SPOTTING FORGERIES: POINTERS FROM SCHIELE EXPERT JANE KALLIR

Jane Kallir, Co-Director of the Galerie St. Etienne and author of the catalogue raisonné Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, recently spoke about forgeries at the American Society of Appraisers conference. Noting that the Internet and rising art values have produced a seeming increase in the number of fakes on the market, she said that the Galerie St. Etienne sees an average of one Schiele forgery a week, or about 50 a year.

Kallir identified three categories of forgery:

• Works by other artists to which a forged signature has been added. Stylistically, these pictures have little in common with the famous artist’s work.

• Copies of known, authentic works, sometimes with slight modifications. Usually these can be identified by comparison with a photograph of the original, but some copies are so close that photographs alone do not suffice.

• Wholly original images aping or pastiching the artist’s style. This type of forgery is the hardest to pull off successfully, because it requires a keen understanding of the artist’s style and methods, and an ability to emulate them.

Experts spend years studying “their” artist’s work in order to understand the nuances of technique, style and development that distinguish genuine works from fakes. The good news, Kallir concluded, is that most forgeries are actually very bad and easy to detect. The reason more fakes are coming to light today is that works are being more carefully scrutinized, and expertise has greatly improved. This is one of the positive results of art’s rising value.

(Images from top: Egon Schiele, 1918; an example of Schiele’s 1918 signature style.)