What do you think is the biggest art scandal in the past century?

@Walter Hinteler,

Bedevilled: multi-million Getty Gauguin is a fake

@tsarstepan,

This one is confusing as it doesn't seem the artist is promoting the KKK but making a sharp commentary against them.
Philip Guston Blockbuster Pushed Back to 2024 Amid Concerns Over KKK Imagery
One of the paintings in question. It's titled, Drawing for Conspirators(1930) for Pete's sake.

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@tsarstepan,

Further context on the above Guston anti-white supremacy art retrospective.
Philip Guston’s KKK Paintings: Why an Abstract Painter Returned to Figuration to Confront Racism

An Open Letter: On Philip Guston Now by a cultural nonprofit on how to not engage in the current conversation on the existing empowered white supremacy movement by altogether immediately disengaging from the dialogue for a later TBD date.
Brooklyn Rail's open letter to the group organizing the very timely exhibit.

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@tsarstepan,

The tax breaks we give the wealthy for contributing over valued art to museums.

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@bobsal u1553115,

one of the reasons is that , were you to sell a valuable painting or other work of art on the market an you get a huge profit, You are then owing 28% to the govt as a tax on " profits realized on collectibles".

Fortunately Tsars oil portrait of Mr Trump isnt worth a squat in the bushes.

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@farmerman,

Its a scandal.

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@tsarstepan,

Pop music.

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@ander111,

ander111 wrote:

Pop music.

My! Aren't you edgy. Your username should have been ICutMyselfSoICanFeelThings111.

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@tsarstepan,

Seller of Alleged Frans Hals Forgery Must Still Pay Sotheby’s, British Court Rules

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I saw there was a kid who was faking Keith Herring painting . He was using the exact types of boards and using Herrings own types of stencils for certain of his characters .

I hope theres a catalogue raisonne of Herrings stuff, otherwise, like Warhol, therse gonna be a lot of em showing up (full price).
Kinda like all the Tiffany **** w see in antique vases and "Tiffany lamps" The really good fakes dont show up on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW. They show up in the Orlando Fla Tiffany Museum.

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@farmerman,

OH YEH, Ive heard that the Winterthur Museum is planning to do another of its decennial shows about art and collectible fakes.
I menetioned at the beginning of this thread about how a major collector, Irenee Dupont, has a colonial silver collection that is maybe 70% fake. The only was that these works could be determined to be fake ws by modern Energy Disprive X-ray (these gizmos can count and sort out ATOMS on the surfaces of metls and ceramics)

The earliest silver had high ercentages of assoiate metals, like GOLD and Mercury. Irenee Duponts collection was 93 % really fine silver (Ssomething they really couldnt achive in colonial and pre colonial times)

So these Winterthur shows are entertaining and instructive to us pickers and collectors. I think youd really get a kick out of hos they now can detect fake paintings also. (Most of it has to do with the presence of Titanium dioxide in almost everything we touch)

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Not really a "scandal" but the 1990 heist from the Gardner Museum deserves a mention.

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@hightor,

It was the first thing listed on the opening post to the thread.

tsarstepan wrote:

1. The Gardner Museum Heist, the largest and still unsolved art heist in the history of art?
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/northamerica/us/isabella/isabella.htm

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@tsarstepan,

Damn...my apologies. I wondered if it had been posted but was too lazy to check the first page! Rolling Eyes

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Along with colonial and Nazi-looted art, a related chapter of German history is now being uncovered: How the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, aka "East Germany") confiscated cultural assets.

How East Germany seized valuables from its citizens

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@Walter Hinteler,

Very interesting. Thanks, Walter.

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@tsarstepan,

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@tsarstepan,

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@tsarstepan,

ABSOLUTELY no one should have been surprised by this revelation.
As Russians ‘Pillage’ Ukraine’s Museums in Annexed Territories, Artifacts Are Turning Up in Moscow and on the Black Market

Quote:

The areas are home to millions of Ukrainians and thousands of artworks and artifacts. Since the beginning of the war there have been reports of widespread looting by the Russian military of valuable artworks and historic gold collections in cities including Mariupol and Melitopol. In a number of cases, it was unclear whether missing objects and collections had been successfully hidden away for safekeeping or were destroyed or stolen.

As of September, UNESCO has verified damage to 196 sites since February 24 (up from 161 sites in mid July)—including 82 religious sites, 13 museums, 37 historic buildings, 36 buildings dedicated to cultural activities, 18 monuments, and 10 libraries.

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@tsarstepan,

Protests at art museums are nothing new. Here are 3 famous examples from history

Quote:

Protesters were arrested over the weekend after throwing mashed potatoes on a Claude Monet painting hanging in a German museum, the latest recent example of activists defacing (albeit briefly) famous artworks in order to draw attention to the existential threat posed by climate change.

The Barberini Museum in Potsdam said on Sunday that the painting itself — Grainstacks, which dates back to 1890 and is valued at $110 million — was protected by sealed glass and remains unharmed, though the 19th-century gold frame was damaged.

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What do you think is the biggest art scandal in the past century?

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