Whiteley on Trial

by Gabriella Coslovich

  Cheers,

  Elmyr.

  So John Playfoot had been telling the truth. He wasn’t the one who had tipped off the police.

  Barrister and erstwhile publican John Ribbands was a very likeable man: tall, handsome and mischievous. Words rushed from his mouth like a torrent. He was representing Aman Siddique in the upcoming trial, and had also been Gant’s barrister around the time that the stories about the suspect Whiteleys began to emerge. He confirmed that the painting Gant had given Angwin as security had indeed resided in his William Street chambers for a short time.

  ‘I have not seen it for five years,’ he told me by phone about a month before the trial. ‘I had it momentarily. It was just passing through. It was in Melbourne and needed to be kept somewhere and I simply volunteered, you have to bear in mind, long before any suggestion of criminality had surfaced.’

  I asked whether he liked the painting.

  ‘I think they’re all nice, all three of them. I’d have every one of them hanging on my wall, no problem,’ he said cheerfully.

  He too had no idea where the third painting had disappeared.

  ‘Someone must know where it is, obviously. I don’t know where it is. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. I handed it over years ago.’

  Who did he hand it to?

  ‘The person who provided it to me in the first place!’ he said, laughing.

  He wouldn’t tell me who that was. It wouldn’t be appropriate.

  She returned my call when I was out walking by the ocean past Apollo Bay, a weekend escape to celebrate a birthday. My mobile phone signalled ‘no caller ID’. I accepted the call. It was Deborah Gant. She didn’t know who I was and why I had left a message on her work phone. As I explained my purpose I sensed her growing unease. How did I get her work number? Why did I call her at work? Did I get it from Peter? No, I didn’t get it from Peter. I couldn’t remember how I got it, I said. Why didn’t I just tell her the truth? It seemed too tawdry. Didn’t people understand how easy it was to track them in the digital age? I knew her name. I knew her occupation. Plug both into Google and, bingo.

  She didn’t want to talk.

  Was she supporting Peter? I asked, ignoring her request.

  ‘I’m not open for discussion, I have no comment,’ she said, and politely hung up.

  I kept walking towards the ocean, berating myself for not telling her how I had found her phone number. Her husband faced court in just over a month. I didn’t wish to add to her apprehension. But of course, I must have.

  On 26 February 2016, with the trial just over a fortnight away, I received an email from Elmyr de Hory informing me of seismic shifts:

  From: elmyr de hory 26/02/2016

  To: Gabriella Coslovich

  Peter is changing legal representation because he now realizes he can’t come up with the funds for his defence … He is now relying on Rob Stary, the criminal lawyer who defended Carl Williams, Julian Assange and Jack Thomas the terrorist.

  It’s starting to get interesting.

  Cheers,

  Elmyr.

  Two nights after I received de Hory’s email, I spoke to Gant, who was returning a week-old call. It was late on a Sunday, just past 9 p.m., when Gant phoned and left a message. I called him straight back, and he corroborated all I’d already been told: he no longer had legal representation and had applied for legal aid.

  ‘We told them that I was okay, but I am not and Terry [Grundy] can’t afford to keep it going. The legal system, for all it’s meant to be fair and equitable, is about who can pay,’ Gant said, singing a familiar tune.

  ‘We are trying to get Rob Stary to be my lawyer. He’s an old left-winger from way back. So he believes in people having a voice, but we have to go through this whole process.’

  We made tentative plans to catch up again for another drink at Jimmy Watson’s before the trial, and acknowledged that we’d probably see each other tomorrow in court.

  ‘See you, sweet,’ he signed off.

  The next day, on 29 February 2016, Gant was back in the dock of the Supreme Court of Victoria, dressed in a cheery blue shirt printed with little yellow sailboats, sleeves rolled up. His shirt was the only thing breezy about him. He seemed to have developed a paunch since we last met, and his hair had grown, giving him a slightly tousled look. He looked tired, sullen, and leaned his head into his left fist as barristers, solicitors and prosecutors discussed the trial’s start date with Justice Michael Croucher. Was he bored or weary? I was never quite sure.

