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.

Tsodilo

Michael and I have just emerged from a torrid several weeks of responding to our UK editor’s suggestions for the third Detective Kubu mystery, Death of the Mantis.  The suggestions were excellent and have improved the book.  Of course, there was a short deadline because she wants to bring the South African edition out in May.

Death of the Mantis has as its back story the plight of the bushmen in the Kalahari.  However I’m not going to discuss that in this blog – perhaps later, after the current set of lawsuits has run its course. 

In our book we have created a fictitious place in the middle of the Kalahari, which we call The Place.  It is revered by Bushmen, who regard it as the most important religious and cultural site in their world.  In the real world, there is a similar place in the Kalahari, that the Bushmen regard as the birthplace of Mankind. 

The Male hill

It is called Tsodilo, and comprises four hills that rise abruptly out of the desert in northwest Botswana.  The largest hill is called The Male by the Bushmen.  It is the highest point in Botswana at 1,400 metres above sea level, rising 410 metres above the surrounding desert.  Then there is The Female; then The Child.  The fourth hill has no name, although it is thought to be the Male’s first wife, whom he left for the taller Female. 

The Female hill

The Tsodilo hills area was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001.  The preservation is only 10 sq. km in extent (about 3.6 sq. miles).

There are probably two reasons for this proclamation.  First it has seen human habitation for 100,000 years.  The original inhabitants were probably the Bushmen, who are generally acknowledged as being the First People of the Kalahari.  There have also been a number of Black tribes, such as the Hambukushu, who have lived in and around the hills.  All of them regard the hills as sacred.

The Bushmen believe that the gods made mankind at Tsodilo.  They point to the knee-like impressions on The Male – the most sacred of all places - where the First Spirit knelt and prayed after creating men and women.  They believe that their ancestors and gods live in the caves and overhangs of The Female.  Similarly, the Hambukushu believe that their tribe and its livestock were put on earth at Tsodilo by their god, Nwambe.  They point to the hoof prints in rock on The Female in support of their belief.

The second reason for the proclamation of Tsodilo as a World Heritage Site is the stunning rock paintings – over 4500 in all.  Although I have not been able to find consensus as to their age, guestimates range from the oldest being 20,000 years old to being 2,000 years old.  It is probably one of the two or three richest sites on the planet for such art.

It is not only the number of paintings that is remarkable, but they frequently are of a different style than other sites, the nearest of which is 250 kms away.  When I went there, the most stunning painting I saw was that of two whales next to a penguin.  One whale is spouting.  The nearest ocean, the Atlantic off Namibia, must be 1000 kms away, across some of the most inhospitable and demanding terrain.

A penguin and two whales

The older paintings are in red, and the later ones sometimes in white – an unusual colour for rock art.  The red ones are made from red ochre extracted from hematite, which is plentiful in the area.

A common image at Tsodilo is of men with semi-erect penises.  I have read, but not verified, that it is typical of Bushman men to have a semi-erect penis as their everyday lives.  Some people think that the figure paintings represent a trance dance, which results in an altered state of consciousness in which, the Bushmen believe, the dancer can heal the sick and control the natural and supernatural.  The dancer can also communicate with the ancestors.

Bushmen with semi-erect penises

The highly controversial Laurens van der Post visited Tsodilo (The Lost World of the Kalahari).  In it he tells of when his party ignored the advice of his Bushman guide and killed a warthog and steenbok in sight of Tsodilo, which upset the spirits of the hills.  When they reached the hills, a camera inexplicably kept jamming, tape recorders stopped, and the party was attacked by bees.  These things only came to an end when Van der Post buried a written apology to the spirits below one of the spectacular rock faces.

I know Tsodilo is far off the normal tourist routes, but it is one of the special places on earth.  It is intensely spiritual, as well as providing a fascinating glimpse into the past.  If you visit southern Africa, I recommend that you put it on your itinerary.

Stan - Thursday