Norway authorises demolition of building with Picasso murals

People pass Picasso's mural art work "The Fisherman" on the government quarter's 'Y building' in Oslo, Norway on August 6, 2013. AFP PHOTO / ODD ANDERSEN.

OSLO (AFP).- Norway gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for the demolition of a bomb-damaged building adorned with drawings by Spanish master painter Pablo Picasso. The government, which ruled out a further postponement to the 2014 decision to demolish the building, has said it would relocate the two Picasso murals.

Completed in 1969 in the centre of Oslo, the "Y block", named for its shape, bears drawings by Picasso sandblasted on its walls - the work of Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar, who collaborated with the Spanish master painter.

Previously the home of a government ministry, the building was damaged in the deadly bomb attack carried out by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik on 22 July 2011, before he went on to carry out a mass shooting on the island of Utoya, killing a combined 77 people.

In 2014, Norway decided to demolish the building for security reasons as part of a major reconstruction project, and decided to relocate the murals "The Fishermen" and "The Seagull." Anther building, "H block", which was also damaged in the blast and has three other Picasso murals, will not be destroyed.

The 2014 decision to knock down "Y block" provoked a backlash among champions of architectural heritage and the ensuing public outcry saw a delay to the demolition. Three organisations and associations announced on February 13 their intention to take the state to court and asked the government to postpone the demolition until the court had ruled on the matter.

On Wednesday, the government rejected this request, arguing that further delays would lead to financial cost as well as the postponement of the reconstruction project which has already been decided. The ministry of local government and modernisation said in a statement that the agency in charge of managing the state's real estate assets, Statsbygg, had been given the "assignment to start preparation work for the demolition of the Y block."

No starting date has been set, but postponing the implementation of the measure beyond April 1 would cost between 30 and 50 million Norwegian kroner ($3.2 million to 5.3 million or 2.9 million to 4.9 million euros) per month, according to Statsbygg. A petition launched a year ago to stop the demolition of "Y block" had gathered nearly 28,000 signatures by midday on Wednesday.

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/121292/Norway-authorises-demolition-of-building-with-Picasso-murals#.Xlk0cahKiUk

Berlin court jails three over 100-kg gold coin heist

One of the defendants, Wissam R., hides his face behind a folder as he arrives for the opening of the trial over the theft of the so-called "Big Maple Leaf" golden coin from the Bode-Museum last year on January 10, 2019 at a court in Berlin. Three men linked to a notorious Berlin crime family face court from January 10, 2019, over the spectacular theft of the giant 100-kilogramme (220-pound) commemorative gold coin worth 3.75 million euros ($4.3 million). Odd ANDERSEN / AFP.

BERLIN (AFP).- A Berlin court sentenced three men to multi-year jail sentences on Thursday for the spectacular theft of a 100-kilogram (220-lb) gold coin from one of the German capital's museums.

State court judges jailed two men aged 23 and 21, who belong to a family of Arab origin notorious for ties to organised crime, for four years and six months each. A 21-year-old security guard at the museum received a sentence of three years and four months, while a fourth defendant was cleared of all charges.

Police have found no trace of the 100-kilogram (220-pound) Canadian coin since the late-night heist in March 2017 from the Bode Museum, located close to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Berlin apartment.

The "Big Maple Leaf", one of five minted in 2007, is considered the world's second-largest gold coin after the one-tonne Australian Kangaroo issued in 2012.

Prosecutors assume the nearly pure-gold treasure, which bears a profile image of Queen Elizabeth II, was either cut up, melted down or taken abroad.

The coin has a notional value of one million Canadian dollars ($750,000), but the gold itself is worth considerably more.

Police raids in July 2017 on premises in and around Berlin linked to the perpetrators' Remmo "clan" saw guns, luxury cars and more than 100,000 euros in cash confiscated. Investigators also used phone taps and GPS devices to track cars and searched more than 50 properties, the defence said at the trial.

Security camera footage of the heist shows three men wearing dark hoodies, scarves and baseball caps making their way to the museum. They broke in through a window, smashed a glass case with an axe and used a rope, wooden beam and a wheelbarrow to lift the coin onto adjacent elevated urban railway tracks before transferring to a car, said prosecutor Martina Lamb.