  Siddique was not here—he left the work to his legal team, headed by Ribbands. It was only a mention today, administrative stuff. Gant had reason to be there. His legal team was dissolving. Crown Prosecutor Susan Borg and Gant’s new solicitor Robert Stary were discussing trial dates.

  ‘It’s not a simple case, but it’s not the hardest case in the world,’ said Borg, who in an hour’s time would head straight to her next task, on to court eleven for the resumption of a horrific case—the manslaughter of an 11-month-old girl.

  Two sharp knocks signalled Justice Croucher’s arrival and all fell silent and stood to attention. Debate about a possible trial starting date ensued. Terry Grundy informed Justice Croucher that he had ceased to act for Gant. The judge thanked him for his attendance and excused him.

  Stary, bearded and dressed in a blue checked shirt, blue tie and simple black suit, informed Justice Croucher that an application had been lodged with legal aid. The trial’s start date of 15 March hung in the balance. A decision on legal aid was expected in a week. Stary told the judge that legal aid grants were generally not generous enough to cover both an instructor and junior counsel. The judge was staggered to hear this, particularly in the context of this case.

  ‘This is a complex case,’ Justice Croucher said. ‘It will be, in my view, one of the most complex cases heard by this court. Murders are simpler than this case, generally speaking.’

  Borg suggested postponing the trial until after Easter—acknowledging that hers was a personal request. She needed more time with her family: ‘I am sure they don’t know what I look like at the moment. I was hoping to reacquaint myself with them.’

  I was reminded of the response the now retired Justice Betty King once gave when asked whether there would ever be equality in the legal profession. King, who had a daughter, answered: ‘Not until women stop having babies.’

  The matter was adjourned for another week while Gant’s legal aid application was considered and his finances means tested.

  Outside the courtroom, Grundy greeted me, shaking my hand. He was upbeat, as always, even as he told me he was saddened to leave Gant behind. Gant’s family and friends didn’t have the money to fund his legal case, and Grundy could not continue to work without the prospect of payment.

  ‘It’s as if it came straight out of the Myatt and Drewe handbook,’ said Stephen Nall, one of my long-time sources and the stepson of the late artist Robert Dickerson. He was talking about the infamous British duo behind one of the biggest art scams of the twentieth century.

  John Drewe was the charming con man who infiltrated the archives of prestigious institutions, corrupting them with false provenance; John Myatt, the behind-the-scenes painter who forged modern masters such as Giacometti, Matisse and Chagall. The pair were immortalised in the 2009 book Provenance, which had done the rounds of the committal. John Ribbands had spent a weekend reading it and came in on the fifth day of the committal hearing, a Monday, and waved it under Tom Gyorffy’s nose, teasing that ‘that was a real prosecution with real evidence’.

  Nall had a different take on the book.

  ‘All the police need to do is read that bloody book and they can see every next move,’ he said. ‘Gant will keep delaying this court case. He just wants everybody to wither on the vine.’

  But Gant had delayed as long as he could. A date had been set. His legal aid had been approved and the trial would start on 4 April 2016.

  I had known Nall since 2008, when he ran
the Dickerson Gallery in Melbourne. He was the first to tip me off about Peter Gant, an art dealer I had not at that stage heard of. He had shown me images of fake Dickerson artworks circulating in the market, linked to Gant. Tall, lean and intense, with wavy grey hair and black-rimmed glasses, he had relentlessly campaigned against the trafficking of fakes, and Gant was firmly in his sights. There was no love lost between the two. A lawyer and art dealer, who now managed the Dickerson Gallery in Sydney one day a week, Nall had been daringly outspoken on the subject of fakes. In 2011, when Gant sued The Age over articles I’d written, Nall and Wendy Whiteley, who I had quoted, were also targeted. The threat of litigation didn’t seem to intimidate Nall.

  We met in Melbourne a fortnight before the trial and it was clear that he had lost none of his fire. He was carrying an overnight bag, having flown in from Sydney. It was a warm autumn afternoon. We grabbed a coffee before he hopped on a train to the suburbs. Like others I’d spoken to, Nall was surprised that the police hadn’t called him.

