CAVEAT EMPTOR : When It Comes to Fine-Art Prints, Let the Buyer Beware

When Frank and Geneve Kepner of La Jolla sold their six Ballerina Boutique stores in 1984, they invested a chunk of the proceeds in limited-edition fine-art prints.

The couple laid out $50,000 for seven prints, said to be created by Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali. The Kepners’ pride and joy was “Enchantment and the Kingdom,” a whimsical lithograph bearing Chagall’s name in crayon.

Two months later the Kepners’ joy turned to anxiety, then anger and fury, after Bernard Sternthal, a Marina del Rey art dealer who visited their beachfront condominium, arched his expert brow and declared the Chagall a “virtually worthless forgery.”

Sternthal’s claim launched the Kepners on a costly and “ulcerating” three-year struggle to determine the print’s authenticity and, thus, its value as an investment.

It also shocked them into an awareness of the multibillion-dollar world trade in fine-art prints that art dealers, police and prosecutors on two continents told The Times seems to be rife with fraud and abuse.

Like legions of other buyers around the world, the Kepners discovered just how aggravating it can be trying to establish if a print is genuine, fake or--as is frequently the case--something in between.

“We went through three years of nervous breakdowns. It was a degrading kind of hell,” said Geneve Kepner, who now questions the authenticity of five of her seven prints.

“My husband and I almost got a divorce through it. That’s pretty strong, but it’s true. Both of us are blaming each other” for not being more cautious with their money.

The Kepners consulted art experts who said that the authenticity of their Chagall--which the seller appraised at $10,500 and sold them for the bargain price of $7,000--is at best dubious. The print is worth only “around $450 to $500,” providing the print was genuine and only the signature and numbering was faked, one appraiser wrote.

Bernard Schanz, the art dealer who sold the Kepners “Enchantment and the Kingdom,” said that while he believes the Chagall is authentic, he cannot prove its legitimacy.

“It’s genuine by every way, shape and form, it is not phony,” said Schanz, who picked up the Kepners’ hotel bill after they shopped at his now-defunct Masters Inc. Gallery of Fine Arts in Sedona, Ariz.

But Schanz--who now heads Schanz and Associates, a La Jolla concern that sells artworks by Chagall, Dali, Miro and other artists--added that whether a print is authentic is often just a matter of expert opinion.

“Who the heck can tell anymore?” Schanz said in a phone interview. “I’ve been in this business 28 years and you just don’t know. The best thing to be is to be happy with it. This piece was as clean as possible. It had all the necessary papers,” he said, explaining that “Enchantment and the Kingdom” came with a certificate of authenticity when he bought it from a Californian whose name he said he cannot recall.

Many novices like the Kepners, lured by advertisements touting limited-edition prints as high-return investments, complain daily to law enforcement and arts organizations about paying big money for artworks that sometimes turn out to be worth less than their frames.

In the United States alone, more than $1-billion worth of bogus Dali lithographs have been sold in the last few years, estimated Michael Stout, the New York attorney for the Spanish surrealist.

Dali, now 82 and infirm, is one of “the big three” artists whose names most frequently engender complaints, art experts said. The others are Joan Miro and Chagall. Prints attributed to Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder also generate many complaints.

Disputes over authenticity of artworks aren’t confined to limited-edition prints or novice investors. This spring at least five American museums, from the J. Paul Getty on the Pacific to the Metropolitan in Manhattan, have acknowledged that costly works in their collections are of dubious authenticity or fakes. In the past decade scholars have de-attributed scores of paintings, including many once thought to be Rembrandts but now believed to be the work of students, colleagues or unknowns.

Unlike oil paintings, fine-art prints--such as lithographs, engravings, etchings, woodcuts, and serigraphs--are not one-of-a-kind artworks. They are multiple impressions taken from a stone, plate, silk screen or other medium. They are called limited editions because typically fewer than 200 impressions are made, although a few artists have authorized editions of 1,000 or more.

These limited-edition prints are usually made by craftsmen supervised by the artist, who normally signs and numbers each print.

However, unauthorized extra copies can easily be turned out in volume. For instance, by simply using one print from a limited edition as a master, unscrupulous printers or sellers can re-create a stone, plate or silk screen through various techniques and make 1,000 seemingly genuine copies of a print that was only supposed to be issued in an edition of 150, said Benjamin Horowitz, a La Cienega Boulevard art dealer.

Or, instead of defacing a printing template, done to insure rarity of limited-edition prints, the intact template is used to run off additional, but unauthorized, copies.