The Remmo family, whose patriarchs fled war-torn Lebanon in the 1980s, are considered to be one of Berlin's most notorious organised crime clans. Police last year targeted the Remmos with the seizure of 77 properties worth a total of 9.3 million euros, charging that they were purchased with the proceeds of various crimes, including a 2014 bank robbery.

In recent years, so-called "clans" of primarily Middle Eastern origin have become a particular focus for police, politics and media in Berlin. A popular fictional TV series, "4 Blocks", has even focused on a crime family in the capital's Neukoelln district.

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/121129/Berlin-court-jails-three-over-100-kg-gold-coin-heist#.Xk_2wShKiUk

Egypt court jails ex- Italian diplomat for smuggling artefacts

Gilded Coffin Lid for the Priest Nedjemankh (detail) Late Ptolemaic Period (150–50 B.C.) Cartonnage, gold, silver, resin, glass, wood The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, 2017 Benefit Fund; Lila Acheson Wallace Gift; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; Leona Sobel Education and The Camille M. Lownds Funds; and 2016 Benefit Fund, 2017 (2017.255b) Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

CAIRO (AFP).- A Cairo criminal court sentenced a former honorary Italian consul to 15 years in jail in absentia on Tuesday for smuggling antiquities out of the country, a judicial source said.

Ladislav Otakar Skakal, Italy's former honorary consul in Luxor, attempted to smuggle 21,855 artefacts from various historical eras in 2017, according to the prosecutor general. These included over 21,000 golden coins, 151 miniature figurines, five mummy masks, 11 pottery vessels, three ceramic tiles dating to the Islamic period and a wooden sarcophagus.

Italian police found the sizeable loot in a diplomatic shipping container heading from the port city of Alexandria to Salerno in Italy in 2017.

Skakal's trial, along with other accomplices, began in September last year. Prosecutors found that the antiquities were smuggled with the aid of Raouf Ghali, the brother of former Hosni Mubarak-era finance minister Youssef Ghali. A verdict is expected next month for Skakal's alleged Egyptian accomplices.

Egypt managed to retrieve the stolen antiquities in cooperation with Italian authorities in 2018. It also requested that Interpol issue a red notice against the disgraced diplomat.

Last year, a stolen golden coffin of a Pharaonic priest was unveiled in Cairo after authorities managed to retrieve it from New York.

Antiquities smuggling had thrived in the tumult that followed the 2011 revolution that toppled Mubarak.

In recent years, Egypt has sought to promote its archaeological heritage in a bid to revive its vital tourism sector, which has taken a battering from political turmoil after the revolution.

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/120309/Egypt-court-jails-ex--Italian-diplomat-for-smuggling-artefacts#.Xjwr5WhKiUk

Ten sculptures by Dali nabbed in Stockholm break in

Owner of the Couleur art gallery Peder Enstrom stands behind a police tape as an officer walks towards the gallery where exhibited Salvador Dali sculptures have been stolen by, according to the Police, “at least two thieves” who smashed the entrance window setting the alarm off at 4 a.m. on January 30, 2020, in Stockholm, Sweden. ALI LORESTANI / TT News Agency / AFP.

STOCKHOLM (AFP).- Ten sculptures by surrealist artist Salvador Dali were stolen from a Stockholm gallery in a dawn break in on Thursday, the gallery's owner told AFP.

The thieves smashed the glass door of the Couleur gallery in the upscale neighbourhood of Ostermalm in Stockholm and nabbed the sculptures, valued at between 20,000 and 50,000 euros ($22,000 to $55,000) each, before fleeing the scene in a car according to witnesses.

The stolen sculptures include bronze models of the artist's recognisable molten clocks, of which there are about 350 around the world.

They were on loan and came from a Swiss collection.

Peder Enstrom, the owner of the gallery thought there must have been several thieves because of the mess they left behind, adding that "they were probably working together".

Despite the value of the works, Enstrom said the thieves would likely struggle to cash in on their score.

"They didn't get the certificates, which is very good because that will give them some big problems trying to sell the sculptures," he said.

