"Art For Lunch"
Lectures by
CWRU Art History Faculty,
CWRU Art History Graduate Students
Guest Faculty, Cleveland Museum of Art Curators
 
October 19, 2006
11:45 am
Mather House Room 100
 
Professor Henry Adams
Department of Art History & Art
 
will present
 
The Benton Fake Game
 
The game of creating and selling fake paintings involves deception at many different levels, since creating a fake is often only the beginning of a trail of other illegal activities, such as forgery, insurance fraud, and identity theft.  Over the last twenty years, Prof. Adams , through his involvement with authenticating works by Thomas Hart Benton, has gotten a glimpse into this shady world.    The works of Benton were widely faked in the years just after his death, in part because little scholarship had been done on his work, making it difficult for collectors to consult and “expert.”  In the mid 1980s, when Prof. Adams took on a major exhibition of Benton’s work, he became immersed in the risky game of attempting to distinguish authentic paintings from forgeries.  Subsequently, even before he was ready to take on the role, he found that he was considered an “expert.”  Prof. Adams will discuss his efforts to become a Benton expert, and to authenticate paintings by him, including some of the risks of this process.

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Location