Confession of a Former Park West Gallery Auctioneer and other Shady Dealings
by
Theresa Franks, for Fine Art Registry®
Bill Smith and the Infamous Forged $750,000 Divine Comedy Suite Sold by Park West Gallery and Park West Gallery Secretly (or so they thought) Settles Huge Claim with Victim
Former Park West Gallery Auctioneer Tells All
Months after Fine Art Registry® won a unanimous jury verdict at trial in Michigan in April of this year, a former Park West Gallery auctioneer contacted us and provided some further insight into the extraordinarily bad and the ugly business practices of the Park West Gallery art auction.
We have been unable to confirm the following information with Park West Gallery since one of their attorneys (or perhaps by now former attorney?), Robert Goldman (the lawyer who referred to his client's artwork as "shit" [a direct quote]), informed us that we are not permitted to contact or ask anyone at Park West Gallery any questions or to communicate with the executives or staff in any way (even though it is perfectly permissible for the parties in litigation to contact one another), most probably because they are avoiding the truth at all costs. But the report below is very much consistent with scores of others we have received over the last three years of our investigation into Park West Gallery and cruise ship art auctions and we are quite confident it is accurate.
The identity of the following individual is withheld for fear of retribution and the all too real threat by Park West Gallery to lay ruin to individual lives, businesses, appraisers, and art experts, if they are at all publicly critical about the gallery, its artwork, and its business practices. We know that Park West Gallery will make good on its threats, even though the truth is being communicated. After all, the claim to fame for the self-proclaimed "largest art gallery in the solar system" is not necessarily the spurious artwork they sell - not even the Dali forgeries they have sold to countless victims and continue to sell - the gallery is most famous for its practice of terrorizing and threatening any individual or business that dare criticize its "products" and the way it treats its customers. Additionally, Park West Gallery is known for mistreating many of its employees, including its so-called "auctioneers" as set forth in the quoted material below.
Hello:
I've been watching your videos and keeping up with your battle with PW. I had to write to you.
I'm glad to finally see the evil empire falling.
There are a few things you may not know.
PW has been selling art for years that they say is pencil signed. The buyer assumes as do the auctioneers that the artist signed the print. However, once at PW while in MI I came across a signature machine. I later noticed as an auctioneer in the descriptions of each print some said hand-signed but others said pencil signed. I'm sure pencil signed was done by a machine. The artist probably never even saw the print.
Also for years Morris [Shapiro] had us push the embellished serigraphs on canvas as something between a painting and a print, touched by the artist's brush and a unique work. Later I discovered that 90% of the embellished pieces by artists like Tarkay were embellished by workers at PW, again the artist never laid eyes on the print. And these pieces were being sold for thousands of dollars.
Also the Tarkay watercolors over a serigraph line drawing, sold as watercolors by Tarkay were not painted by him - these are like a coloring book, colored in with water color by PW artists and sold as if they were painted by Tarkay: cost $4000+.
Offloads: when sold art or a full ship collection is replaced and offloaded, US customs needs a valuation. Check out the valuations PW put on these shipments. Appraised value millions, customs value $20,000.
I worked off and on for PW for 12 years. I would have quit sooner but I had a family to support. I was one of their top auctioneers.
I did the first VIP cruise too: once you asked who sold the suite of full-signature Dali Divine Comedies for $750,000. I was there when Bill Smith took the mic from me and told my audience that he had something really special: it was the full suite of Divine Comedies with the full signature, Salvador Dali: he claimed they were worth over a million dollars. I can't remember the name of the couple who bought them. Later that night in the bar Bill [Smith] was laughing, he said, "You won't believe what I paid for them." He never told me the amount but I heard a rumor it was under $10,000.
PW has cheated me out of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. At the same time Albert was claiming to be buddies with Jesus. It makes me sick. I knew Albert [Scaglione] before he was saved and was just a very cruel man, now he is just evil. I've seen him do some bizarre things over the years and behave like a madman.
I really admire what you have been able to accomplish.
Good Luck
A Key to the Park West Gallery Dali Forgeries
What's interesting about the above communication from the former auctioneer is the mention of Bill Smith (a key player in the acquisition of the vast majority of the forged Dali prints sold by Park West Gallery and who was involved in many Park West sales of fraudulent Dali prints to scores of victims) who sold a complete suite (or set) of the Divine Comedy purportedly signed by Dali in sepia ink for the princely sum of $750,000. Fine Art Registry reported on this particular suite of prints nearly a year ago - sourcing from the Albarettos. We are confident that the signatures applied to the prints sold to this couple for nearly three-quarters of a million dollars are forgeries. And even if they weren't forgeries, the prints would not in any case be worth even a fraction of three-quarters of a million dollars. There is no doubt that these unwitting victims were told that the set was a "great investment". Ask victims Sharon Day and Julian Howard about their so-called "great investment" in their forged Divine Comedy set sold to them by Morris Shapiro.
