They All Hate Mr. Beltracchi Now
By: Elise Bona
Tags: Essay, Nonfiction, History, Art, Artist

They All Hate Mr. Beltracchi Now

When a fake is sold for millions, should you envy the conman or pity the buyer?

Self-portrait of Gustav Klimt in Wolfgang Beltracchi’s interpretation. On the top right, Beltracchi as a saint watches over the scene. (Painting by Wolfgang Beltracchi, 2017)

The truth

When Don sat in his favorite chair that day, he couldn’t wipe the smugness off his face. In less than five hours his guests would be sitting at the dinner table, sipping champagne, peering through the glass wall at his fabulous winter garden. They would be chirping and singing like little prairie birds animated by the fireplace, until Susan, expertly sat at the top of the table would point to the wall on her left and say ‘Well, Don. Please don’t tell me you got a Matisse! Aren’t those insanely expensive?’.

Don would then cock his head a little and tell her an anecdote he heard in the art world about how Marthe Bibesco, the famous Romanian socialite, held Matisse all night long at her bosom before he painted ‘La Blouse Roumaine’.

Little did Don know, as he was fantasizing about entertaining his guests with imaginary tales of artists he knew shit about, that the true author of the Matisse he just purchased was already flat ironing a Campendonk in his Kölner studio.

The horror

Owners of art pieces worldwide looked over their shoulders in horror at the paintings adorning their walls when the news of a German serial forger spread internationally in 2010. It is believed that up to three hundred Beltracchi counterfeits had passed from one gallery to another, with some being auctioned at Christie’s for millions of euros.

Wolfgang Beltracchi and his wife, Helene, scammed art collectors in Europe for decades. Their method was failproof: they would identify a presumably missing painting from some second-tier’s painter collection and pretend to have magically discovered it in Helene’s grandfather’s heritage.

Beltracchi’s scam was like a puzzle with a few missing components: the pieces of information the collectors held in their hands were all real. The rest… well, was made up. To prove the authenticity of his merch, Beltracchi came up with various tricks — the standard counterfeit of documents, usage of frames from the 1900s bought for a few bucks in flee markets, and, the most impressive of all: he dressed up his wife to pose as her grandmother.

Yup. Helene sat in front of the camera, hair pulled up in a vintage hairdo, a rigid smile on her face, and pretended to be Josephine Jägers, the owner of a legit art collection.

Helene Beltracchi posing as her grandmother Josephine Jaegers, in front of artwork forged by her husband.

Collectors worldwide bought it and craved for more. So Beltracchi provided: Max Ernst, Andre Derain, Max Pechstein, Kees van Dongen, Heinrich Campendonk, and Fernand Leger.

That’s a mouthful worth millions.

The masterpiece(s)

His career as a forger came to an end in 2010, when he and his wife were arrested and sent to prison. The culprit (isn’t it always?) was a mislabeled white pigment that contained titanium dioxide. The forensic analyst must have thought it was Christmas when Beltracchi’s painting started looking like a crime scene.

‘Rotes Bild mit Pferden’ by Heinrich Campendonk, painted by Beltracchi. The painting that led to Beltracchi’s arrest.

I won’t spoil you the pleasure of discovering how Beltracchi was constructing his counterfeits. The efforts that went into producing a painting were truly unconventional! His genius stemmed not just from his undeniable talent, nor his elaborate techniques, but rather from his dazzling process of ‘filling in’ missing pieces of history.

In 2013 a documentary called ‘Beltracchi — The Art of Forgery’ was released in Germany, displaying a fun, easygoing Beltracchi educating the public about his philosophy, the methods of forgery he used in the past, and his new life after his sentence in jail.

You can watch the trailer with English subtitles below.

Outro

When Beltracchi’s scam was discovered, the art world was fuming. The bomb under their behinds was detonated with a va-va-voom, swiping their sexy credibility out the door. While the Susans and Dons of the world were weeping because of financial loss (understandably), the galleries were claiming Beltracchi committed a crime against humanity.

His sin? He planted realistic fabrications with no historical value.

The buyers are never looking for just a pretty picture, they want to own a feeling, be it anguish, terror, or hope. For example, the feeling that poured in Matisse’s veins when he painted ‘La Blouse Roumaine’? No Beltracchi in the world will ever be able to evoke such a thing.

I bid you farewell with my favorite quote from Mr. Beltracchi himself:

“Max Ernst’s widow said my forgeries were her husband’s most beautiful works.”

Oh, and don’t forget: Next time you order something at Christie’s remember that titanium dioxide pigments were only invented in the 1920s.