© Agence France-Presse
https://artdaily.cc/news/120526/Ten-sculptures-by-Dali-nabbed-in-Stockholm-break-in#.Xjwq1mhKiUk

A Hacker Posing as a Venerable British Art Dealer Swindled a Dutch Museum Out of $3.1 Million

The museum sued the dealer in a London court. Artnet News, January 30, 2020

Dickinson's lawyer, Bobby Friedman, says the Rijksmuseum should have independently confirmed the legitimacy of the account before wiring the money, adding that his client, a specialist in Old Master paintings, was never aware any fraud was taking place. Each side is accusing the other of being of having been hacked.

John Constable, A View of Hampstead Heath: Child’s Hill, Harrow in the Distance (1824).

The Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, the Netherlands, was in the midst of a months-long email negotiation with dealer Simon C. Dickinson to purchase a prized John Constable painting when hackers hijacked the exchange, posing as Dickinson and convincing the museum to funnel the money into a Hong Kong bank account.

Now the museum is attempting to sue Dickinson, claiming the dealer should have known about the fraud, according to Bloomberg.

In a London commercial court this morning, Gideon Shirazi, a lawyer representing the museum, argued that negligence on the part of the dealer’s team allowed the thieves to steal the museum’s money. Shirazi claimed that Dickinson’s negotiators were aware of emails between the museum and the hackers, but did nothing to stop the transaction.

“By saying nothing, they said everything,” he said.

Dickinson’s lawyer, Bobby Friedman, said the museum should have independently confirmed the legitimacy of the bank account before wiring the money, adding that his client, a specialist in Old Master paintings, was never aware any fraud was taking place. Each side is accusing the other of having been hacked.

“Instead of accepting the reality of the situation, the museum has reacted by pursuing a series of hopeless claims against [Dickinson], in the hope of pinning the blame for the museum’s mistake on [the dealer],” Friedman wrote in a submission to the court.

Meanwhile, the museum is holding onto the painting and preventing Dickinson, who is still unpaid, from selling the work to another buyer. A London judge has thrown out the museum’s attempts to sue for negligence, but left open the possibility that the museum could pursue amended claims. The judge is now weighing who will have ownership of the painting.

“This unfortunate event highlights the dangers of cybercrime in the art world, which is regrettable for both the museum and Dickinson, especially when both are victims in this instance,” Emma Ward, Dickinson’s managing director, said in a statement to Artnet.

Arnoud Odding, the museum’s director, first became interested in Constable’s 1824 painting A View of Hampstead Heath: Child’s Hill, Harrow in the Distance upon seeing it at Dickinson’s TEFAF booth in Maastricht in 2018.

The Rijksmuseum Twenthe did not respond to Artnet News’s request for comment.

Clarification: This article has been amended to clarify that a London court has dismissed the museum’s initial negligence claims.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/rijksmuseum-twenthe-simon-dickinson-1765983?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%20News%20Morning%2010%3A30%20a.m.%20for%201%2F31%2F20&utm_term=New%20US%20Newsletter%20List

The Getty Bought an ‘Exceedingly Rare’ Gauguin Sculpture for a Reported $5 Million. There’s Just One Problem: It’s Fake

The sculpture was thought to be the largest and most unusual of Paul Gauguin's sculptures, of which he made very few.

Kate Brown, January 28, 2020

Head with Horns was formerly attributed to Paul Gauguin. Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images. A prized and rare sculpture by Paul Gauguin that was acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum for a reported $3 million to $5 million has been deemed a fake.

The sculpture, titled Head with Horns, has been reattributed by researchers to an unknown artist and pulled from the museum’s permanent display, according to the Art Newspaper and Le Figaro. The institution acquired the work in 2002 from Wildenstein & Company, the powerful French-American art-dealing dynasty that is embroiled in a litany lawsuits.

Researchers made the change in attribution quietly last December, and the work was noticeably absent from recent Gauguin blockbusters at Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada and the National Gallery in London.

The prime pieces of evidence linking the work to Gauguin were two photographs of the sculpture by the artist included in his Tahitian travelogue, Noa Noa. A 2002 press release from the Getty drawing attention to its resemblance to the artist suggested that it may have been a symbolic self-portrait.

“Sculpture by Gauguin is exceedingly rare, and this intriguing work stands out as a superb example,” Deborah Gribbon, then the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, said at the time of the acquisition. “We feel especially fortunate to be able to display Head with Horns, which will become a natural centerpiece of our installation of symbolist art.”

After being bought by Getty, the piece circulated the world, traveling to shows at Tate Modern in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, MoMA in New York, and the Museo delle Culture in Milan.

