The Knoedler Gallery Fraud Part I: Legacy of the Con Artwork

Vanishing Point

The art & philosophy of art thefts & forgery

Vanishing Point

The Knoedler Gallery Fraud Part I: Legacy of the Con

September 18, 2025 • Olivia Huntley & Emma Kimbrough

In this episode, we introduce the decades-long, $80 million forgery ring that took place within the prestigious Knoedler Gallery in New York City. We discuss the history of the long-standing gallery and its legacy, the calculated gallery director and art maestro Ann Freedman, and the movement at the heart of the story: Abstract Expressionism. Our story winds us through tales of forged Matisses, cannibalism allegations, a Jeffrey Epstein connection, and splatter paintings galore.

“A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore risky to send it out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent.” - Mark Rothko

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Some references for this episode:

The Devil Wears Rothko: Inside the Art Scandal that Rocked the World by Barry Avrich

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art. Directed by Barry Avrich, Melbar Entertainment Group, 2020.

https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-knoedler-new-yorks-most-notorious-art-gallery-53775

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/16/archives/the-new-nihilism-art-versus-feeling.html

https://www.artsy.net/gene/abstract-expressionism

https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/abstract-expressionism/a-distinctly-american-style

https://sothebysinstitute.com/articles/how-to-series-art-forgery/

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-the-8-most-prolific-forgers-in-art-history-that-we-know-of