Experts decry grand art auction as likely fraud

Experts decry grand art auction as likely fraud

JAKARTA (JP): An upcoming auction of a group of paintings
touted as long-lost works of local and international masters may
turn out to be a huge swindle, experts warned on Wednesday.

Agus T. Darmawan angrily demanded that the organizers of the
exhibition and auction, titled The Old Paintings of Pre-World War
II, halt the event.

Several of the 50 paintings are attributed to international
masters, such as Pablo Picasso's El Toro Rosa (estimated sale
price US$200,000), Pierre Auguste Renoir's Girl with a Flower
(reportedly found in Semarang and estimated at between $1.5
million and $2 million), Marc Chagall's A Bride's Dream (found in
Depok, West Java, estimated at $600,000) and van Gogh's Corn
Farmers (found in Riau and estimated at between $2 million and $4
million).

Works attributed to Indonesian masters S. Soedjojono, Affandi
and Hendra Gunawan as well as foreign-born artists Rudolf Bonnet,
Le Mayeur and Arie Smit, who spent much of their lives in the
country, are also part of the event.

First Lady Sinta Nuriyah, who was scheduled to open the two-
day exhibition at The Regent Hotel in Central Jakarta, failed to
show on Wednesday evening. The auction, jointly organized by
Batavia Auctioneer and Amana Inc., is scheduled for Saturday
afternoon.

"This is the biggest scandal in modern Indonesian art and it
is a completely dubious art enterprise," Agus said.

He believed the auctioneer and the owner of the paintings were
trying to defraud buyers. He said they once contacted him to
become their adviser but he refused.

He said it was clear the organizers lacked knowledge about the
arts. "If they were out to do forgeries, they did it very
unprofessionally. This is a misleading exhibition and auction
which will ruin the image of Indonesian fine arts."

Agus noted glaring mistakes in the catalog, such as a painting
of two Balinese dancers attributed to Smit, even though the
painter never used women as his subjects.

The biggest blunder, he said, was that the organizers tried to
legitimize their activities by inviting the participation of the
First Lady, Director General for Culture I Gusti N. Anom, who
wrote the introduction for the exhibition catalog, and Soelebar
Sukarman from the Jakarta Arts Council, who is the event adviser.

"Pak Anom should have consulted his team of experts before
writing an introduction in the catalog," Agus said.

Art critic Jim Supangkat acknowledged that Anom consulted him
before writing the introduction. "But Pak Anom said the
organizers changed some parts of the content," Jim said by
telephone from Bandung, West Java.

Jim said he informed Anom about the history of Western
paintings collected by the Batavia Kunskring, an art collectors'
circle founded in 1902.

He said the circle acquired a substantial collection of works
by van Gogh, Chagall, Amadeo Modligiani and Monet. "But we have
to view this in the appropriate framework. At that time, these
painters weren't as famous as they are now."

Throughout the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945, the
paintings were kept in storage at Javasche Bank (now Bank
Indonesia), but were reportedly returned to Europe sometime after
the end of the war. Many of the works were bought by American
museums, prestigious galleries and collectors, Jim said.

"This means that the possibility of having those paintings
left behind in Indonesia is ... very slim. There is almost no
possibility of finding a Picasso in a flea market or a van Gogh
in Riau, Semarang (Central Java) or Cianjur (West Java)."

Painter Soelebar recognized that the event was likely to spark
controversy in the local art community, because "it is natural to
question the authenticity of the displayed works".

Soelebar said the paintings underwent laboratory tests by art
conservationist Puji Joseph from the National Museum. "But it was
not to check their authenticity, but only the period of each
painting."

The president of Batavia Auctioneer, Jonathan Gunawan, said
his firm and the client did not intend to cheat buyers. "We
invite art experts to see our paintings here and to determine for
themselves whether they are fakes or originals."

The owner, A.GA Fine Art's, found the artworks over a period
of 20 years, Jonathan said.

Bentara Budaya Jakarta's art curator Ipong Purnomo Sidhi said
the organizer should have been more careful in its claims.

He added it was a prime case of buyer beware.

"Buyers have to think twice before spending millions of
dollars on scraps," he said. (raw)