But the sculpture was never signed by Gauguin, and his photographs of it showed it atop a pedestal not carved in any of how known styles. Originally dated to between 1895 and 1897, which lines up the artist’s time in Tahiti, it is now thought to be from 1894, a time when Gauguin is known to have been in France.

The work has long been questions by some experts. Shortly after the Getty acquired it, Fabrice Fourmanoir, a collector of 19th-century Tahitian photography, found a picture of the sculpture by Jules Agostini captioned “Idole Marquisienne” (Marquisian Idol), suggesting that Agostini thought the piece was by an indigenous artist from the Marquesas Islands, then a part of French Polynesia.

In Agostini’s photo album, Head with Horns is shown next to a portrait of George Lagarde, a collector of ethnographic art who may have been the owner of the sculpture. The photographs both date to 1894.

The sculpture’s provenance was always a bit murky. It was included in a show at the Fondation Maeght in 1997 after being purchased, four years earlier, by Wildenstein & Company from a private Swiss collector.

The work was first attributed to Gauguin by Daniel Wildenstein, the author of a Gauguin catalogue raisonné of painting focusing on the years 1873 to 1888. Another volume, covering the years 1888 to 1903, is due at the end of 2020 but will not include sculptures, the Wildenstein Plattner Institute tells Artnet News. They said that, to date, the sculpture has not been submitted to the WPI’s Gauguin committee for research and examination.

This would not be the first time that the Wildensteins have been caught in a public controversy.

The French art-dealing family has been accused of evading taxes in France, hiding missing or stolen artworks, and even of trading artworks with the Nazis during World War II, all claims the family denies.

The Getty is now researching the sandalwood sculpture and its lacewood base to try to learn more about its origins. Some Polynesian art experts say its devilish horns suggest the iconography is not local, but comes from Christian and European sources. Another theory, floated by Fourmanoir, is that it was carved by a European tourist.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gauguin-fake-getty-museum-1763589?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%20News%20Morning%201/29/20%209:30%20am&utm_term=New%20US%20Newsletter%20List

Art experts warn of a surging market in fake prints

John Szoke, a dealer and specialist in Picasso, holds a real print by the artist, in his Manhattan office on Jan. 18, 2020. Spurred by advances in photomechanical reproduction, forgers are increasingly selling unauthorized copies of famous works on the internet, and elsewhere. Kyle Johnson/The New York Times.

by Milton Esterow

NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- In Basel, Swiss authorities are prosecuting a local art expert who they say sold hundreds of fake prints that he passed off online as the work of Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and others over 10 years.

In New York, Adrienne R. Fields now spends much of her workweek scanning the internet for forged prints that pop up at website after website. She is head of the legal department for the Artists Rights Society, which protects the intellectual property rights of artists and their estates.

“It happens every day that Adrienne sends a ‘take down’ notice to a website,” said Ted Feder, president of the society.

The two cities, almost 4,000 miles apart, are both on the front lines of the fight against the sale of fake prints.

Since the dawn of the internet, the problem of phony art being sold has only grown, experts say, and the primary coin of the forgery realm has long been the fake print, which is relatively easy to create, often difficult to detect and typically priced low enough to attract undiscriminating novice buyers.

But now the problem seems to be escalating, according to law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe.

Timothy Carpenter, supervisory special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s art crime team, said that the proliferation of online art sales has deepened the problem. “Before, you had to find a way to get it to the market but e-commerce has changed the game,” he said.

The most prevalent fake prints are those falsely attributed to Lichtenstein and Warhol, experts said. But forgers have also brought to market multitudes of fake Picassos, Klees and Gerhard Richters, as well as phony works attributed to Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse.

Improvements in photomechanical reproduction techniques have made it easier for forgers to produce deceptive fake prints. “A real good reproduction can fool a lot of experts,” said John Szoke, a Manhattan dealer in Picasso and Edvard Munch prints. Detecting the forgeries is not simple, he said.

“It’s the color of the paper, the quality of the printing, the condition of the print, all of which you compare with the original,” he said. “And then you need years and years of experience.”

© 2020 The New York Times Company

https://artdaily.cc/news/120337/Art-experts-warn-of-a-surging-market-in-fake-prints#.XjBxP2hKiUk