Salvador Dalí's Legacy in the Battle Against Fake Art
Via The Hustle
The Story
Salvador Dali is widely regarded as the most forged artist in history, with counterfeits so plentiful that fake prints have vastly outnumbered genuine works in circulation.
Much of the problem grew from a strategy Dali developed with his wife Gala, signing thousands of blank sheets of paper in advance, reportedly at a rate of one every two seconds for an hour, before any image was printed on them.
That flood of blank signed paper let dealers churn out fraudulent lithographs and etchings, and galleries such as Center Art Galleries in Honolulu bought counterfeit prints for about 135 dollars and resold them for 1,000 to 21,000 dollars though their true worth was closer to 25 to 50 dollars.
Federal investigations by the FTC and Postal Inspection Service produced convictions, including gallery owner William Mett for selling roughly 113 million dollars of fake Dali art and authorized publisher Leon Amiel, blamed for 80 to 90 percent of the fakes sold in the United States.
A 1991 raid on the Amiel operation seized about 75,000 prints, some 50,000 of them counterfeit Dalis, and appraiser Bernard Ewell found that more than half of the roughly 58,000 Dali attributed works he examined over four decades were fake.
The deluge left the market for authentic Dali prints depressed at around 4,000 to 6,000 dollars, showing how a famous name can become more commercially valuable, and more exploitable, than the art itself.
Much of the problem grew from a strategy Dali developed with his wife Gala, signing thousands of blank sheets of paper in advance, reportedly at a rate of one every two seconds for an hour, before any image was printed on them.
That flood of blank signed paper let dealers churn out fraudulent lithographs and etchings, and galleries such as Center Art Galleries in Honolulu bought counterfeit prints for about 135 dollars and resold them for 1,000 to 21,000 dollars though their true worth was closer to 25 to 50 dollars.
Federal investigations by the FTC and Postal Inspection Service produced convictions, including gallery owner William Mett for selling roughly 113 million dollars of fake Dali art and authorized publisher Leon Amiel, blamed for 80 to 90 percent of the fakes sold in the United States.
A 1991 raid on the Amiel operation seized about 75,000 prints, some 50,000 of them counterfeit Dalis, and appraiser Bernard Ewell found that more than half of the roughly 58,000 Dali attributed works he examined over four decades were fake.
The deluge left the market for authentic Dali prints depressed at around 4,000 to 6,000 dollars, showing how a famous name can become more commercially valuable, and more exploitable, than the art itself.
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