If you have a taste for the nuts and bolts of art attribution and
legal issues surrounding authentication of art, search no
farther. Ronald Spencer has put together a series of excellent
essays written by leaders in the field and true connoisseurs.
Spencer takes a look at this elephant of a topic from many
different points of view and will leave the reader vastly more
knowledgeable. Spenser is an a counselor at Carter Ledyard &
Milburn LLP of New York City. His book dots the I's and crosses
the T's as much as is possible.
This is an essential book for attorneys involved in the art
business and a wakeup call for the industry to provide a forum in
which an unbiased consensus can be made about art attributions by
the scholars qualified to make them - without fear of
retribution. Part I of the book is devoted to authentication and
connoisseurship. Part II addresses authentication and the law.
Essayists include notables such as Francis V. O'Connor, a leading
expert on Jackson Pollock, an artist forgers mistakenly believe
is easy to fake; Peter Sutton, director of the Bruce Museum in
Greenwich Conn., and an expert on Northern Baroque art who
discusses the Rembrandt Project; Max J. Friedlander (1867-1958) a
leading proponent of connoisseurship who wrote, "After being
unmasked every forgery is a useless, hybrid and miserable thing."
John Tancock, senior vice president in the Impressionist and
Modern art department at Sotheby's New York, discusses issues of
authenticity in the auction house; Michael Find-lay, director at
Acquavella Galleries, New York City, discusses the role of the
catalogue raisonné; how the catalogue raisonné affects the art
market is the topic of Peter Kraus, founder of Ursus Books; Noel
Annesley, deputy chairman of Christie's, writes about discoveries
and reattributions of Old Masters.
Sharon Flescher, executive director of the International
Foundation for Art Research, talks about IFAR's important role in
authenticating art; Rustin S. Levenson discusses the uses and
limits of scientific testing in the authentication process and in
another chapter he discusses the preservation and authenticity of
contemporary art.
Spencer interviews Eugene Victor Thaw, a retired art dealer,
collector, president of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and an
honorary trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA, and
a trustee of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Thaw addresses the
generational movement of art historical scholarship and
connoisseurship and how the market eventually self-corrects
misattributions.
An interview with Samuel Sachs II, former director of The Frick
Collection, New York City, and the Detroit Institute of Arts and
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, brings up the issue of
masterpieces without a master, that is, works of consummate
quality that remain unattributed.
In Part II, Theodore E. Stebbins Jr, former John Moors Cabot
Curator of American Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
and now the curator of American art at Harvard University
Museums, discusses rendering expert opinions; Spencer covers
legal liability for art attributions, the pitfalls of
authentication in court, and a precedent set in the year 2000
protecting expert opinion. Van Kirk Reeves, a French lawyer,
writes about the sometimes vexing droit moral and other
issues of authenticity under French law.
An unequivocal endorsement of The Expert versus the Object is in
order. The industry needs to take the reins of this issue of
attribution because the legal process does not always do a good
job of it. Every art museum director, curator, appraiser, art
auctioneer, gallerist and connoisseur should read this book. Be
warned: it will take a while to digest all of the issues that
Spencer raises.
The Expert versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False
Attributions in the Visual Arts, edited by Ronald D. Spencer,
Oxford University Press, Inc, 198 Madison Avenue, New York NY
10016; 2004, 241 pages, hardcover, $35.