With a forged artist’s signature, such unauthorized copies can be sold at a handsome profit. Dali and some other artists have contributed to this problem by signing thousands of blank sheets of paper that are then sold to print publishers.

These and other practices often result in prints so near perfect--especially with advances in the technology of photomechanical reproduction--that often experts can hardly distinguish them from the real thing, said Horowitz, former president of the Art Dealers Assn. of California.

Another area open to abuse is proofs pulled when the artist tests the impression, since a precise count may not be kept.

Art experts said that entire extra unauthorized editions also can be run on different types of paper. If the original edition was numbered in Arabic numerals the unauthorized extra editions can be numbered in Roman numerals. Unscrupulous artists or printers can also print an extra edition using a different mix of colors. Photomechanical reproductions of prints, creating pieces worth no more than wall posters but palmed off as authentic prints, also flood the market, experts said.

“I suspect as we speak there’s another type of abuse taking place. We just haven’t seen the effects of this spurious labor yet,” said Jennifer Josselson, head of the print department at Christie’s, the prominent auction house.

Art dealers concerned about the integrity of their trade and the few law enforcement officials knowledgeable about fraud and abuse in limited-edition prints told Calendar that Southern California has become a major center for production and distribution of fraudulent and dubious prints.

Terry De Lapp, a dealer in 19th- and early 20th-Century American art and president of the California dealers association, warns that “print fraud is absolutely rampant in Southern California and primarily in Los Angeles.

“We must get six calls a day from people with the same problem,” De Lapp said. “Someone will call up and say, ‘I bought a Dali and I took it back East to Sotheby’s (auction house in New York City) and they said it’s not good. What do I do?’ ”

De Lapp said he recommends that people who think they were taken get independent written appraisals (see accompanying article on ways to reduce risk in buying limited-edition prints) and then confront the seller.

Detective Joe Purmer of the Los Angeles Police Department, who has developed something of a specialty in art crime, agrees that fraudulent print sales in the city are “rampant. It’s common for us to come across people who have bought up to 10 of these prints and laid out up to $20,000.”

Ersatz prints have been sold over the phone via boiler-room operations, through the mail and classified advertisements, in traditional art galleries, at some art auctions, and frequently in “shopping mall” art galleries, officials told Calendar.

Newport Beach police Detective Craig Frizzell said his department in the past three years has received about 100 calls regarding dubious Dali prints primarily from out-of-state victims solicited by telephone, “alleging either that they’ve bought a fake Dali or become involved in some investment scheme.” He said the complainants cite average losses of $6,000 on prints.

Rebecca Mullane, an assistant attorney general in New York who has prosecuted print fraud cases, advises that “if anyone calls you saying they’re going to sell you an original lithograph by any artist, I’d just hang up the telephone.”

Victor Wiener, executive director of the Appraisers Assn. of America, a nonprofit membership organization of 1,200 art appraisers, said: “The public provides a willing market for a willing perpetrator of a fraud. It’s as simple as all that.

“I’m amazed all the time at the naive purchases that professionals make--dentists, lawyers, doctors,” Wiener said. “These are fairly well-to-do, educated people who would check out another doctor’s credentials if they were to work together, for instance, but who don’t apply the same skeptical scrutiny when buying art.”

Added Jack Rutberg, a local fine-art dealer: “Passionate sales people are selling prints in the shopping malls that they sincerely believe to be genuine. They recite their sales pitch with great conviction. But the month before they could be selling cars or condominiums. They have no knowledge of prints.

“There’s too much money involved for this not to a highly organized affair,” Rutberg said. “It’s national and international, involving master printers and technicians, expensive printing equipment and distribution costs.”

Mullane agreed: “This involves organized criminal activity; there’s no question.”

A spokesman for the local FBI office declined to discuss art fraud, other than to say, “I don’t know that we have a problem.” He referred questions to Washington, where another FBI spokesman said, “In my mind (art fraud) is not rampant, but of course it could be. We’ve just not been contacted.”

Art dealers maintain that good, authentic prints can be found by buyers who educate themselves and buy with caution.

“The entire print market is not a mess,” said Gilbert S. Edelson, a fine-arts lawyer and administrative vice president of the Art Dealers Assn. of America.

“There are several marvelous prints out there to be bought from reputable people, including works by Chagall, Picasso, and Miro--if you know which ones to buy,” Edelson said.

Local dealer Horowitz added that it is possible even for experts or reputable dealers to mistakenly sell a print that is not authentic. But, he said, “if the legitimate dealer made a mistake, he’ll make it good--meaning he’ll give the buyer back his money. The legitimate dealer’s reputation is exceedingly important to him.”

