Art Dealer Scam

AN ART dealer who ran a 15-year forgery scam was finally exposed when the same "original" painting by Paul Gauguin appeared for sale simultaneously at two auction houses.
FBI agents launched an investigation after the work went up for auction at Sothebys in Manhattan at the same time as the nearby Christies.
Ely Sakhai, 52, now faces up to five years in jail and has been forced to pay back the 6.5 million pounds he made from his counterfeiting business. He bought original works by masters including Chagall, Klee, Modigliani, Monet, Cezanne and Renoir for several hundred thousand dollars a piece, had them copied by counterfeiters and then marketed the fakes to unwitting collectors from his Broadway gallery.
He was generous with his money and was noted for his flamboyant dress sense - primarily purple suits, cowboy boots and flashy jewellery.
But much of his fortune was based on deceit. According to prosecutors, The forgeries were always accompanied by the original certificate of authenticity, which made it easier for him to pass them off to unwitting collectors as genuine.
Irish Art

Uproar at "Hitler" Art

An artist who depicted Adolf Hitler as a pop-art style cartoon figure at an exhibition near the former Dachau concentration camp said he would close the show two weeks after it opened due to public outrage.
Walter Gaudnek said his brightly coloured artworks aim to provoke people by showing Hitler as a human rather than a monster, but Jewish community and local political leaders see the images as dangerous.
"I wanted to educate my students on the historical phenomenon of Hitler and show an aspect of him which has got lost over time," he told Reuters, after his paintings were printed in a Munich newspaper.
The bold, over-sized drawings show clusters of figures and swastika flags. In one, Hitler is seen speaking from a podium flanked by Nazi guards, while a girl with long blonde braids listens intently.
Gaudnek's art is on show at his small private gallery 25 km (15 miles) from the Dachau concentration camp memorial in southern Germany where some 32,000 people were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
It is illegal in Germany to display any artwork glorifying Hitler.
Irish Art

Made a Monkey outa Bush

A portrait of George W.Bush in which images of monkeys are used to form the US President's face has forced the closure of a New York art exhibition and provoked an anguished debate about freedom of expression.
Bush Monkeys, a small acrylic on canvas by Chris Savido, created a stir at the Chelsea Market public space in lower Manhattan, leading the managers of the market to close the 60-piece exhibition that had been scheduled to be on show for a month.
From afar, the offending painting is a likeness of Mr Bush, but on closer inspection it is clear his image is made up of chimpanzees swimming in a marsh.
Pittsburgh-based Savido, 23, said he was surprised by the strong reaction to his painting, listed in the catalogue at $US3500 ($4672).
"It seems like people got a kick out of it," he said. "When they really see it, they almost do a double-take. I like to get a reaction from people." He said he was pleased his work was gaining so much attention, but slammed the decision to close the exhibition as "a blatant act of censorship".
Irish Art