ says Tetro. ‘It simply didn’t matter to anybody.’
Some of his fakes went on show in the most surprising places. One client was James Stunt — the former husband of Petra, daughter of F1 tycoon bernie ecclestone — who owned Tetro fakes of Picasso, Monet, Dali, Chagall, Degas, Caravaggio, van gogh and Rembrandt.
He even lent some of these paintings to Prince Charles, as he then was, for display at Dumfries House.
Fearing trouble, Tetro flew to London and gave an interview to the Mail on Sunday, admitting he had painted all these works, but as decoration for his client’s home. Stunt later apologised to the Prince of Wales.
This book is not only an account of Tetro’s forging career, but also features tips on how to paint like the great masters. Chagall worked with a limited range of pigments. Picasso used house paint. Dali applied paint so thinly that you can see the texture of the canvas underneath.
For his first Caravaggio, he consulted a Renaissance expert at the University of California, pretending to be researching for a book.
From this meeting, he discovered that two portraits had been lost during the napoleonic wars. He then travelled to Rome to find the right canvas and pigments.
His Caravaggio took four weeks to paint. all he had to do then was make it look nearly 500 years old.
apparently the best way to do this is to leave the painting overnight in an industrial pizza oven at 140C. after that, he applied a wash of distilled water and cigarette butts, mixed with dust and pollen.
Do not try this at home, by the way. advances in technology have made art forgery much more difficult — Tetro concedes that many of his forgeries would now be impossible to sell.
Carbon dating, spectroscopy and Dna testing can not only date materials, but can also reveal the origins of pigments and inks.
THE end came in 1989 when the gallery owner involved in the fake Yamagata deal called at Tetro’s flat. The two men chatted, the gallery owner handed over $8,000 Tetro was owed, and then left.
He was barely out of there when the police arrived. The gallery owner had been wired for sound.
Officers raided Tetro’s flat, but missed his secret room, concealed behind a mirror and opened by mobile phone signal, where he kept anything incriminating.
at his trial, the jury failed to agree, and he was cleared of 67 counts of forgery.
That wasn’t the end, though. a friend, facing prison for drunken driving, told the police everything he knew about Tetro in return for clemency.
With no money left for a defence, he admitted the offences and was ordered to report to a day-release centre for a year. With time off for good behaviour, he served nine months.
It’s probably just as well that he didn’t pursue a sideline he was developing with a friendly printer: faking dollar bills.
What next for Tetro? ‘ In my remaining years,’ he says, ‘I’d like to try my hand at fine watches.’
So if a genial american offers you a second-hand Rolex, examine it very closely indeed.