Man Ray fakes on sale in ‘Wild West’ market

SOPHISTICATED fakes of photographic prints by Man Ray, the pioneering 20thcentury photographer, painter and filmmaker, are circulating a “Wild West” market, according to a leading specialist.

While the artist’s prices have reached the millions, Steven Manford, a Man Ray expert, is warning that the problem of Man Ray fakes is “wrongly” thought to have been resolved in the Nineties: “Nothing could be further from the truth. Many works in circulation are sophisticated creations, detectable only with bona fide connoisseurship and scrupulous research.”

For the last 20 years, he has “regularly encountered fakes”. “Some were sold by dealers, some sold at auction. More than a few are in important museums, others are in private collections.”

He warns that, while some fraudulent photographs are being created from digital files rather than negatives, the potential of new technology points to “unimagined” future problems – “especially for a generation that, for the most part, no longer knows what a darkroom is”.

His findings are published in the latest journal of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), which conducts impartial research with a global network of eminent scholars.

Man Ray’s photographic masterpieces include Noire et Blanche (1926), a dramatic juxtaposition of the face of the singer and model Kiki de

‘Many works are sophisticated creations, detectable only with research’

Montparnasse against an African mask. In 2017, Christie’s Paris sold a print of it for €2.7million (£2.3million), breaking the world record for a classic photograph.

Noting sales of photographs without any paper trail, bills of sale or verifiable provenance, he criticises the absence of a more rigorous authentication process: “Within the art market, the demand for authentication research of photos remains limited. The photo market remains the Wild West.”