"Mixed technique" or "Mixed media" is a curse, it gives the impression of being an original (painted) but is in reality a print. Auction houses would be nicer if they made these things a bit clearer.
Usually the fakers are either a bit more laborious, really creating a new work using some poorly understood and copied elements of the originals, or they are even more lazy, simply taking a print of a real work and adding a fake signature (and normally a "EA" épreuve d'artiste marking, which should be rarer than a number but is harder to check for unicity). This one is a first for me.
Value is what you would give for a Malevich poster in a frame (the frame looks a lot older than the image which is brand new).
UPDATE: Jordaens have now changed the description to include the information that it is based on a Malevich reproduction. Great!
UPDATE 2: images of the monogram on the work for sale, and some original El Lissitzky monograms, to make it obvious that it was intended to look like a work by him (no matter how poorly done to anyone studying his work for even a short while). This was an attempted El Lissitzky fake, no more, no less.
I would like to mention that E.L. is not "clearly El Lissitzky". It's nothing more than E.L. Contrary to Malevich, Lissitzky works with volumes, so there was nothing "clearly Lissitzky" about this item (re "Antonio del Guercio, Russische und sowjetische Avantgarde" where one sees them next to each other). I wasn't going to do a lot of research around this kind of item, until a customer sent me the address of this blog. Of course the thing looked like something from the Russian School of the early XXth century, but that someone might confound it with a work by, or a fake Lissitzky, let alone Malevich didn't cross my mind. And of course I'm always willing to add new information to the catalogue when at hand.
ReplyDeleteI have given my reply as an update to my post, as that makes it possible for me to include images. Someone faking a constructivist work by taking a work from the most famous one (Malevich), turning it upside down, and then adding the exact monogram used by the second-most famous constructivist (El Lissitzky), is a clear attempt by that person to dupe greedy but less savvy bidders. That's not the error of the auction house, you did not promote this item in such a way or made any hints to the artist, but after it has been pointed out, it seems weird to insist that the EL is not clearly intended to be El Lissitzky but may be a random two-latter combination.
ReplyDeleteI stumbled on your answer and have to admit that I didn't compare monograms. Obviously someone made a naive attempt to copy Lissitzky's monogram. Even the least savvy customer should be aware of this and even if he's not, he wouldn't be really conned when buying this contraption at 60 of 70 euros... But it's good to know that people like you are prepared to watch over them. So, if you see something weird appearing on our website, let us know.
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