From the archives: "The gentle art of forgery"

60 minutes rewind in his lifetime the great French impressionist painter Koro painted 2,000 canvases of that number more than 3000 are in the United States the subject tonight is forgery the gentle art of forgery a fascinating subject that is as old as art itself and what makes it fascinating is that we know so little about it we can only talk about unsuccessful forgeries how many successful ones are hanging in museums and private collections we can only guess all those Kouros are a case in point the thing about forgers is that they hit us in the two most sensitive parts of our Anatomy our pocketbook and our aesthetics and they play upon our least attractive quality greed one hundred thousand I have it a hundred thousand dollars for now a hundred thousand dollars 100,000 100,000 and practically every major sale new record prices for artists for periods of art are established that saw the bees and Christie's in London at Parke Bernet in New York old master works are knocked down at auction for millions of dollars nine hundred thousand 1 million get is 11 hundred thousand three hundred thousand over here now two feet of canvas can be inch 4 inch the most valuable commodity in the world it's not surprising then that the art market has quietly attracted dollar-for-dollar some of the world's most talented scoundrels there's hardly a museum in the world that has not in good faith hung great master works actually painted by great master forgers Rembrandt was for a long time a tempting favorite for Dutch forgers trained in the traditional academic style of the master Botticelli the preserve of the very very rich and the very important museums has had some remarkably talented admirers this is an original by the great florentine master this is a forgery made in the 30s not discovered until the 60s and even what must be the most famous painting in the world La Gioconda the Mona Lisa every few years a new one turns up whose owner claims is the real one the Leonardo is this the real one or is this the da Vinci both are copies this is the Mona Lisa the one hanging in the Louvre which experts agree may not be the best but is certainly the first detecting forgeries of old masters has become a relatively easy job technology can date pigment and canvas even the dust and soot that great forgers use to give the impression of three or four hundred years of time forgers of the period and there have been forgers as long as there's been painting are almost impossible to detect then it becomes a question of style over which generation after generation of experts go to their graves still arguing but the most difficult mint catches the forger of 20th century paintings the post-impressionist masters Picasso Chagall Matisse and Modigliani walk into any decent art shop you can buy the same paper they use the same canvas the same paint it could be argued that you don't even have to be much of a painter to paint in the manner of some of the modern masters and that is the essence of all art forgery not to simply copy a painting by say Picasso but to sit down and create out of the whole canvas an entirely new Picasso one that he might have painted some examples is this the Chagall or this is this the fake 20 glee Ani or this did only Matisse paint this one or this one all the fakes we've seen were painted by the same man his name well I called from a confidential French Interpol file number 506 stroke six one only haddad born coulomb france alias fille du crest born dijon alias George de Launay born en France alias Michele Laroy born niece his best known as David Stein born Alexandria Egypt one of the most charming villains ever to take brush in hand and stroll down the seans Alizee and Park Avenue and through the salons of Palm Beach David Stein made a career and a fortune out of selling cut-rate paintings in the manner of the modern masters it took one of the artists he was forging to finally catch him out and now Stein or Haddad or whatever his name is has served prison sentences in the United States and France he lives in Paris David Stein is still painting but today he paints under his own name and signs these pictures with his own name he no longer signs Chagall or Modigliani or Picasso but for the purposes of this broadcast we asked him to paint for us a Chagall David how would you have presented it to a gallery or private collector well as an original gouache by Marc Chagall David how did it all start how did you get into art forgery well I was working for a French newspaper one day I wanted to find out really where it was all about as far as dealing with paintings and I did a little bit castle drawing and I went to see you and I'll dealer I knew in Paris and I had sort of built up a story that I got it from my aunt in turn and she added from the castle in the South of France and without any paper authentication or nothing and just bought it for $2,000 you think it's a genuine Picasso any boat a forgery and he bought it so easily that it's unbelievable then I carried on from there eventually I became successful in Paris in the South of France and I went to Italy Spain Austria England and I sold all in all these countries how much money do you think you made in the United States when the investigation was found out exactly how much spending where sold and how much business we did was exactly eight hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars if close to a million how come the dealers were so easily fooled over the years well because they want to make money they don't you know they were very scrupulous about making money so to say close their eyes if it if they have some suspicions about a painting do you think that goes on today still Oh I said this is the hole out market is like that what's the most anyone ever paid you for a forgery there was a painting which was a cigar oil which went for eighty four thousand dollars Lloyd where is it now well I don't know because actually this painting never came up in the investigation to us all in the United States to whom each was sold to a collector by the name of LD Cohen this is hanging on his walls today I don't know LD Cullen lives in Palm Beach Florida Palm Beach is considered one art dealer told me as a con man's paradise the old and the new money that has retired along this Gold Coast may not know much about art but it can afford just about anything and like most of the very rich they are constantly vigilant for a bargain so in David Stein seasoned art forger went down to Palm Beach it was written in the stars that he would meet LD : new art collector tell me about Stein it was his in my appeal to you Stein is an absolute genius this man is a in the common parlance a con man par excellence he suave he's good-looking he's talented he has a flair for conversation now we had a piano here he sat down he played Chopin's music as beautifully as you seen Rachmaninoff he's a great piano player and on the moment's notice he can toss off a Chagall or a Picasso you never know the difference and he met society here he was destitute he immediately bought a Rolls Royce which he never paid for he has Const themself in a beautiful apartment and the finest hotel the colony he surrounded himself with beautiful women and before you know it he was giving great paintings to charity so he get in the limelight and he enticed a lot of people of ions he's really was a master showman Stein says that you bought a an eighty four thousand dollar oil by Chagall from hell what an eighty four thousand dollar oil painting I never paid eighty four thousand dollars for any painting in my life nor did I buy any should go the