Still, the International Foundation for Art Research, a Manhattan-based organization that helps protect consumers against purchases of stolen or fraudulent artworks, receives about 10 calls a day from people questioning the authenticity of prints they own or might buy, said Virgilia Pancoast, director of the foundation’s authentication service.

“The fraudulent market for Dalis is just out of control,” she said. “There are lots of fly-by-night and unscrupulous dealers throughout the country selling works at high prices to inexperienced buyers who are easily fooled and easily taken in.”

This year prosecutor Mullane won convictions of six New York print sellers on 21 criminal charges for selling about $1 million in counterfeit Dali prints.

Dali was so troubled by “innumerable abuses” in marketing prints bearing his name that in 1985 he prepared an affidavit declaring he had not signed any prints or even blank paper since December, 1979.

But two reporters visited galleries throughout Los Angeles County and spotted numerous lithographs signed “Dali” dated 1981 and later, selling for as much as $4,400.

David Paul Steiner, a Century City attorney who represents several print publishers and dealers, said Dali has signed so many contracts giving conflicting rights to different parties that possibly some lithographs made after 1980 may be legitimate.

However, Christie’s will not sell any Dali dated later than 1949, said Josselson, the director of the auction house’s print department. She attributed this policy to widespread disputes over authenticity of Dalis and requirements of a New York state law requiring extensive disclosures about fine-art prints to protect buyers.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Elmyr de Hory made more than $1 million creating fake Chagalls, Picassos, Matisses and Modiglianis. He was jailed briefly in 1974 and died two years later. His exploits were told in the best-selling book “Fake!” by Clifford Irving, who later went to prison for faking a Howard Hughes autobiography.

De Hory’s case, and the ones Mullane prosecuted, are unusual because most alleged art frauds never get a day in court.

Art dealers frequently quell complaints by taking back disputed prints, often reselling them to new buyers.

When that happens, Purmer said, it is difficult to prove fraud because the art dealer can argue that he believed the print was genuine. To prove criminal intent, Purmer said, “you’d have to have about 10 victims come forward and say that they’ve all bought multiple prints from the same guy.”

Horowitz, a former California art dealers association president, said that some print fraud victims try to palm off their spurious purchases on other, unsuspecting, buyers.

When cases do get to court, there is plenty of room for attorneys to wrangle endlessly before jurors over fine points about fine prints. Said Horowitz, who has testified in court as an expert at authenticating prints:

“In the courtroom, it’s extremely difficult to prove a print is a fake. I say it’s a fake, but they get someone else who says it’s not a fake. . . . Most people just try to get their money back” by negotiating with the seller.

Horowitz, who has sold fine-art prints for 26 years, said he has notified local police, the district attorney, and the FBI’s Los Angeles office about print fraud problems “many times . . . but they don’t do anything.

“The feeling I get from the law enforcement agencies is that they have more important work to do--thievery, robbery, murders,” said Horowitz, who chairs the Art Dealers Assn. of California’s appraisal committee.

Horowitz ran a course for the FBI about seven years ago to train a team of agents about art. “They didn’t know the difference between a watercolor and a lithograph,” Horowitz said, “but, as far as I know, they never set up an art squad.”

Despite such obstacles, victims who persevere are persuading prosecutors to bring print fraud cases in Hawaii, New Mexico, New York and other states where trade in fine-art prints thrives.

In March, 17 people filed a multimillion-dollar class-action law suit in Honolulu against Center Art Galleries-Hawaii, alleging that they were sold fake Dali prints, sculptures and tapestries. The lawsuit followed disclosures by reporter Lee Catterall of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Hawaii, like New York, California and at least three other states--but not Arizona--requires art dealers to make extensive disclosures to aid in verifying the authenticity of limited-edition prints.

But even getting a certificate of authenticity from an art dealer may not eliminate controversy about a print.

“Any certificate is only as good as the person who signs it,” Horowitz said.

The Kepners obtained a “Confidential Appraisal * Certificate of Authenticity” from art dealer Bernard Schanz, which he issued as a member of the International Society of Appraisers.

Maurice E. Fry, executive director of the International Society of Appraisers, said that he was surprised that Schanz would issue such a certificate and invoke the society’s imprimatur. There are so many fake Chagalls that, “no single member will authenticate a Chagall,” Fry said by phone from his Chicago office. “I haven’t found a member who will even touch one.”

