Gallery owner arrested for forged and stolen Ansel Adams photographs

[Serge S]

A number of year's ago, a friend (who's was a national geo staff photog at the time) told me he walked into a yacht club & to his astonishment saw his photograph - The image was appropriated for an oil painting hanging over the club's fireplace! I don't think he bothered doing anything about it. He was a nice guy
One time I walked into a local bank that had a brochure rack & saw a photo I had taken. It was in a school brochure rack card. Puzzled to this day how they got it hi res enough to use....

Another thing is when an image gets appropriated without the owner's consent...as happened to me many years ago when I dropped into a "high end" gallery and there on the wall was a large oil painting - which, aside from having been crafted from a different media...was otherwise an exact (slightly cropped) facimile of a photo I'd had published a year before in Vermont Life magazine!

Realizing that the gallery owner might possibly have not been aware of this blatant rip-off...and thinking that had I complained then and there - the gallerist, possibly being protective of the artist, may have taken a negative stance to my complaint - I instead feigned interest in the work and told her that I was seriously considering a purchase, but could I possibly contact the artist on my own first?

At this point it could have been argued that I should have then called my lawyer - but instead I chose to phone the artist directly and give him a mild chewing out, saying that he should have at least gotten my permission first (which I'd certainly have given him). I then ended the conversation by telling him how flattered I had felt that he'd chosen my image, and to see this "re-created" as a truly nice painting!

[jnantz]

A number of year's ago, a friend (who's was a national geo staff photog at the time) told me he walked into a yacht club & to his astonishment saw his photograph - The image was appropriated for an oil painting hanging over the club's fireplace! I don't think he bothered doing anything about it. He was a nice guy
One time I walked into a local bank that had a brochure rack & saw a photo I had taken. It was in a school brochure rack card. Puzzled to this day how they got it hi res enough to use....

It's funny, I did some work for people years ago and they took what I made them and turned them into Christmas cards ( and had the gall to mail me one. LOL ) , others took images and made made them into sleep screen/screen savers on their work computer, others made 20x24 prints on their wall. what can you do, not like I gonna bother to bring the case to Judge Wapner, not worth the time ... the worst though is when you do a job for someone as a news-ist and they pay you a pittance and then sell it's use to the city for like $30G and you see it on busses, billboards, newspapers, brochures &c and you aren't even given a by-line. LOL. whatever.

[jnantz]

So, is this actually worse than Thomas Kinkade "Limited Edition" of over 34,000 of one painting - signed with ink with one drop of his blood in the vat so he can claim he signs them with his DNA?

IDK. for years I have thought that the whole limited edition 1/xx photograph makers are kind of a strange thing. use a different developer or a different stop bath or toner or whatever, it's not part of the original edition. the greatest thing about photography ( being able to produce hundreds or thousands of copies of an image off a negative or file ) is it's biggest flaw. I don't know which Weston it was who cut his negatives and included them with the print, but at least he and the people buying his work knew there weren't many of them. are there may forged daguerreotypes or tin/ambro types or retina prints ? I kind of like Kinkade's work, he knew how to paint light well that's for sure..

[Alan Klein]

The gallery was a respected photo dealer in business since 1969. They were always at the AIPAD show in nyc.

https://aipad.com/Exhibitors/Galleri...alsted-Gallery

It just goes to show how far people can fall!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A few years back, I attended the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD, as it's more commonly known, held at the Park Avenue Armory, in NYC. There were lots of Ansel Adams B/W prints. Many dealers apparently sell his stuff and each had their booth selling the prints. I saw three different Sunrise over Hernandez's. One dealer had his at around $80,000; another dealer at $115,000 and the last at around $140,000.

So I'm standing at the last dealer, the one with the $140,000 edition, when in flows this attention-grabbing couple. He, a rather ordinary fifty-something-year-old dressed to kill, and she, a knock-out blond about half his age. So I overhear him telling her, "This is nothing. My Hernandez cost me $180,000." As they drifted away, arm in arm, he had a self-loving smile on his face. And she, well, I think she was impressed as well. I was. But not about the $180,000. Or that he could afford an Adams' Hernandez. I was impressed that he had such a hot girlfriend. Even the dealer selling the Hernandez seemed impressed as he winked at me in agreement.

[Alan Klein]

A number of year's ago, a friend (who's was a national geo staff photog at the time) told me he walked into a yacht club & to his astonishment saw his photograph - The image was appropriated for an oil painting hanging over the club's fireplace! I don't think he bothered doing anything about it. He was a nice guy
One time I walked into a local bank that had a brochure rack & saw a photo I had taken. It was in a school brochure rack card. Puzzled to this day how they got it hi res enough to use....

My friend Mel Greifinger who's passed away recently was a commercial artist. He used some of my photos as backgrounds for paintings he did. I emailed them to him so I guess he had official permission to use. Did he? In any case, another painting he did with me in it I eventually bought from him and it's hanging on my wall behind me right now. Actually he took the photo with his camera but the geese weren't in the original. Artist's creativity. He had a good sense of humor.

[CantikFotos]

Remember the Man Ray scandal back in the 90s?

https://thefrailestgesture.com/the-fake-man-ray-prints/

[Jim Noel]

IDK. for years I have thought that the whole limited edition 1/xx photograph makers are kind of a strange thing. use a different developer or a different stop bath or toner or whatever, it's not part of the original edition. the greatest thing about photography ( being able to produce hundreds or thousands of copies of an image off a negative or file ) is it's biggest flaw. I don't know which Weston it was who cut his negatives and included them with the print, but at least he and the people buying his work knew there weren't many of them. are there may forged daguerreotypes or tin/ambro types or retina prints ? I kind of like Kinkade's work, he knew how to paint light well that's for sure..

It was Brett.

[Merg Ross]

It was Brett.

Sorry Jim, never Brett. It was Kim Weston.

Best,
Merg

[CantikFotos]

Here's my tale of woe and lost riches. In the Summer of 2005, I snapped a photo of my soon to be 2 year old daughter blowing me a kiss in Taipei. I cropped it and posted it on Flickr. A few days later I got a message from a guy who said he was an artist and would make a drawing my photo. I said sure and forgot about it. Two years goes by and a British friend sends me a message and link to a London newspaper story. It's been claimed to be a Banksy but I doubt it.
Regardless, since 2007, Amazon, Ebay, Redbubble, Etsy....every online market in the world has been selling my daughter's photo.....on everything from canvas hangings to tshirts, hoodies, coffee mugs....even iPhone cases and Covid masks. I've never gotten a dime. My wife did order 2 hoodies from the UK.....one for me and one for my daughter. She's in college here in South Carolina and loves to show it off.

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/e...y-6607227.html

https://www.google.com/search?q=bank...enUS1014US1014

[Joshua Dunn]

There is a movie on Netflix about the Knoedler Gallery in New York selling fake works and they made millions before they were caught. It's called "Made You Look: A Tue Stork About Fake Art."

-Joshua