  ‘I’ve contacted them. Nobody’s contacted me,’ he said.

  Nall was well acquainted with Gant’s methods. He saw what his stepfather Dickerson went through when he pursued Gant in the civil courts for the sale of fake artworks. Dickerson and his artistic peer Charles Blackman sued Gant in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2010 for selling three fake drawings, one purportedly by Dickerson, two by Blackman. Justice Vickery ordered the three drawings destroyed and $300 000 in legal costs against Gant. The artists never saw a cent.

  ‘The total value of those pictures when they were sold by Gant was $30 000. So he hurt us ten times over,’ Nall said. ‘He was just doing it to thumb his nose at us and to tell us, “I can do this, you can get stuffed. No-one’s going to touch me.” He will never pay now. Doesn’t have to.’

  It was true. Gant had no intention of paying. He told me as much when we met at Jimmy Watson’s. ‘I’d rather be fucking dead than pay them a cent,’ he said.

  Dickerson died in October 2015, aged ninety-one. At least he had the satisfaction of destroying the three fake drawings in grand style—he and Blackman built a bonfire and incinerated them.

  Nall still believed the civil case was worth it despite the emotional and financial costs.

  ‘It’s made everybody more aware of the fact that we don’t brook any of that type of behaviour,’ he said.

  Ever since he started speaking out publicly against Gant, people who had bought questionable artworks from the dealer had been calling him for advice. He had a list of cases he wanted to share with the police.

  ‘He understands the system very well. He uses the system, and he’s a good example of where the weaknesses are in the system.’

  While Nall had long been vigilant about Gant, he never had any reason to doubt Siddique. He liked Siddique, found him interesting. The conservator had visited the Dickerson Gallery when it was still in Collingwood, Siddique’s neck of the woods. Nall was even thinking about hosting an exhibition of Siddique’s work at the gallery. Siddique’s work? I was fascinated to hear this. What was it like?

  Figurative, fairly old school, Nall said. Competent, but somewhat unimaginative. Siddique was an apologist for Gant, and a harsh critic of Robyn Sloggett, Nall said. Eventually the penny dropped.

  I had been hearing about him for years. He was as secretive as Gant was outspoken. I had asked to speak with him several times, but he always refused. I had to piece him together from my observations, what others told me, public records and yellowing news clippings of his early years as a star conservator.

  Siddique moved to Australia from London in February 1983, to become a painting conservator with the Regional Galleries Association of Victoria, at the Conservation Centre in Ballarat.

  The centre was founded in 1979 at the instigation of regional gallery directors concerned about the state of their collections. Ron Radford, then director of the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, was instrumental in pushing for the centre and in 1976 had staged a provocative exhibition titled Attention Your Collection is Rotting.

  Siddique’s credentials—having studied at the Chelsea School of Art and the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art—made him an attractive proposition. He was invited to take up the position, but didn’t immediately jump at it, as his November 1980 application shows.

  ‘Much as I appreciate the possibility of such a post, I needed time to be certain of emigrating to Australia, a country I have never visited. Hence the delay,’ he wrote.

  His attached ‘curriculum vitae’ showed a man with an aptitude for art. He completed his secondary education in Kampala, Uganda, achieving distinctions in art at both ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels. He also studied a raft of science subjects—physics, biology, chemistry—a useful combination for an aspiring conservator. In 1970, the worsening political situation in Uganda prompted him to seek residency in England. He wanted to study art in London, but as a foreign student he did not qualify for a state bursary. So he worked as an accountant for three years, attending evening classes in painting and drawing at the Camden Arts Centre. Chelsea and the Courtauld came next.

  The move from a sophisticated, international city to a provincial town on the other side of the world was a shock to his sensibilities, but his career seemed to thrive. By May 1984 he was appointed director of the Conservation Centre. ‘Aman Siddique is the only one of his kind in Australia,’ arts journalist Geoff Maslen proclaimed in The Age in 1990. He had ‘the skilfulness of a surgeon, the abilities of a master craftsman and the patience of a country parson’, Maslen wrote. The accompanying photograph showed the 41-year-old Siddique, wearing a self-satisfied, tight-lipped smile and a white lab coat, cotton swab in hand, a yellow anti-fume mask casually sitting on his desk.

