The news media is historically given to hyperbole, so to say the art world is reeling over the revelations of fake Rothko and Pollack paintings is for me, albeit cosseted in my own little sphere, not much news. After the ABC Nightline broadcast, my email inbox was about as full as it always is and no welter of phone calls prevented anyone from ringing through. In fact, I sold a painting- mind you, a painting by an artist well established in the canon, and the painting itself with a fairly long provenance. I suppose what I’m saying is that the art world remains pretty much as it’s been.
What amidst the media brouhaha I managed to sell was a painting by an artist whose work we had handled before, which painting had been fairly extensively restored, with the upshot of those restorations creating some problems of their own. While one of the giveaways, per the ABC correspondent, that a Pollack was a phony was the use of a yellow pigment of a type unavailable to the artist, our painting, of mid 19th century vintage with a fine linen support, had been cleaned, revarnished, and mounted on hardboard sometime in the middle of the last century. Does this make for difficulty in determining a painting’s authenticity? Absolutely. Does or should this kind of thing raise suspicions and affect the picture’s merchantability? Well- yes and no.
I hedge because, frankly, what results in a sale is as varied as the paintings we handle and the buyers who purchase them. We always chuckle when we see on broadcasts like Antiques Roadshow discussions about original condition, because the fact is, for most period material, either fine or decorative, if it is a century or more old, original condition often time means poor, unsalable condition. Invariably, canvas stretches and paint shrinks, leading to paint loss and tears to the support, and the very varnish used to protect the painting’s design layer is typically over time so yellowed and so approaching opacity that what’s depicted in the picture plane is often difficult to make out. Our general rule of thumb is, whether painting or furniture, everything requires significant restoration at least once a century. When one sees a picture of some age that appears fresh from the easel, what one is admiring, without knowing it, is oftentimes the restorer’s art. The yellowed varnish that is removed takes with it a fair old bit of the design layer which the skillful restorer oftentimes has to put back with his brush which, he hopes, will be guided by his knowledge of the original artist’s working technique- if that can be determined. Or, as is frequently the case, by the restorer’s own best judgment.
That there is no hard, fast and immutable rule for restoration, and that techniques have changed over time, complicates matters even further. In the case of the painting remounted on hardboard, we see this fairly often and while it is perhaps not ideal, in the cases where we have seen it, it provided a simple, durable lining. No lining is ideal. Stretching the canvas over the lining and the effect of the heat table invariably result in a flattened appearance, with brushstrokes and impasto marking the technique of the artist diminished in the process.
Perhaps this discussion of restoration runs afield from outright fakery, but the fact is, artworks, even when genuine in their origin, oftentimes, and perhaps inevitably, have that originality occluded the result of attentions that were of the best intention. And these attentions might be interpreted to be if not fakery, than at least misleading. Moreover, though personally we try to limit whatever restoration we carry out to what is the least required and always the least invasive, most of our clients require that paintings be wall ready and furniture pieces be room ready. We do, like everyone else, have our living to earn, so pieces do need to be in saleable condition.
That’s where disclosure by the dealer comes in, as it should with all members of the accredited trade, and where better to disclose than in writing and on the face of the invoice.