The newest art fraud matter was front paged in today’s (October 18th) New York Times when a major Wall Street trader accused a college art history professor and her son of forging 30% of the Leon Golub paintings in his collection. Andrew J. Hall, whose commodities market trading acumen is said to have earned him a $100 million bonus one year, has exhibited his collection in the US and Germany and has his own museum in Vermont. He now claims that all 24 paintings he bought from Lorettann Gascard of Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire were all fakes. Samm Kunce, representing the Golub-Spero Foundation examined the Hall paintings and “found problems” according to the Times. Elisabeth McCarthy, speaking for the Golub-Spero Foundation, said that the Foundation would not opine on the authenticity of the works.
Dr. Gascard, earned her doctorate at the Free University in Berlin and in 2004 again traveled to Germany on a Fulbright grant for research purposes. She and her son apparently left the area about a year and a half ago and have not been heard from since. Mr. Hall is seeking damages for the $676,250 he paid for the paintings.
Leon Golub, who died in 2004, and his wife, Nancy Spero, who died in 2009, were a couple famed for their sparely executed but passionately rendered political paintings. The artist is currently represented by Hauser & Wirth Gallery, New York. has shown internationally, and is represented in numerous museums world wide.