Breaking van Gogh

  289. Ibid, p. 555.

  290. Grace Glueck, “Art View; Painting Attribution Sparks an Uproar,” New York Times, April 4, 1982.

  291. “Gary Tinterow Appointed Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,” http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gary-tinterow-appointed-director-of-the-museum-of-fine-arts-houston-134914793.html.

  292. M. Rae Nelson, “Authenticate or Not? Chemistry Solves the Mystery,” ChemMatters magazine, April 2001.

  293. Caroline Von Saint-George, Vincent van Gogh—The Langlois Drawbridge, Brief Report on Technology and Condition. Wallraf das Museum, Cologne, Germany, 2008, 3.

  294. Geert Van der Snickt, et al., “X-Rays Elucidate Color Change in Van Gogh Painting,” CNRS International Magazine, France, September 14, 2012.

  295. Jia Li, et al., Rhythmic Brushstrokes Distinguish van Gogh from His Contemporaries: Findings via Automated Brushstroke Extraction, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Piscataway, New Jersey, June 2012.

  296. Louis Von Tilborgh, et al., “Weave Matching and Dating of Van Gogh’s Paintings: An Interdisciplinary Approach,” The Burlington Magazine, Vermont, February 2012, 113.

  297. Caroline Von Saint-George, Vincent van Gogh—The Langlois Drawbridge, Brief Report on Technology and Condition. Wallraf das Museum, Cologne, Germany, 2008, 2.

  298. Louis Von Tilborgh, et al., “Weave Matching and Dating of Van Gogh’s Paintings: An Interdisciplinary Approach,” The Burlington Magazine, Vermont, February 2012, 112.

  299. James O. Grundvig, “Knoedler Scandal Head Fake, NY Times Swallows the Bait,” The Epoch Times, August 30, 2013.

  300. Ibid.

  301. Ibid.

  302. Martin Bailey, “At least forty-five Van Goghs may well be Fakes,” The Art Newspaper, No. 72, July-August 1997, accessed September 30, 2013, http://www.vggallery.com/misc/fakes/fakes2.htm.

  303. David L. Grossvogel, Behind the Van Gogh Forgeries: A Memoir (New York: Authors Choice Press, 2001), 53.

  304. Louis Van Tilborgh, Van Gogh Museum Press Release, “Louis Van Tilborgh,” Amsterdam, December 11, 2014.

  305. Ibid.

  306. Farah Nayeri, “Van Gogh Work Missing for Century on Show in Amsterdam,” Bloomberg News, September 9, 2013.

  307. Michael Brenson, “Art View; The Faces That Haunt Van Gogh’s Landscapes,” New York Times, January 4, 1987.

  308. Michael Brenson, “‘Van Gogh’ at the Metropolitan: Portrait of the Triumphant Artist,” New York Times, November 28, 1986.

  309. Richard Bernstein, “Nazis and Their Allies in Art Theft,” New York Times, June 18, 1997.

  310. Lana Smiley, “The Top Art Projects Applying Blockchain,” Altcoin Today, January 4, 2016, accessed January 24, 2016, http://www.altcointoday.com/top-art-projects-applying-blockchain/.

  311. Alexander Boyle, “‘Priceless’ Evening at the Frick Collection, Agent Robert Wittman on Art Theft,” Art Blog, May 2, 2014, http://www.art-antiques-design.com/art/384-priceless-evening-at-the-frick-collection-agent-robert-wittman-on-art-theft.

  312. Yessi Bello Perez, “How Blockchain Tech is Inspiring the Art World,” Coindesk, May 14, 2015, http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-technology-inspiring-art/.

  313. John Ward Anderson, John Ward, “Paintings by Four Masters Stolen in Zurich,” Washington Post, February 12, 2008.

  314. Ibid.

  315. “Recovered Cezanne Authenticated by Swiss Art Expert,” BBC online, April 13, 2012, http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17702198.

  316. Lucia Foulkes, “The Art of Atonement: How Mandated Transparency Can Help Return Masterpieces Lost During World War II,” 38 B.C. Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 305 (2015), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/iclr/vol38/iss2/6

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank Tony Lyons, CEO of Skyhorse Publishing, for his passion and commitment to bringing books that are off center to the public; thanks are also due to Louis Conte for taking the risk of introducing this material in a field he wasn’t familiar with but has now come to look at in a different way, and to my Skyhorse editors for their dedication, eye for detail, and questions that brought out the best in this author.

  I am grateful to art experts R. Alexander Boyle, who pointed out the physical differences between Vincent van Gogh’s paintings created in the South of France and the rest of his oeuvre from all points north; Benoit Landais for his dedication and expertise in identifying thirty-two likely van Gogh forgeries and tirelessly challenging museum curators and private collectors on authenticity and provenance issues (he is putting those case studies on his platform, www.vincentsite.com); and J. L. “Louis” van Tilborgh, art expert at the Van Gogh Museum in Holland, who helped identify the artist’s “missing fingerprints” in style, paint type, and brushstrokes.

  I am much obliged to the National Gallery in London and the team behind the 1987 “Technical Bulletin” on van Gogh’s A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, as well as to Chris Riopelle, Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, for his thirteenth-hour research into the painting’s provenance; to the Van Gogh Museum in Holland and its upkeep of the rich Van Gogh Letters online database; to Michele Willens, Senior Archivist in Gallery Archives, and her staff at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; to van Gogh expert Susie Alyson Stein and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for challenging my position; and to Susan Anderson, the Martha Hamilton Morris Archivist, and Margaret Huang, Digital Archivist, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  My thanks also to the heirs of classical composer Felix Mendelssohn, Dr. Julius H. Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam and managing director of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation, and songwriter Elise Witt.

  Finally, I am also grateful to Evelyn Campos for her detailed edits and eye for organization that helped me meet critical deadlines; and to Michael Cane, an old high school friend, who introduced me to Alex Boyle—an encounter that got the ball rolling after he answered one simple question: “Are there any fake van Goghs out there?”