DRIVEN TO ABSTRACTION

Whatever the truth, two women from very different worlds were, wittingly or not, caught up in the greatest hoax ever of Modern American Art. When collectors realized they had plunked down millions on now worthless fakes – Mark Rothkos, Jackson Pollocks, Clyfford Stills, Franz Klines, Richard Diebenkorns, Barnett Newmans, and Robert Motherwells – lawsuits started flying, and the Feds did what the Feds do — they followed the money to tax evasion and money laundering and to a modest house in Queens. It turned out that all the fakes were the work of a single forger, an elderly Chinese immigrant with the uncanny ability to mimic the masters of Abstract Expressionism. 

How could this scam flourish for so long despite plenty of red flags popping up along the way? “It took a village,” says Patricia Cohen, the New York Times reporter who broke the story. The art market’s lack of transparency and secret transactions smoothed the way. Along with drugs and arms, the art trade is the most unregulated in the world.