Modigliani real or faux?

Paintings by Modigliani are some of the most copied and faked paintings today in the world.

Even good fakes like the one above flood the market. The first is an original.

Modigliani painted in ateliers in Paris, like this one, which he shared with Brancusi. At the time they shivered in this cold studio, exchanged paintings for food in the local restos.

Here's his last atelier where he lived until a few days before his end; suffering from advanced tuberculosis, broke, without food or heat and with Jeanne eight months pregnant with his second child. Vacant for years but today the remodelled studio is still owned by a family descendent of Modigliani's landlord.
And a block away is La Rotonde his favorite haunt.
But after his death the legacy grew. So too has the job of authenticating his paintings.
Some researchers claim they received death threats and two have abandoned work on monographs. Nothing is helped by a plethora of fakes on the market and bitter quarrels between the experts.
La fée vert, the green fairy, as they called Absinthe. Actually this is faux absinthe.
Even Lenin frequented the café, Trotsky and Modiglianio and Picasso snapped by Cocteau.
On his route back to the atelier, day or night, he passed the statue of Balzac.
to 8 rue de la Grande Chaumiére


Why is Modigliani targeted? The tuburcular artist--who died at the age of just 36 in 1920--led a classic Bohemian lifestyle, constantly moving from atelier to atelier and handing out drawings to pay his debts. After death he became a myth.
And this left a historical and documentary void, an open invitation to forgers, particularly as his drawings--often consisting of just a few lines--are easy to copy. In the '50s, '60s and '70s the notorious faker Elmyr de Hory was knocking out "Modiglianis" in the U.S., and they and forgeries from other sources continue to infest the market.

Marc Restallini, a Modigliani scholar who runs a private museum, reported seeing over 100, from pastiches to excellent forgeries of Modigliani drawings. He compared the amount of Modigliani fakes to Corot fakes which says a lot since Corot is the heavyweight champion of forgeries. Another Modigliani expert, Christian Parisot, a bitter foe of Restillini, but a friend of the artist's only surviving daughter Jeanne,(named after her mother) claims, "I have seen 50 or 60 people who brought me these things." He founded the Modigliani Committee claiming provenance from his daughter.
Also raising the stakes for forgers and experts are the huge prices commanded by Modigliani's works--over $11 million for a painting and over $500,000 for a drawing.Into this mix comes another problem, a range of monographs which could be likened to the gold bar of reference - citing historical provenance to authenticate the art. There are no less than five different reference works on the artist. The most respected is that by Ambrogio Ceroni, whose 1958, 1970 and 1972 tomes remain the only reliable works, according to leading dealers and auction houses.
Enter the Wildenstein Institute, which asked Restellini to prepare the definitive monograph, both for drawings and paintings. This opened a can of worms given Wildenstein's huge clout in the marketplace: Not being included in the catalogue raisonné was the kiss of death for a piece. Later Restellini abandoned his catalogue work on Modigliani drawings after death threats and attempts to bribe his parents. There is a rather different version of this story from Christian Parisot, who once worked with Mr. Restellini. In 2000, two owners of Modigliani drawings took Wildenstein to court in France because Mr. Restellini had rejected the works for his drawings catalogue. Wildenstein lost and was ordered to include them; Mr. Restellini then abandoned his work. This, claims Mr. Parisot, is the real reason for his withdrawal.
Dealers and auction houses fell back on the Ceroni catalogues, even though they are known to contain some omissions. A major Italian dealer has said that authenticating Modigliani is "worse than gambling in Las Vegas," with what appeared a sure bet a few years ago becoming obsolete today.
Modigliani lived mostly in Paris for ten years, sculpted and painted and had only one gallery show in his career which was almost shut down for an 'indecent' nude painting. Jeanne, eight months pregnant with his second child, committed suicide the day after his death. Hours after Modigliani died in the charity hospital the gallery owners started selling his work. The sad irony is that none of his work was owned by his family. No proceeds of the millions paid for Modigliani's paintings were ever given to Jeanne, his surviving daughter who died, like her father broke.
Cara - Tuesday

Whoops, I meant to thank Georgina Adam for a piece she wrote a few years back on the subject that inspired me to go forward with this piece.