Fine Art Registry® Columnist/Guest Author
Theresa Franks
- FAR® Founder & Art Collector
Theresa Franks is an avid art collector as well as the Founder and CEO of Fine Art Registry® who conceived, developed and patented the FAR® tag technology.
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Article List
This third article focuses on another ironclad Civil War steamer/ship and the rare eye witness account of a battle which occurred on the James River in the early days of the Civil War...
Read MoreArt Article, November 29, 2011
As we have reported in recent articles, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCL) and Park West Gallery are rapidly running out of slick legal maneuvers to try to weasel their way out of paying...
Read MoreArt Article, October 12, 2011
We have recently published articles on the joy of collecting antiquarian newspapers from the American Civil War era in addition to an article on collecting rare, Native American photographs. This...
Read MoreArt Article, October 7, 2011
The art industry is completely unregulated, and as most in the industry know, literally anything goes. As a result, art crime and fraud is widespread, unchecked, and is a serious worldwide threat...
Read MoreArt Article, October 1, 2011
At the end of this coming October it will be a long three years since Sharon Day first contacted Fine Art Registry concerning the Dali Divine Comedy set her husband, Julian Howard, purchased from...
Read MoreArt Article, September 27, 2011
Avery Hershkowitz first contacted Fine Art Registry in approximately August 2007, at the very beginning of our investigation into cruise ship art auctions. The first couple of articles we published...
Read MoreArt Article, August 19, 2011
Park West Gallery must truly believe that its customers are just plain dim or altogether brainless. Perhaps they are much too trusting in the far-fetched and completely unreliable verbal...
Read MoreArt Article, July 23, 2011
The following is a wonderful 1862 contemporary newspaper report from the New York Tribune. It is the true story of the events surrounding the birth of the 1st South Carolina Colored Regiment...
Read MoreArt Article, July 21, 2011
As promised, this is the second article in what will be a continuing series of articles on the Fine Art Registry investigation into Peter Paul Biro and company. You will recall from our initial...
Read MoreArt Article, July 18, 2011
BREAKING NEWS: The self-proclaimed "art authenticator" (cough-cough) Peter Paul Biro, has foolishly thrown down the gauntlet, accusing award-winning writer, David Grann and Conde Nast...
Read MoreArt Article, July 4, 2011
Collecting artifacts, rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and other relics from the American Civil War era is surely one of the most popular collecting genres in the U.S. If ever there was...
Read MoreArt Article, June 30, 2011
There is a significant body of collectors today (this writer among them) that enjoy collecting rare and historical photographs of Native American Indians and their culture. It is a wildly popular...
Read MoreArt Article, June 13, 2011
The artists and illustrators of the American West are not often thought about in the 21st century. But it was these creative and courageous individuals of the 19th century that traveled to the...
Read MoreArt Article, May 18, 2011
It has been some time since our last update as it relates to Park West Gallery and all of the related litigation that is ongoing, but it certainly does not mean that our investigation into cruise...
Read MoreArt Article, May 9, 2011
The following delightful story was written and published anonymously in the mid-19th century. A handsome, young artist unexpectedly finds himself agreeing to an unseemly portrait commission...
Read MoreArt Article, April 19, 2011
For centuries, gloves have been worn by the rich, the wealthy, and the fashionable. In ages past, they have represented many things to many people world wide. The art of glove-making can be...
Read MoreArt Article, April 16, 2011
The following anonymous article is a rare opportunity to tour the wealthy William H. Vanderbilt’s art gallery as it existed during its renovation in June 1883. This delightful art review was...
Read MoreArt Article, February 23, 2011
In this new year we are working on bringing our Fine Art Registry members and readership new and continuing investigations and reports concerning the unregulated art industry, including new...
Read MoreArt Article, February 15, 2011
It’s hard to believe that we are coming up on the four year anniversary of our reporting on cruise ship art auctions. Since that time, in an effort to silence Fine Art Registry from reporting the...
Read MoreArt Article, January 27, 2011
On January 11, 2011, the new digs for the Salvador Dali Museum opened in St. Petersburg, Florida. The who’s who of the Dali world attended including Spanish royalty. Present at the gala, ribbon...
Read MoreArt Article, January 27, 2011
Since we are well on our way into the New Year of 2011, we thought it fitting to update our members and readership on the latest in the class action lawsuits filed against Park West Gallery that...
Read MoreArt Article, January 6, 2011
The nineteenth century anonymous article, quoted below, profiling artist George Frederick Watts is several stories in one, including a not so obvious message for today’s living artists. There is...
