Utrillo Experts in Accord, Halt Feud Over Forgeries

The world’s two leading experts on post-impressionist painter Maurice Utrillo have formally laid to rest a bitter dispute about forgeries that sent shivers across the lucrative art market.

After disrupting auctions in London and Paris, the heir to the Utrillo estate, Jean Fabris, signaled his intent to make peace by co-sponsoring a rare Utrillo exhibition with his former foes, owners of the prestigious Petrides gallery in Paris.

The show opens to the public Wednesday.

“I made the Establishment quake in its shoes,” Fabris said of his long campaign to persuade leading auctioneers that many Utrillo canvasses up for sale were cheap forgeries.

“If I am here today, it must be because I was right,” he told Reuters.

Fabris, a French art historian and secretary to the painter’s widow, claimed that Utrillo, who died in 1955, painted 2,000 works but that there is growing evidence that up to 20,000 certificates of authenticity had been granted.

That would have involved creation of three canvases a day in a 45-year career.

Fabris’ allegations sent prices plummeting and caused embarrassment in a market dependent on good faith and expert opinion.

He was thrown out of Christie’s early last year for shouting “fake” at a sale, was later barred from Sotheby’s and finally succeeded in halting a major Paris auction in 1989 by having police seize seven alleged Utrillo forgeries.

Police later described five of the seven as gross, bad-quality fakes.

Fabris acknowledged that Utrillo’s bohemian lifestyle made it difficult to distinguish an inspired canvas from the many works he dashed off in return for a bottle of wine or to square a debt.

He campaigned for 10 years against 90-year-old dealer Paul Petrides, who as a world-recognized authority on Utrillo has delivered hundreds of certificates authenticating his works.

Petrides’ son Gilbert said the two sides patched up their quarrel in the interests of art and investment.

“We couldn’t just leave this be. It would have been bad for Utrillo’s rating,” he said.

Under a deal negotiated by lawyers in May the two have agreed to jointly issue certificates of authenticity on Utrillo canvases.

The joint show in the Petrides gallery puts a final touch of gloss on their new relationship.

Paris dealers have welcomed the legal treaty.

Auction house Francis Briest, which in June sold a Utrillo for a world record of $1.4 million--well above a previous $900,000 record in New York weeks earlier--denied that the accord had influenced the price.