this is thiago pibavarchek and jeff
taylor
of new york art forensics and this is a
jackson pollock
or at least it looks like one but it's
actually a fake
here's how they figured it out today we
will perform all the steps necessary
to determine its authorship
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jackson pollock was an american painter
that
painted from the early 20s to the 1950s
he's best known by the drift or court
paintings
that he did from 1947
to the time of his death in 1956.
pollock's grip paintings are considered
his best
period so a good sized well-preserved
jackson pollock you can go for over 100
million dollars
there's a lot of claims of jackson
pollock drip paintings
and our laboratory was able to identify
over a hundred fakes so we can say that
we found more fakes than there are
authentic jackson pollocks out there
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we received this painting by our clients
that
chose to remain anonymous we're going to
call him
sydney first step when we receive a
painting we're trying to establish
something called the provenance
provenance is a chain of ownership and
custody of an artwork from
the contemporary ownership all the way
back
to its manufacturing where this painting
came from what is the story behind it
is there anything that shows the history
of this artwork
so this is one of the most fascinating
documents that i've ever seen
this is a document to explain why sydney
should have a jackson pollock
most bargeries there are not as much
forgeries
of confidence with forgeries of
documentation
this is problematic in all these
different ways the facts has no number
dr armand hirschkovitz cannot be
referenced
there's no record of a tear gallery in
dover new jersey
then he says he acquired this painting
in 1955
after pollock died but he didn't die
until 1956.
so for all these reasons this is an
incredibly unreliable
and deceitful document
the next step will be we try to find a
match
for the artwork jackson polo paintings
are specifically hard to look for
matches because
the nature of the image most of the
sources are
imprinted material and the catalog
resonate which is
the comprehensive catalog of works
for a given artist this painting has no
match
the next step is a close-up visual
analysis
so we're looking close to the painting
to try to find anachronistic materials
and techniques
something that would be uncharacteristic
from a given outer or a given time
it's a very very thin layer
yeah look at how many how many colors i
count that aren't in the drip layers
it's very hard to prove there's
something
is but it's easier to find
things that are out of place things that
should not be there
look at these underlying colors we've
got a yellow a green
and neither of them appear in the drip
patterns that's done with a brush
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yeah it's rather strange because when
pollock starts doing the port painting
he really doesn't
brush much anymore yep so there's no
signature here
a lot of the works going into the market
in very controversial ways
are not signed and we suspect that
someone is trying to
mitigate whatever legal repercussions
trying to
imply that unsigned work is not
a forgery per se as i say it's a next
level to take the step to sign
artwork
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now you see here tiago i got two holes
right here they're just that distance
and they're repetitive you have a series
of
smaller holes and that indicates that
this
canvas was a certain point staple
and staple canvases will not be a thing
on 1956.
there's something did you have dirt here
yeah that's not
nasty it's being aged through a series
of processes
to look older it's like they spilled
something on this
through carelessness or not through
carelessness
you can see by the marks on the back how
it was
dabbed with a tea bag and if you
actually
come really close and smell it you can
smell
tea still the surface is being
sprayed with nicotine to emulate
ages of exposure to smoking but
the canvas is actually really good state
of conservation
it hasn't really shredded the way
a canvas starts to unravel at its edges
over time
there's like some punctual damage there
is here yeah
you should be like all over like this
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then the next step will be photography
so we want to see if there's any under
drawings or sketches
under the paint you never know sometimes
the canvas was reused
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did you see that that squared green
there oh yes
in this case instead of finding under
drawing actually we found
that this canvas was reused from
a prior picture that had
very regular geometric shape which is
very young characteristic from pollock
as well now we get out the uv
light if you're going to analyze the
material
aspects of the artwork we want to be
sure that we're looking at relevant
parts of it
so we examine it with ultraviolet light
to try to look at the
original parts of the painting normally
all the restorations would show up but
none of the restorations show up any
different as if the thing was done all
at the same time
see look here this cut
there is a big patch on the back and
this ripping is held together
by a patch and it's gluing it together
you see there's two little canvas
threads
are actually like loose and
the restoration was
made in a completely
substandard way and it doesn't seem to
be
fulfilling the purpose of a proper
conservation
the x-ray fluorescence spectrometer
that's the next step
this handy device that looks kind of
like a star trek phaser is
a really outstanding tool in the field
of art forensics i'm actually emitting
a small amount of x-rays onto the
surface of the painting
it's exciting the electrons in the
pigments there and that allows this to
identify
what elements are present it shows that
we have
titanium on it which natural from
titanium dioxide
white pigment it's a very common
material from the 1930s for a lot of
our cases titanium is the determining
factor and it has tripped up more
forgers than any other element
so if this were purporting to be a
painting by de ga
and we found the titanium immediately we
would know
no way in this case however by the time
pollock is working titanium is a widely
available white so to find it in
pollock's work is not surprising in fact
it's well documented that his works do
contain titanium
titanium white was already available in
the 1950s
from that we move on to microscopy
so thiago is going to be taking tiny
non-destructive fragmentary samples
of different bits of paint
this process is mostly used for
organic materials with those we would
then be able to test
both the pigment and the binder
we're looking for what is the kind of
paint
used we try to take a few
samples from each color and then
we use the rama spectrometer
we put in a microscope slide and we
shine a laser
over it and then this laser bounces
back inside the machine in a slightly
different color from the original hollow
glazing
that can tell us an idea of what we're
looking at
and we found mostly acrylics
although the binder known as acrylics
did exist
at the time pollock was alive in this
one the specific variant of acrylic
did not exist it only started being
manufactured in the 1960s
for more than 100 years scientists have
just been looking at tiny fragments
of paintings under microscopes and this
allows us to really make a visual
identification based in metals and
tiny fragments of mineralogy
so there are studies regarding jackson
pollock paintings that describe the
type of debris found in his paintings
look at that either somebody dropped us
in a mud puddle or they
directly applied this stuff and there is
a specific type of
sedimentary rock and dust that he would
spread on his
work i think it's a piece of insulation
that's what i'm saying i don't even care
to tell what that is but
on this case we analyzed the debris and
dust
embedded on the painting and it seems to
be
the breeze from drywall which is
inconsistent with
other pollux works
conclusion a jackson polygon
that technique per se that is not much
of a mystery
so it is our opinion that this
would not qualify as a jackson pollock
painting
as i say if the deal is too good
there's something wrong