What follows are examples of actual forged Dali Divine Comedy woodcuts sold by Park West Gallery to a victim currently suing Park West Gallery and bearing the full forged signature "Salvador Dali". It is exactly these woodcuts and these signatures, represented by Park West Gallery to be applied with "sepia ink" that were purchased by the couple mentioned above, all sourcing from the Albarettos (note the "ga" notation on the images which stand for "Guiseppe Albaretto" - see also our article titled, Creating Provenance).
Based on the above report from the auctioneer, there is no question that Bill Smith knew exactly what he was doing at the time - laughing all the way to the bank. In fact, one of Park West Gallery's own lawyers stupidly confirmed the sale of this set was for more than what victims Sharon Day and Julian Howard paid for theirs. See the following article published on January 10, 2010, titled: Corruption, Manipulation, Deceit and Worthless Park West Gallery Appraisals (Litigation Update No. 8), published January 10, 2010.
Interestingly, Bill Smith is conspicuously absent these days and has been since all the Park West Gallery litigation began. Smith is completely elusive as complaints of fraud and deception by Park West Gallery continue to flow in and as this controversy deepens. It is an undisputed fact that Bill Smith factors heavily in the Park West Gallery forged Dali storm, but Park West Gallery doesn't want him anywhere near a courthouse, on the witness stand at trial, or in any depositions. Park West Gallery is keeping Smith locked up (one of those nasty little skeletons) as he is another loose cannon Park West Gallery can ill afford to have going off. Park West Gallery must, at all costs, forever keep Bill Smith hidden and his testimony regarding what he knows suppressed. Park West Gallery fought tooth and nail to keep Smith's deposition from being taken and they will continue to do so, though Albert Scaglione claims he is still employed with Park West Gallery and manages, of all things, "auctioneer compliance". What a joke. That's like the fox guarding the hen house.
Double-Dealing Park West Gallery Settles Nearly $1 Million Dollar Claim with Victim
Our readers, members, and especially Park West Gallery victims will find it extraordinarily interesting that Park West Gallery has this month (October 2010) just settled a claim with Park West Gallery victim, Bob Parda, who was one of many Plaintiffs named in a lawsuit against Park West Gallery filed in Oakland County, Michigan, this year - a victim who had purchased nearly a million dollars in artwork from Park West Gallery over the last decade or so. This very recent settlement with this particular individual begs many questions. For example, why did Park West Gallery settle with this victim and not the other Plaintiffs in the very same lawsuit? Why not the scores of others who have pending litigation against Park West Gallery, like Sharon Day and Julian Howard, who purchased over $500,000 in forged Dali artwork from Park West Gallery in 2008? And what about all the other victims who have sued Park West Gallery and are left holding the bag? Why not settle with them too? And what about all those Class Action Plaintiffs who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on bogus art? Why hasn't Park West Gallery settled with them? The answer is simple.
The victim (Bob Parda) has "the goods" on Park West Gallery. He knows way too much about the business practices of Park West Gallery. Could it be that he might have known the identity of the victims who purchased the forged Divine Comedy suite for $750,000? Could it be he was present at the VIP auction where the Dali Divine Comedy suite was sold for $750,000? Heavens! Park West Gallery cannot risk having that couple come out of the shadows and tell all. However, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Park West Gallery has already pre-empted a claim from this couple and struck a deal with them as well. Settle and gag the victim and threaten them with litigation if they talk - that's the Park West Gallery way.
This isn't the first time selective settlements and/or refunds have been made by Park West Gallery. There are other victims that Fine Art Registry is well aware of that Park West Gallery has refunded and/or settled with while Park West Gallery simultaneously flatly refuses other victims with the exact same claims. Think about it for just a minute. Why settle and refund the selective few who have substantial claims of a $1 million dollars or more and not with others, those with the same or lesser claims in dollar value?
Yes, Bob Parda was too much of a risk to roll the dice on and a huge liability to Park West Gallery, as he was intimate with Morris Shapiro - the gallery's fork-tongued salesman extraordinaire - who befriended this victim and made promises and representations to this victim that were astonishingly deceptive. This was not a victim Park West Gallery could pick off easily with the threat of a defamation suit. Oh no! This was a victim with much "inside information" on how Park West Gallery did business and they knew this victim could and probably would have revealed many things they (Park West, Albert Scaglione, Morris Shapiro, and Bill Smith) did not want the public and especially law enforcement to know. Indeed, Park West Gallery wanted to shut him up and silence him quickly. The only way to do that was to settle with him and have him sign a gag agreement before he had the opportunity to fully disclose to the public and Park West Gallery adversaries the truth about what he witnessed at the Park West Gallery auctions, including the Park West Gallery VIP auctions and before discovery or depositions in the litigation revealed even more.
So you see the duplicitous Park West Gallery and its CEO Albert Scaglione are extremely selective in their refund policies. If you have "something on them" that they don't want the public or law enforcement to know - then it's almost a certainty that you will receive a refund. Otherwise, if you are one of the unlucky ones holding dubious and forged works of art purchased from Park West Gallery, you will have to bite the bullet and join the ranks of scores of other victims that wait patiently for their day in court or for law enforcement to indict, whichever comes first.
— by Theresa Franks
| October 28, 2010
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