Artist, Creator of Original Lithographs, Scholar & Author

As an artist who creates original lithographs by drawing on a limestone block with a grease pencil who chemically treats the image so I can print my edition, I know what it takes to create artwork.

In 1985, my introduction to lithography accelerated my connoisseurship particularly when I started to personally experience the public's misconceptions that lithographs, much less mine, were reproductions. At the time, it compelled me to not only explain to the public how I created a lithograph but to back it up with definitions, regulations and laws to support that concept that they were originals. As I was soon to discover too many artists and dealers in the marketplace also had those same misconceptions, resulting in their, with or without intent, misrepresentation of reproductions as lithographs.

Then in 1999, I discovered the misrepresentation of reproductions, much less fakes, as artwork was not exclusive to just artists, art dealers and galleries but also by a good majority of museums, cultural institutions, auction houses and academia. My initial naive attempts to bring that misrepresentation of reproductions as sculpture to the attention of these museums, cultural institutions, auction houses and academic professionals were almost always rebuffed, with very few exceptions, with some of the most nonsensical responses I have ever heard. For example, a director of major foundation refuted me when I said dead men don?t sculpt by stating: "they are posthumously cast but that doesn't make them reproductions."

Still, not quite believing what I was hearing, I thought there must be something they were not telling me and/or there was something I was somehow not understanding or was missing, even though I really didn't think so at the time. Nevertheless, to answer those questions, I began researching extensively.

What my research uncovered was a good majority of the museums, cultural institutions, auction houses and academic, for more decades probably than can be counted, have, with or without intent, abused terminology to the point that up is down and down is up. What I mean is artwork is obviously created by an artist, but now a good majority of those institutions and individuals act on the belief that the living presence of the artist is not required to create artwork. A prime example is the so-called Henri Matisse "Small Nude in a Chair" with a given "1924' date in this Matisse, painter as sculptor exhibition. The only problem with it, is it was posthumously reproduced in 1958, some four years after Matisse's death in 1954. Yet, despite being dead, the museum directors, for the different venues for this Matisse, painter as sculptor exhibition, write in the exhibition catalogue that Henri Matisse was: "An equally accomplished artist in three dimensions."

In this case, he must have been a poltergeist.

Therefore,  I feel morally obligated as a scholar to briefly document as possible for the benefit of the public, legitimate artists and the true legacy of dead artists the facts behind the misrepresentation of reproductions and fakes as original works of visual art and the serious questions of laws, ethics and regulations that these contentious issues of authenticty raise that are all but ignored by many museums, cultural institutions, auction houses and academia."

On page 1178 in the Random House College Dictionary, scholar is defined as: "a learned or eurdite person, esp. one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject."

In other words, when I research and write about contentious issues of authenticity in the art world, I use independent documented definitions I didn`t define, statutory laws I didn`t legislate and published historical references I didn`t publish to make my conclusions.

Those facts are my credentials.