Schanz, who said he is still a member of the appraisers society and always uses its emblem when he sells prints, appraised the Chagall at $10,500 despite the Kepners showing him a written valuation from independent appraiser Richard G. Ruskin of Mar Vista. Ruskin had written the Kepners that the print was one of a group done for a limited-edition book and was worth “around $450 to $500 on today’s market.”

While Schanz advised the Kepners that “the best thing is to be happy” with their purchase, the Kepners say they are angry, saying that “(Schanz) told us we were wrong, that the piece was good, that all these people were wrong, and that the gallery would take full responsibility for its authenticity.”

On the basis of these assurances, and “because we didn’t see any other way to get our money back,” Geneve Kepner said she and her husband signed an agreement in October, 1985, with Schanz, consigning the print for sale at a minimum price of $10,000.

The print now hangs in a back room at Masters Gallery of Scottsdale, according to the gallery’s owner, Patricia Joyce, the wife of one of Schanz’s former partners.

“I’d like to make the Kepners happy,” Joyce said.

Asked if the print and its signature are genuine, Joyce said “I’m not real sure.” She referred questions to her attorney, Ralph Hunsaker, who said, “We’re working on trying to resolve the difficulties that have arisen. They are reputable gallery and stand behind their business affairs.” He said he was not qualified to comment on the print’s authenticity.

In April, the Kepners filed a complaint with the Phoenix police, who took the matter to Arizona Atty. Gen. Robert K. Corbin.

In their research the Kepners also learned of another opportunity for abuse in the limited-edition print market: unsigned prints published in books. Such prints can be cut out, framed and sold as individual prints, their potential selling price greatly enhanced if someone forges the artist’s signature.

While attempting to authenticate their Chagall print, the Kepners became acquainted with “The Lithographs of Chagall,” the definitive catalogue used as a reference guide in verifying the Russian-born artist’s prints by art experts from the Louvre to La Cienega Boulevard.

According to the catalogue’s fourth edition, Chagall authorized 205 copies of his lithograph “Enchantment and the Kingdom,” of which 180 illustrated a book of the same name. Another 15 copies were not offered for sale, but held in reserve for those who collaborated in producing the book and the remaining “10 copies were numbered in Roman numerals and reserved for Camille Bourniquel,” who wrote the book’s text.

The catalogue’s sixth edition, published in December, states that “numerous examples of this book have been cut up and the proofs have come into the hands of unscrupulous or misinformed dealers. They bear a forged number. None of the plates was signed by Chagall and no series of independent proofs was ever produced.”

Schanz said that the Chagall he sold the Kepners was one of the 10 copies that the artist reserved for author Bourniquel.

“This piece, as far as I know, was signed by Chagall,” Schanz said. He volunteered that he is unaware of any record that Chagall signed the print, but said “as far as I know, it’s genuine.”

Schanz said that once Chagall gave the 10 prints to Bourniquel he was free to “do anything he wants to with them--give them to kings and queens . . . whatever. This piece was signed by Chagall and eventually got to me.”

Schanz added that bearing Chagall’s signature in crayon “makes it even better. If I was trying to forge something, I’d never sign it in crayon. I’d sign it in something else. It is a genuine signature. . . . I told them (the Kepners) at the time it was a very rare piece because it was signed in crayon.”

Ruskin, the independent art appraiser in Mar Vista hired by the Kepners, wrote the couple in 1985 that he seriously doubts Chagall would sign a print in crayon.

Carmen Kummer of Christie’s print department wrote the Kepners in December, 1984, that if the print came from the book, it probably bears a forged signature. The catalogue states, she noted, that the individual prints were not signed--only a “justification” or title page in each book was signed--that it is “therefore improbable that this signature is genuine.” Kummer wrote that a copy of the book, with all 10 prints, could at best fetch $3,000.

Los Angeles art dealer Horowitz said he “absolutely” concurred with both appraisals, but then added that in authenticating prints the best rule is “never say never.”

Christie’s Josselson said that the last word in authenticating any Chagall comes from Charles Sorlier, Chagall’s printer and co-publisher of the Chagall catalogues. Sorlier, the catalogue states, “witnessed the realization of every (Chagall) work” from 1958 to the day the artist died on March 28, 1985. The disputed work the Kepners bought was printed in 1972.

Interviewed in Paris via telephone, Sorlier emphatically told Calendar that “it is not possible” Chagall ever signed any of the 205 copies with a pencil, a crayon or anything else. Sorlier added that the print the Kepners bought was surely false, or as he put it: “surement faux! “

Victor Valle and Ruth Reichl of the Calendar staff and intern Sean Grady from USC contributed to this article.