A head-scratching controversy has been brewing in the art world of late over a 1964 self portrait of Andy Warhol. Or more accurately put, a series of ten self portraits of the artist that used to be by the artist, but now aren’t, so they’re not self-portraits anymore, they’re just portrait portraits not by Warhol anymore despite being signed by him. Got it?
Maybe I should explain a little bit better: Warhol’s iconic Red Self Portraits (as the suite is known) have been decreed fakes by The Warhol Foundation, the New York-based body that declares Warhols authentic or not. Clearly there are a lot of Warhol forgeries floating around in the art world and let’s face it, a Warhol would be rather hard for the layman to authenticate.
With Warhol there is also the the issue of “who” actually painted the work or who pulled the screens for the serigraphs. In the 1960s it was just as likely to be studio assistants Gerard Malanga or Billy Name as Warhol himself. In the 1970s, it would have likely been Ronnie Cutrone. Everyone knows that when Warhol produced work at his “Factory” it was with a mechanical process, done by others and only supervised by the artist, who for the most part, only touched his pieces to sign them. This is a fairly well-established fact! (Malanga has long held that he painted the electric chairs series and few would dispute this claim).
However, due to a set of criteria that I find difficult to fully understand (read more about it below) somehow, someway this rather well-known Warhol self portrait became persona non grata to the Warhol Foundation and the owners are fighting back at what they consider an arbitrary and unjustifiable call, rendering once incredibly valuable—and signed!—Warhols absolutely worthless.
From The New York Review of Books “What is an Andy Warhol?” by Richard Dorment:
[O]ne picture in the series, now owned by the London collector Anthony d’Offay, is signed and dated by Warhol, and dedicated in his own handwriting to his longtime business partner, the Zurich-based art dealer Bruno Bischofberger (“To Bruno B Andy Warhol 1969”). Since the Renaissance, a signature is the way artists such as Mantegna and Titian acknowledge the authenticity of their work.
As if this were not enough to authenticate the work, the Bischofberger self-portrait appeared in Rainer Crone’s 1970 catalogue raisonn?ɬ© of Warhol’s work and is reproduced in color on the jacket. Crone is a highly respected independent scholar who worked closely with Warhol over a two-year period to compile this catalogue raisonn?ɬ©. Anthony d’Offay, who was Warhol’s dealer in London, writes in his statement about the “Bruno B Self-Portrait”:
When Andy Warhol came to London for his show with us in 1986, he signed in my presence our copy of Crone’s book in two places: one signature was across the dust-wrapper [cover] which reproduces our “Bruno B” Self Portrait eight times. The other was on the book’s half-title.
It is important to realise that Crone and Warhol together chose the “Bruno B” Self Portrait for the cover of the book and Andy Warhol’s signature across the “Bruno B” image on the dust jacket is further unequivocal evidence that Warhol not only was authenticating the work, but remained extremely proud of it.
On page 294, the catalog entry (no 169) for the “Bruno B” Self Portrait makes it clear that this is the picture that appears on the front cover of the book and was owned at the time by Bruno Bischofberger.
It is unthinkable that Warhol would have signed the book and the image if there was the smallest doubt in his mind that the work was not authentic. The combination of the dedication on the back of the painting with the choice of that image for the cover of the catalog raisonn?ɬ©, together with his further endorsement of the image by signing across it leave no room whatsoever for any doubt as to the authenticity of the work and the artist’s intention.
In the letter denying that d’Offay’s picture is genuine (May 21, 2003), the board writes, “It is the opinion of the authentication board that said work is NOT the work of Andy Warhol, but that said work was signed, dedicated, and dated by him.”
We are now in the realms of farce?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùand there is more to come. In 2004, the Warhol Foundation copublished its own updated catalogue raisonn?ɬ© with Thomas Ammann AG, a firm of Zurich-based art dealers heavily involved in the sale of Warhol’s work. In it, the authors, all of whom who are paid either by the Warhol Foundation or by Thomas Ammann AG, silently omit all mention of the Bischofberger self-portrait, even in a footnote or an appendix. A picture that existed in 1970 has been made to vanish: so much for scholarly rigor.
This may be the first time in history that a signed, dated, and dedicated painting personally approved by an artist for the cover of his first major monograph, which included a catalogue raisonn?ɬ© of his works, has been removed from his oeuvre by those he did not personally appoint. Although Rainer Crone has worked closely with the artist and possesses an important archive of the work they did together, at no time was he consulted by the compilers of the 2004 catalogue raisonn?ɬ©. In a statement of August 14, 2009, Crone writes, “I am aware of no other instance in which a revised catalog raisonn?ɬ© omits a hitherto accepted work without explanation.”
When challenged to explain why it continues to deny the authenticity of works in this series, the board replied in a letter of October 2004 that it
knows of no independent verifiable documentation from the period in question, 1964 through to 1965, to indicate or suggest that Warhol sanctioned or authorized anyone to make the work.
But how is it possible to say this? Quite apart from his signature and dedication, there are on record numerous statements from Warhol employees, assistants, and his manager all supporting the evidence regarding Warhol’s intentions about the series.
In 2008 Anthony d’Offay sold his collection of contemporary art to Great Britain for ?Ǭ£28 million although the collection was valued—conservatively—at ?Ǭ£125 million. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called this transaction “the greatest gift this country has ever received from a private individual.”
Among the many works d’Offay included in the donation was the Red Self Portrait signed by Warhol and dedicated to “Bruno B.” Due to the controversy, Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota declined to spend public funds on the self-portrait and d’Offay was obliged to withdraw the painting, at least until the matter is resolved. Sir Nicholas has stated for the record that he feels the piece is indeed an authentic Warhol.
Another owner of a disputed Red Self Portrait is expat American Joe Simon, a film producer living in London. You can read about his dispute with the Warhol Foundation on his www.myandywarhol.eu website.