December 23, 2011

 

Edvard Munch in Vienna - The Art Newspaper, December 15, 2011

 

Forensic evidence plays an important role not only in courts of law but also in many other aspects of life and culture.  It now occupies a significant part in the process of attributing a work of art to the hand that created it.

It was an exciting and rewarding experience to work on the “Two Children on a Beach” painting fingerprint evidence where the proposed artist was no less than Edvard Munch.

Edvard Munch, Two Children on a Beach, oil on canvas, 90 x 100 cm.
Håkon Mehren Collection, Norway

 

In this project over a hundred paintings were examined at the Munch Museum in Oslo searching for fingerprints that could be compared to one left in wet paint on a painting owned by Norwegian collector Håkon Mehren.
I discovered many prints impressed into paint as well as on drawings, paint brushes, tubes of paint, etc., in the collection of the Munch museum.

But, in the end the comparison I made was between two prints photographed by Norwegian police experts. The fingerprints were from a Munch in the Oslo museum and the one in the Mehren painting.

Sadly, I never got to see “Two Children on a Beach” painting in person. It is currently exhibited in the Leopold Museum in Vienna as ‘by’ Edward Munch and was reviewed by Clemens Bomsdorf of The Art Newspaper in the December 15, 2011 online edition.

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Disputed-Munch-at-Leopold-Museum/25201

Bomsdorf writes: “Franz Smola, a curator at the Leopold Museum, shares Mehren’s confidence that the painting is by Munch. Smola confirms that when first shown in “Edvard Munch and the Uncanny” at the Leopold in 2009, it was only said to be “attributed to Munch”. The curator explained that since then a new analysis has been done “where fingerprints were examined”. This, he says, confirmed the thesis that it is a “real Munch”. Smola was referring to an analysis carried out by Peter Paul Biro, a Canadian art expert who runs Forensic Studies in Art.”

I am very pleased to see that connoisseurship remains a broad-minded practice where science, art and history meet.

 

November 21, 2011

 

Teri's Find -The Unfinished Story ?

The background: Read "Teri's Find - A Forensic Study in Art Authentication" here

 

The American artist Nicolas Carone was one of Jackson Pollock's closest friends. Historians referred to Carone as a primary source and foremost authority on the subject of Jackson Pollock. He was interviewed by authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith for their biography, "Jackson Pollock: An American Saga", which was later used as the basis for the 2000 film, "Pollock", starring Ed Harris.

In 2005, Carone was brought in by film director Harry Moses as an expert to physically inspect and verify whether the Horton painting was an authentic Jackson Pollock. In the film, "Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock", Carone said he could not determine one way or the other.

However, in a November, 2006 recorded interview, the then 89-year old Carone admitted he was less than forthcoming in the film because of outside influences. "I was worried. I worried. I was advised not to tell that it is or it isn't." Listen to audio: segment1

He also said the film's comparison to Pollock's No. 5 1948, owned by David Geffen, particularly worried him. "In Teri's film, when they spliced the painting from Geffen and they showed with hers, it looked exactly the same. That made me worry," said Carone.

When asked in what way, he said: "In a way that it could have been a spliced painting." He described why he thought Teri's piece was spliced. "You know how you turn the painting, like this, the canvas, you turn it around. All this on the side is still a continuation of the painting, and it's cut there. This part is cut. There's none of that. I think that that painting was cut from some other painting. It's cut." When asked to clarify if he meant as if Pollock had cut it there, he replied, "Yes." Listen to audio: segment2

He suggested the previous offer for Teri Horton's painting of nine million dollars was too low: "I think the Teri painting will go for more than nine million." Listen to audio: segment3

Sadly, Carone passed away in July, 2010. But in a 2011 interview, Carone's twin sons, Claude and Christian, confirmed that their father was advised to keep his true, personal opinion to himself in order to "play it safe", and avoid unwanted attention. Christian Carone said it was his doing.

Both sons confirmed that their father, Nicolas Carone, told them that Teri Horton's painting was a real Jackson Pollock.

Claude Carone: "He told me that he thought it was real."
Christian Carone: "He thought it was real, and I told him I think it's real."

A fascinating revelation indeed. But Horton's story may not end there. In a book by Deborah Solomon: Jackson Pollock: A Biography (Cooper Square Press, 2001, ISBN: 0815411820), the author interviews Pollock's widow Lee Krasner who tells the story of Pollock's No. 5. That story is told a number of times by different sources among them Pollock's dealer, Peggy Guggenheim. Apparently, No. 5 was sold and delivered to Alfonso Ossorio damaged who then wished to have it repaired. Ossorio apparently drove the four by eight foot painting to Pollock's home.

But there are conflicting stories of that account. As told by Guggenheim and the Thaw - O'Connor Catalogue Raisonne, Pollock repaired the painting and returned it.

Solomon's interview with Lee Krasner tells a very different story. It states much the same event, but describes the painting as a 'red painting' and as a 'canvas'. But, the No. 5 we know today (previously owned by SI Newhouse and later by David Geffen) is described everywhere as a painting on fiberboard and when examining it, it cannot be described as 'red'.

Krasner stated it was returned because of a 'scab' of paint sliding across it, distorting the canvas. But can a scab of paint distort a solid fiberboard? Clearly, Krasner's account of No. 5 being a canvas is correct. Ossorio purchased it from Pollock for a then record price of $1,500. But where is the canvas No. 5 now?

According to Krasner, Pollock created an entirely new painting. "She screamed: Ossorio's painting no longer existed."

But, let us backtrack to Carone's words about the Horton canvas: He said it was "spliced...cut from another painting." And when Carone saw the montage of the Geffen No. 5 and the Horton canvas in the documentary, he said: "That made me worry."  It was like one painting, "when they spliced the painting from Geffen and they showed with hers...it looked exactly the same." Is Carone suggesting that the Horton painting is the canvas No. 5 and Pollock just cut off the offending part?

Indeed, the Horton canvas is cut from a previously larger canvas. Edge to edge, including the stretched and folded parts the painting is approximately 70 3/4 x 51 inches. The stretched work measures 66 ¾ x 47 5/8 inches.

According to her book, Solomon was given unrestricted access by Lee Krasner to Pollock's papers, and Eugene Thaw, coauthor of the Pollock Catalogue Raisonne, gave Solomon permission to quote from those papers.
No. 5 is a 4 x 8 foot painting on fiberboard and not a painting that can be described as 'red' or on canvas. In 2007, No. 5 was rumored to have been sold by David Geffen for a disclosed record price of 140 million.

The undisclosed purchaser's identity, and No. 5’s whereabouts, however, remain unknown.

Has the canvas No. 5 fallen off the edge of the earth or perhaps ended up in a California thrift shop? The close friend and painter colleague Nicolas Carone's words from the grave, together with the confirmation of his unambiguous and adamant statements by his two sons, bring a relief and a sense of finality to Horton's saga. It is my personal hope that Horton's Untitled 1948 painting will see the day when it is repatriated into American artistic and cultural heritage.