The Art Forger Had Fooled Thousands. Then He Met Doug.

August 7, 2024 11:50 AM

When a man obsessed with woodblocks began to do business with a man obsessed with medical antiques, their relationship flowered — until it soured. By Christopher Kuo for the NYT. For decades, beginning in the late 1990s, Washington, 62, created thousands of ornate woodblocks and used them to make intricate prints of all kinds of things: biblical imagery, erotica, anatomical illustrations, the stark motifs of German expressionism. Mastery was never enough for him, though. To profitably sell woodblocks — which can be an oddity in the art market — Washington decided he also needed myth. So he created elaborate origin stories for his pieces.
posted by bq (14 comments total)

“If I’m looking at your face when I’m talking to you, I’m literally looking at how I’m going to carve your eyes and carve your nose on a piece of wood,” he said in an interview.

Amazing what a difference those last five words make.
posted by solotoro at 11:55 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

Fucks sake, this man is an incredible wood block artist. He should be collected around the world. I hope he gets the attention he deserves when he gets out.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:15 PM on August 7 [7 favorites]

"He loves running his hands on its surface, feeling its heft and texture. But most of all he loves carving it. Thoughts about carving, he says, consume his waking moments."

Prelude to a Router Bit.
posted by clavdivs at 12:18 PM on August 7 [1 favorite]

Fucks sake, this man is an incredible wood block artist. He should be collected around the world. I hope he gets the attention he deserves when he gets out.

Yeah, that's my feeling, too. It is unfortunate that he felt he needed to deceive people to get his work out there, but the value is clearly in the craftsmanship and skill and not the backstory. I hope he becomes very, very successful.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:21 PM on August 7 [2 favorites]

It really is like two different stories: a brazen art fraud and a generational craftsman. I was struck by the beauty and detail of these blocks and hope that the victims see their purchases turn into something of proper value. (That's of little consolation to Dr. Arbittier, I realize, who bought them not for the art but for the antiquity...)
posted by AgentRocket at 12:23 PM on August 7

I really cannot fault Washington too much for drifting into a way to convince a bunch of rich people that art he was making was worth a lot of money that also happened to involve a little bit of fraud. Making money as an artist is hard, and it only keeps on getting harder. Transferring $40k/y from an "executive for a private health care system" with enough money to have his own private museum to a brown dude from Detroit is pretty much a victimless crime in my eyes.

("Executive for a private health care system": Arbitter's Linkedin brings me to [Atlantic Health System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Health_System), who just had to cough up one dollar short of nine million dollars for overbilling Medicaid.)
posted by egypturnash at 3:05 PM on August 7 [7 favorites]

Every time I hear about an art "forger" getting busted, I think about how it's a direct acknowledgement that the story behind the artifact is more important than the artifact itself. That the ability to write the artist statement, and blow smoke up the ass of patrons, is more important than skill at the craft.

And I think about all of the amazing artists out there struggling along despite their skill. And I don't know that I cheer for the forger, but I sure don't weep for their marks.
posted by straw at 3:09 PM on August 7 [5 favorites]

I think about how it's a direct acknowledgement that the story behind the artifact is more important than the artifact itself.

This is a fun way to sneer at the excesses of the world of high art, but my job as a special collections librarian is to acquire things just like this for researchers to better understand the history of human craft and knowledge production. Fakery is violence against the historical record and it makes me angry. It matters whether or not these things are real.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:30 PM on August 7 [13 favorites]

Horace Rumpole, yes absolutely. History deserves better. I wish academic art historians were wealthy and abundant. The art market would be a far better place. If only research could be so valued!

What matters to the marks, though, isn't History, it's scarcity, and thus financial value. The art market doesn't hate forgery because it's anti-historical.
posted by Richard Daly at 5:37 AM on August 8 [4 favorites]

I'm not going to be out here defending people who buy art as just another blue chip whatsis, but I will say that the art market it one thing, but individual art collectors have many motivations behind their collecting, and love of history and human knowledge or a passionate love for fine art can also be there. If I had a lot of money, spending it on art is definitely something I would do.

I'm in a similar field to Horace Rumpole, although with fine art. I believe we have similar views on the subject.
posted by PussKillian at 8:04 AM on August 8 [2 favorites]

Dang, such talent wasted. Part of me wants to see him continue to produce beautiful work, but part of me thinks that no way he should he profit from it because he betrayed his talent.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:24 AM on August 8

What matters to the marks, though, isn't History, it's scarcity, and thus financial value. The art market doesn't hate forgery because it's anti-historical.

In this case, given that the collection is about medical history, I imagine that a-historical is in fact a primary problem.
posted by bq at 12:54 PM on August 8

> “ “That just showed naïveté or a bizarre behavioral problem or something,” he said. “I’m like, ‘What the hell, man, you defrauded me. Are you kidding me?’””

Says the guy who found art on eBay and thought he had found a bargain basement trove of early medical prints. He _wanted_ to take advantage of naive owners, scouring eBay and not Swann Galleries.

Frack that guy.
posted by xtian at 5:54 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Things turn up on EBay, though? I know my old museum and my current museum have both bought things off of EBay - antique clothing and ceramics both.
posted by PussKillian at 1:05 PM on August 10 [1 favorite]