Burned Artist Playing With Fire or..?

A Closer Look at Art Authentication and Attribution

Everywhere you turn there's a piece of artwork being sold. With a good deal of them, there's also a bit of paperwork including provenance, documentation, attribution and certification. They're used to solidify claims that a certain piece of art was genuinely done by a specific artist. But all the papers in the world won't do much if they came from questionable sources.

Authenticating and Attributing Art Blues

There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn more about art authentication and attribution. When it comes to attributed art pieces, you have to know which people can be trusted and which ones you should just walk away from.

If you're a bit lost with regard to attributed art, here's a simple explanation. It is a term for describing artwork that was certified by skilled authorities as being an original. The operative term here is "skilled." If the one doing the attribution lacks the skills and training, all attributions that come out of him or her will be worth nothing.

Attributed art pieces are considered mostly hard-sells. A lot of people get in trouble with them, passing them off as works of a particular artist using various invalid reasons. Unprofessional individuals of all kinds are guilty of committing such acts.

They proffer attributions that have no sound basis except personal opinions and perceptions. The end result is attributions that have no real value. In the field of everything art-related, the only sources of legit, reliable attributions are those who are known to be authorities or experts on a given artist and his artwork.

People who demonstrate exhaustive knowledge on a certain artist and his work, and have evidence to support their statements are called practiced authorities. On the other hand, qualified authorities is what you call people who sold or purchased pieces by an artist, taught several related courses, studied the artist and his work, penned articles and released several publications, and curated the artist's museum exhibits.

Occasionally, the artists are also the skilled authorities. It could be a relative, heir, employee or other direct descendants too. Individuals who possess legal, official or formal entitlements or other estate-awarded sanctions can also voice opinions on the artist's artworks. They are then referred to as trained authorities. The biggest requirement of all is to have the art district back them up and recognize them as the premier specialists on a particular artist and his pieces.

There are plenty of people out there who aren't practiced in attributing art. It's impossible to cover them all completely. Focus your attention instead on the telltale signs you're dealing with art attribution pretenders. If you encounter any of the items listed below, you're likely doing business with someone untrustworthy and highly unqualified for performing art attribution tasks.

1. The seller is convinced the piece he's selling belongs to a certain artist's collection because it looks very similar to what that artist produces.
2. Stumbling across illustrations in art books that look a lot like the piece the seller has up for sale is his only basis for concluding it's from the same artist.
3. Art appraisers doubling as validation people minus the necessary qualifications. Remember: appraisers should stick with appraisals if they're not equipped for validating artworks.
4. Sellers fond of answering questions with "that's what recent owners of the piece said to me." Verification in this instance is impossible.
5. Sellers who equate the previous owner's fame and fortune with an art piece being the handiwork of the same artist who produced similar artwork.

Are you planning to buy attributed art yourself? Make sure whoever is doing business with you is totally legitimate. He/she should be a qualified and skilled authority on both the artist and his work. Talking with the actual artists is the ideal circumstance.

The group exhibit held in 1991 over in Sweden invited the likes of Kenth Bender to participate. A year later, the event ended. Paintings on display were all lost (or stolen), with the payments also disappearing. The tragic happening made Bender so uninspired that he had to take a break from it all. After some alone time, approx 18 years, he's now back in the game once again. Ready for what 2010 has in store.

www.fine-art-bender.com

— by Kenth Bender  |  November 17, 2010

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