FAKERS MAKE FORTUNES

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5288, 28 December 1946, Page 4

FAKERS MAKE FORTUNES

— — — ! 0NE of the Conservative j Members of Parliament who visited the British zone of occupation in Germany recently said that the standard of living was so deplorable that the whole economy seemed to be based on j cigarettes. This is the kind of j spurious standard of values that 1 has gro'wn frbm war-time | stresses but it is'not confined to [the providing of food, clothing | and the little luxuries that have ! become so important in stocking the black markets and providing the entrepreneurs with fortunes. Another means of tapping the fountains of rapidly and easily acquired wealth has been found by clever artists who have been turning out for eager buyers,%both during and subsequent to the Gjermah occupation, faked copies of old"~and modern masters. Not long ago, a Dutchman named Hans van Meegeren came under suspicion of being a collaborationist because he had amassed something like a million sterling. He explained and proved that the money had been secured by faking works of Vermee'r and other famous Dutch masters, and one, he had sold to Goering. These reproductions were so perfect that the experts had failed to find them fraudulent. The notoriety he thus gained, far from ruining him, brought him recognition as an artist of the first order and 'last month he was reported as securing fivn times the prices for his own pictures ..that he had commanded previously. He said he had. had an order from an American gallery to go to the United States and paint portraits in the "17th Century manner" at a handsome fee. Now comes a story of a Frenchman who had turned out alleged works of Picasso, Matisse, Renoir' aird others of the modern school by the hundred. He said that the oXvners were as happy with them as though they were originals and "he never charged more than 20 guineas for them." It is stated that these works have been sent all over the world. If so much money and fame, of a kind, can be won through the peddling of spurious canvasses, how are the artists, alive or dead, and the genuine collectors, to be protected ? ® One can easily believe that Picasso, whose works represent every phase, every tangent, and every medium- of graphic expression, would • be peculiarly susceptible to notorious incidents of this kind, but the old masters, whose styles and methods have been s'ubjects of the closest study, could only be copied with impunity by a technician of the highest class . in paint. Apparently, leading moderns like Nash and Smith are not sufficiently popular to make the faking of their canvasses-; worth-while. Do they have to wait • the' attentions of the anonymous copyist to. achieve world- wide recognition? . - !