Read MoreArt Article, December 31, 2010
In a continuing series on obscure, unknown, and forgotten female artists, we offer the following story or sketch on a remarkable French woman whose artistic ability was more than exceptional in...
Read MoreArt Article, December 28, 2010
Throughout our reporting over the years on Park West Gallery’s unfair and deceptive trade practices, we have exposed two so-called appraisers that Park West Gallery regularly employs or contracts...
Read MoreArt Article, December 6, 2010
Way back in the spring of 2007 when Fine Art Registry first began reporting on cruise ship art auction rip offs in general, we discovered that at least 73 reports of rip off by the art peddler...
Read MoreArt Article, December 4, 2010
The following article was written by an anonymous female art critic of the 19th century. Today, it is hard to imagine that women in the 19th century were, unless unmarried, always identified with...
Read MoreArt Article, November 30, 2010
War has claimed some costly offerings, and youth, genius, and worth have been sacrificed to this terrible Moloch. When, fired with love for his native France, Henri Regnault left Tangiers, where...
Read MoreArt Article, November 24, 2010
The following is an anonymous article published circa 1882. Often associated with the occult, amulets have an amazing history. There are many living artists today that design and make amulets...
Read MoreArt Article, November 5, 2010
Tom Ungar is one of the more egregious cases of financial rape and victimization by Park West Gallery. We won’t bother going to the trouble of setting forth the process of how Park West Gallery...
Read MoreArt Article, November 2, 2010
Fine Art Registry will be publishing a continuing series of firsthand accounts and other interesting historical articles and stories on a variety of visual arts and crafts, including articles on...
Read MoreArt Article, October 28, 2010
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...
Read MoreArt Article, October 28, 2010
When things go wrong with an art deal they really go wrong and it’s difficult for many to admit that they have been a victim of an art scam or crime. Many are embarrassed that they didn’t know...
Read MoreArt Article, September 22, 2010
In order to self promote the work you create you first need to understand a few basics. I am sure not everyone will agree with me, but it is what has worked for others and with any luck it will...
Read MoreArt Article, August 31, 2010
Fine Art Registry exists to bring order to an unregulated art industry. This means that part of what we do is to expose art crime and art fraud, a burgeoning multi-billion dollar illicit industry...
Read MoreArt Article, August 26, 2010
It is my pleasure to report that we have discovered new and compelling evidence that proves that Park West Gallery sells its artwork "on investment". For the last three and a half years that Fine...
Read MoreArt Article, August 22, 2010
Fine Art Registry® and Park West Gallery are scheduled to duke it out at the Federal District Court in Port Huron, Michigan, on March 15, 2010. Fine Art Registry has been in training for this...
Read MoreArt Article, February 23, 2010
Protecting the Reputation of the Life’s Work of the Artist for Well Over Half a Century. For decades Robert Descharnes has seriously pursued Dali’s decree to "honor" and "defend" the artist’s...
Read MoreArt Article, October 20, 2009
In addition to bearing forged Dali signatures, much of the provenance provided by Park West Gallery to support the authenticity of the graphics it has sold at cruise ship art auctions, is...
Read MoreArt Article, August 13, 2009
The oldest, largest and most widely hailed auction houses in the world, Sotheby’s and Christie’s agree that the only definitive universal experts on the original works of Salvador Dali are Robert...
Read MoreArt Article, October 21, 2008
Many consumers boarding cruise ships for exotic destinations are likely to be subjected at some point during the cruise to the snares of an onboard auction, advertising art work and other collect...
Read MoreArt Article, January 22, 2008
Pick up any magazine on the subject, visit any related website, talk to any knowledgeable dealer or gallery and you will soon find out that the field of fine art reproductions, limited edition pr...
Read MoreArt Article, January 14, 2008
"Authentication" and "Provenance" defined. Before I launch into the meat of this article, I think it is appropriate to begin with defining two important terms used frequently in the visual art ma...
Read MoreArt Article, December 17, 2006
It sounds strange to question the validity of such a time honored, dyed-in-the-wool institution as certificates of authenticity for artwork, doesn’t it? However, if you stop to think about it for just a moment
...
Read MoreArt Article, June 21, 2006
For decades and decades, people around the globe have grumbled about the inherent perils associated with trading in fine art, both in the contemporary and secondary art markets...
Read MoreArt Article, February 9, 2006
There are more art and antique collectors today than at any other time in history. With the advent of the Information Age, the Internet, Ebay and television programs like the PBS Series, Antiques...
Read MoreArt Article, February 9, 2006
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