Statistikhengst
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An associate of mine invited me to a Sunday morning film at the local "arts" cinema and we saw a film that was -essentially- a documentary about Wolfgang Beltracchi (born Wolfgang Fischer), probably the greatest art forger there ever was.
The film is in German, but long stretches of it are in French and English as well.
It is a documentary in which he and his wife personally appear, during a three day vacation where they are let out of their respective jails (
) to make the film. They were a forgery team, but in a way that needs some pretty heavy explaining. Both are serving time for their crime, but get to go work in his Atelier by day - because, I believe, of a deal he struck with the police in order to help them catch other forgers who are less criminal that he was.How did he make forgeries of very, very expensive art?
First, he did not make copies of well known pieces of Art at all. He did something completely different:
1.) He concentrated himself on artists of the pre-WWI period through the 1920s, studied their works, went through catalogues to find work titles for which there were no pictures at all to be found- or - he would simply paint another work perfectly in the style of that artist that would be a logical extension of a series that the artist had done, like, seagulls or cliffs, for instance.
The amount of genius and criminal energy that flows through this man is nothing less than amazing, and you can see how he goes through the entire process of making a totally "authentic" forgery during the film.
From 1970-2008, a span of 38 years, Beltracchi and his wife put out hundreds and hundreds of forgeries, many of which netted sums of over $5,000,000.00 per painting.
In a nutshell:
2.) Wolfgang and his wife (Helena Beltracchi, he took on HER last-name when they married, this is allowed under German law) would go to flea markets and art markets and buy up old paintings that were pretty bad. He was not interested in the painting, but rather, the canvasses, frames and and seals of authenticity on the back that would be in the period from ca. 1905-1930 or so.
3.) They also bought up every tube of old paint that they could. This detail is important for later.
4.) They also visited extremely old villas and houses - many of them shuttered, to collect dust samples. This is also important.
5.) Then, using a number of methods, he would strip off the old painting from the canvas and paint a new "Max Ernst" or "Heinrich Campendonck". Something like that.
6.) Then, he used a specially made oven to heat the painting to get it to completely dry within 24 hours. Usually, paintings take up to 6 months or more to truly dry out and also lose the "paint smell". Some paintings he put in a box in which there was also a lot of cigarette smoke.
7.) He often even used very old nails, identical to each other, to nail the canvass back onto the frame. He then inserted some of the 100 year old dust into the cracks on the back of the frame, esp. at the bottom, where dust collects most easily.
8.) Now comes the kicker: he than made a fake living room environment, using wallpaper from the 1910s-1920s, dressed his wife up in clothing, makeup and hairstyle of the day, hung the newly "discovered" paintings on the wall, photographed her sitting in front of the paintings, made the photos look extremely old (also used photographic paper that he found from the 1930s and so) and then sent the photos off to lesser known art catalogue companies, who accepted the photos as real, recorded the painting name and year of creation, etc. And then, a couple of years later, the larger art catalogue companies picked up on the incontrovertible evidence (
) of the smaller companies and included the stuff in their catalogues as well.More than likely, there is upward of at least 1 Billion USD of forged artwork from him under the names of many famous artists all over the world.
What did him in was a tube of Titanium White paint that he bought at a flea market. He did not realize that someone in the 1960s refilled that very old tube with newer stuff, which then showed up under analysis and the painting was then confirmed as a fake. That's what got the snowball rolling.
I've never quite seen a film like this before. It certainly doesn't glorify crime, but it allows you to see the human being(s), it allows you to see the process of forging and the film itself is a wonder to behold: all sorts of photographic techniques were used in the film and all sorts of interview sequences with people who got swindled by him. There is a sequence where literally hundreds, if not thousands of family photos of him, his wife and their two kids whiz by the audience so fast that it almost hurts the eyes.
Also, the genius of the man cannot be ignored. For him, making a perfect forgery was totally easy and he considered it to be his work. I know, I know, that in itself is totally perverted, but when you see the film, you can see how nonchalantly he approaches it all.
Word has it that there are at least 100 major art collectors in the world who have a work or two of his, but are not willing to come forth, so we may never know how much damage he caused to the integrity of the art world. But imagine this: a guy who is swindling the art world for 38 years straight before finally getting caught.
He had an Altelier in Southern France and also one on the outskirts of Cologne. I and my associate almost fell from our chairs when we saw the Cologne scene - I know where that Atelier is, exactly where it is, I have walked by it many, many times on the way to IKEA on the outskirts of Cologne. And low and behold, his Alelier is next to a flea market type of shop that deals in, well, old art stuff.
There is a scene where an elderly, very, very wealthy french couple who was swindled got interviewed and it is just hilarious to see how she henpecks her husband. None of that stuff was scripted. The camera teams came, the interview was held and what was said was said.
The one police investigator who was in charge of pressing forth the affadavit was so pissed about the large swindle that he said on camera that in this case, he would have no problem with the application of Shariah Law against Beltracchi.
There is one man in the film who has to do with the art scene who was interviewed, whom I met once, at a party in 2008, where I performed for the then Vice Chancellor of Germany, Guido Westerwelle. Lord, the world is small, really small.
Even if you are not a fan of docu-films, I can highly recommend this one. It makes for a fascinating, riveting 100 minutes of watching.
Here is the Trailer (in German, but still worth a gander):
And a 60 Minutes segment on the guy:
If the film ever comes out in the States, maybe on something like PBS, I would encourage all to give it a good look. Cool stuff.
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