highest I paid for a French penny was $45,000 for that vault at that you saw I never bought any French rot outside that one painting why would why would Stein make that claim he said that that was one of the counts that didn't come up against him was never good it's entirely new to me what you're saying because I never water Chagall not price range row we had little sketches ago it's two three thousand dollars what were prompted to say that I don't know what benefit he would get in saying that they do some other color Colin are cones of common names no he said LD cold and we called the other paintings I brought my girls and the the doofy which was good and the de Kirikou and the Picasso but never bore a shag on that range price range at all at no time I forget how many counts the word gets David to the original indictment ninety or a hundred something like that but do you think that there were more people who bought pictures from him who refused to come forward at the time it's common knowledge nobody hates to be the florid and usually when they afford the hate to tell you they were reported so I think there were numerous amount of people here that were taken in by Stein and will never report people have an abhorrence to show they would that they were fleeced you know that that Seagal that you sold to mr. Cohen of Palm Beach how long did it take you to paint that picture about three or four days and was that how long normally did it take you to knock out a say a Chagall drawing or a Picasso join or just a few you know just a morning or an afternoon essence a few hours how do you think the artists themselves react towards forgeries maybe you know the story about the Picasso's and Gertrude Stein one day he comes to Gertrude Stein's place and then she said that she just lost a little painting by Cezanne representing an apple so I said she was all lost about it you know furious and so he said well don't worry I'll come back in a couple of hours and I will have this little painting done for you which is what he did he came back and he had painted a little Cezanne it's probably now over somewhere in the museum or in the collection as a Caesar in fact he's a Picasso and it's a forgery too Stein did not believe in beginning small one of his first acts on arriving in the United States was to set himself up in an expensive apartment and gallery on Park Avenue he was penniless his only collateral an armload of paintings Stein proceeded to as they say make the scene in New York net the right people went to the right parties and sold pictures to well-established galleries when he was finally caught he was indicted on 97 counts of grand larceny none of the dealers to whom he sold pictures care to comment about Stein the art business or forgery David Stein has no compunction about talking do you think that in principle the art dealers the art world is anxious to expose forgers like yourself no no I think that they want to avoid all this a because it kills their business because the old all the business is wrong you see as far as this ridiculous prices you put on paintings or drawings when why these artists - who has such a high quotation and other artists who have real talent as well can't make it because it's just a speculation is to start sort of the stock exchange with the Magnificent collection you have why do you collect art about four years ago when I started the stock market was at a notoriously high figure so I sold the stock in the market and I bought the art the market went down the Aquanaut David who are the real victims are there really victims the dealer's so you couldn't say that the dealers are really victims you know they make so much money anyway and that they are they can't be victims so what you were doing was playing on their greed yes you can say that by offering them cut-rate Picasso's and sugar and other to Matisse and doofy and Vlaminck and then down again and Cocteau's and quite a bit quite a lot once you were exposed did people refuse to believe that they'd been taken were they just as happy to look at a painting on the wall and say that is not a David Stein it is a Pablo Picasso yes I think that a lot of people wanted to keep these paintings that they even even knowing sometimes that they were my fraud read like I have an example for friend of mine he I sold her had sold her a Chagall the people of the District Attorney's Office went to see her and asked her to give this painting for evidence and she says no it's not going to leave my walls I want to keep this painting I don't care if his side Marc Chagall or whatever I said I like the painting I want to keep it the woman who bought this picture is Anki Johnson a wealthy New York businesswoman she is a former wife of Charles Revson the cosmetic tycoon when David Stein admitted that he painted this Chagall why did you not want to bring charges against him why did you prefer to keep the picture because I loved to picture and I always liked your girl and I couldn't see any difference as a matter of fact when it was hanging in my apartment of the shariah Netherlands a very well-known AIA dealer who I wouldn't say by name right now because I don't think that would be fair taught me that is Oh anchor you have a marvelous Chagall there so and I think why should you destroy something that you like very much so it doesn't make any difference - as it really doesn't know I think a picture if you like it if it's painted by a Chagall or by David Stein at this time I don't think it makes any difference nobody can tell the difference it's just the idea maybe that it's not worth the money but I don't know I don't think that's very important don't you think it's extraordinary every victim of his that I've spoken to yourself another victim everyone who's met it myself the district attorney at the time was now a judge not one of these people have a bad word to say about this man well it's a I suppose he is a nice man it's just that I think if he would have had a very rich father that he wouldn't have had to do this he just liked to live very well and it was an easy way of making a lot of money in a short time he didn't want to take the time to really do his own work and paint and you know started like the starving artist that's not David Stein style he would like to write around in a Bentley live on Park Avenue like we all like to do and he want to do it in a hurry okay it's pretty much done now the fine took this painting into a gallery how much do you think a dealer would offer me for it well actually a painting like this one we have quoted about thirty thousand dollars now of course if you would take it to a Gary yourself they're probably bargained with you down to twenty thousand or something do you think there's any chance that if I walked out of this studio now down saint-germain and into a gallery I could see a David Stein under the name of Picasso for sale well there there's at least it could be about two or three hundred chances David Stein was finally caught when he was in the process of selling three Chagall's to a New York dealer Marc Chagall himself happened to be in New York at the time and was asked to confirm or deny diabolical was all he said but Madame Chagall was more cautious she asked the dealer first how much he paid for the pictures when he quoted a bargain price she said how could you believe there were Chagall's at that price

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 77,175

Keywords: gentle art, art, forgery, archives, morley safer, interviewed, david stein, divulged, secrets, trade, 1970s, video, cbs, news, 60 minutes

Id: e1nOweWPjFU

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 23 2014