In our Knoedler Gallery Fraud series finale, we discuss the end of the Knoedler Gallery, the arrest of one of the fraudsters, and explore the De Sole lawsuit extravaganza. We ask the question of what authenticity means within the art world and how important it truly is, from the walls of a prestigious gallery in New York to the Chinese village of Dafen where art reproductions were famously made by the hundreds. And of course, we armchair analyze the notorious Ann Freedman.

“And so art is dead, not only because its critical transcendence is gone, but because reality itself, entirely impregnated by an aesthetic which is inseparable from its own structure, has been confused with its own image.” - Jean Baudrillard, Simulations

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Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/arts/fbi-art-crime-team.html

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visual-arts/david-mirvish-acknowledges-fakes-in-new-york-art-fraud-scandal/article_84b3ab29-c05b-5e0d-9a1d-b23b7a80e4fa.html

https://maddoxgallery.com/news/454-what-is-blue-chip-art/

https://itsartlaw.org/art-law/wywh-knoedler-trial-uncut-week-1/

https://www.clm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/7830293_1-1.pdf

Varga, Somogy and Charles Guignon, "Authenticity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = .

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/what-if-readers-like-ai-generated-fiction

https://news.artnet.com/market/knoedler-fraud-trial-jack-flam-martha-parrish-419594

https://brooklynrail.org/2014/03/art/the-held-essays-on-visual-artin-defense-of-faking-it/#_edn1

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/in-praise-of-art-forgeries.html

https://hyperallergic.com/why-chinas-infamous-copycat-town-now-invests-in-original-artworks/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-chinas-art-market-is-evolving-from-knockoffs-to-new-works

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dafen-village-china-replicas-2672642

This week in The Vanishing Brief, we discuss some recent headlines in the art crime world including the recent Louvre Heist, a Picasso painting gone missing in transit, and a Nazi-looted painting discovered in an Argentine real estate listing.

“I am not murdered, and I am not missing, but parts of me have been disappeared.” - Leanne Simpson

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Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/world/europe/france-louvre-jewel-heist.html

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/19/europe/robbery-louvre-paris-france-museum-closure-intl

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/picasso-work-missing-madrid-granada-1234757797/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-tiny-picasso-painting-went-missing-while-traveling-to-an-exhibition-in-spain-180987533/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/world/europe/louvre-heist-items.html

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/louvre-museum-closed-staff-protest-inadequate-security-1234757928/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/06/18th-century-portrait-stolen-by-nazis-recovered-in-argentina

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/nazi-looted-portrait-real-estate-listing-argentina-2681421

https://hyperallergic.com/1051349/french-museum-reports-theft-one-day-after-louvre-heist/

https://hyperallergic.com/1051113/the-louvre-heist-was-a-colonial-wake-up-call/

In this episode, we continue the story of the Knoedler Gallery as the fourteen year long forgery ring that made the gallery millions began to crumble. We unveil the masterminds behind the fakes, including a man who delivered caviar to Sotheby's in an old ambulance and a master Chinese forger who could easily replicate Rothko's and Diebenkorns. We discuss the alarming red flags that gallery girl boss Ann Freedman somehow overlooked, a millionaire Gucci alum, and misspelled Pollock signatures.

“Spectacle is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity.” - The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord

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

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

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3047

https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/wallach-division/art-architecture-collection/catalogue-raisonne

https://anderson.stanford.edu/collection/ocean-park-60-by-richard-diebenkorn/