  In 1986, Woman’s Day featured an article on this clever young conservator who soon after moving here began to resurrect the country’s cultural heritage, restoring some of Australia’s most important paintings. The masterpieces transformed by Siddique’s hand included Arthur Streeton’s idyllic 1889 landscape painting Golden Summer, and Charles Nuttall’s epic work depicting the opening of the first Federal Parliament at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building in 1901. More than 2 metres high and almost 4 metres wide, the painting was a sea of faces—343 dignitaries, each a miniature portrait. It had been stored in a basement for fifty years and was badly damaged by damp. Entire sections had flaked off. Nothing the talented Siddique could not fix. One newspaper article suggested that Nuttall’s painting ‘should now bear a second signature as significant sections had to be painted in with meticulous accuracy by art conservator Aman Siddique, working from an old print of the original’.

  In restoring Golden Summer, Siddique had removed alterations Streeton himself had made to the painting in the early 1920s. Perth collector William Hughes (Alan Bond’s brother-in-law) had bought the painting in 1985 for $1.1 million after the National Gallery of Australia had rejected it because of Streeton’s alterations. Streeton had painted over the original varnish, deepening shadows along the river plain and highlighting the foliage of trees. Hughes gave the painting to Siddique who did what other conservators had refused—he reverted the painting to Streeton’s original vision. The National Gallery of Australia eventually bought the artwork, prompting Siddique to tell Woman’s Day: ‘Golden Summer is a perfect example of the importance of art restoration. It’s not only the general public who don’t realise paintings need to be restored, it’s also people who should know, like gallery directors.’

  The painting became the centrepiece of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Golden Summers: Heidelberg and Beyond exhibition that toured Australia in 1986. In conservation circles, however, Siddique’s restoration was the subject of debate. Institutional conservators are governed by a code of ethics that advocates minimal intervention and respect for cultural property. They have the right to refuse to make changes to artworks that they feel would contradict an artist’s intention. Deciding what should or should not be done to a painting in order to
restore it can become an ethical and philosophical minefield. The National Gallery of Australia acknowledged that questions were raised about the restoration of Golden Summer, but stated that they were ‘eloquently’ answered ‘by the quality of the paintwork and the beauty of the picture, now in its original state’.

  In 1989, Siddique left the Conservation Centre in Ballarat to set up his own business. His exit wasn’t exactly a smooth one. I understood from discussions with various people who had been there at the time, and from my search of public records, that Siddique had not been satisfied with his salary and had negotiated with the Conservation Centre’s board for the right to do private work as well as work for the regional galleries. The agreement limited the hours he was to spend on private work and forbade him to use the centre’s materials for private work. Some time after the agreement, board chairman Francis Galbally was asked to speak to Siddique. This led to a negotiated termination and Aman’s departure from the centre.

  In 1994, Siddique moved to Melbourne and in 2002 he bought his Easey Street studio in Collingwood. His clients included Allan Myers, AC, QC, one of Australia’s wealthiest barristers and most powerful people in the art world. Siddique also acted as agent for Myers at art auctions. He was known to cut deals with clients, asking for equity in artworks he had restored. While many in the auction and art-dealing trade used his services and spoke glowingly of his skills, some of Siddique’s conservator peers were not as impressed. He began to isolate himself from most of the profession and stopped going to conferences. I was told he used outdated materials and techniques, and tended to over-restore.

  But while Siddique’s ‘resourcefulness’ sometimes raised eyebrows, no-one suspected him of illegal activity. He continued to be well regarded even after the story of the suspect Whiteleys broke. In 2010, when auctioneer Chris Deutscher began to have suspicions about the painting Orange Lavender Bay that Steven Nasteski had consigned for auction, he called in three experts to look at the work—Brett Lichtenstein, Stuart Purves and Aman Siddique.