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AUGUSTE RODIN
D'Airain Collection
Media on the MacLaren Art Centre, Canada
RODIN: TRULY A BUST
The exhibit of the
French sculptor's works is an undertaking of such
dubious scholarship and poor planning that the Royal
Ontario Museum should be deeply embarrassed, writes
SARAH MILROY
Toronto Globe, Saturday, September
22, 2001 - Print Edition, Page R15
By SARAH MILROY
TORONTO -- When all
of the clamour has died away, the Royal Ontario Museum's
current exhibition From Plaster to Bronze: The Sculpture
of Auguste Rodin is likely to be remembered as the most
frustrating exhibition to be mounted in Canada this
year. It will certainly be the most controversial.
First, it is controversial because of its source: a
company named Gruppo Mondiale, based in Italy, that
assembled the collection of plasters and bronzes and
sold them to a group of Canadian collectors. These
collectors, in turn, plan to donate the works to the
MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont. In addition to being
the source for the majority of the plasters (which the
organizers claim are casts dating from Rodin's
lifetime), Gruppo Mondiale is also the fabricator of 11
of the Rodin bronzes that appear in the show, also
destined for Barrie. These are dated 1999-2000, and are
exhibited here in defiance of the Paris-based Musée
Rodin's attempt to put a hammerhold on reproduction.
Second, From Plaster to Bronze will be remembered for
its many ambiguities. Claiming to illuminate the process
that Rodin (1840-1917) used to develop his sculptures
from their birth in the artistic imagination to the
finished products in bronze and marble, the exhibition,
in fact, could leave even experienced museum goers
woefully addled about the distinctions between the very
different objects on display.
Plasters from the deeply distressed to the pristine,
from the mechanically made to those modified by the hand
of Rodin in the studio, are given the same star
treatment. Earlier bronzes made under the guidance of
the Musée Rodin are placed side by side with Gruppo
Mondiale bronzes made last year, and all are bathed in
the same sacral glow of museum lighting.
Those searching for satisfying explanations from the
exhibition's wall labels and didactic panels will find
little to go on. Information ranges from the hopelessly
terse to the downright fudgy. The wall label for the
plaster Hand of God reads simply, "Attributed to Auguste
Rodin, Date not Known." And what, exactly, is a "plaster
(partial figure), studio or foundry cast, 1898 version"?
Numerous plasters are indeterminately labelled in this
way, as "studio or foundry plasters," though the
distinction is critical. One, arguably, is a work of
art, and the other is not.
Wall texts further confuse the issue, making statements
like: "The inherent versatility of plaster. . . led
Rodin to consider these versions of his sculpture to be
the truest, most original, and direct manifestation of
his ideas." This statement, however, could only be
conceivably applied to those works which stayed in
Rodin's studio, where he often remodelled them. But the
lion's share of the plasters are, by the organizers'
own assertion, foundry plasters, the byproducts of
industry.
Even the borrowed works, whose provenances are
documented, are suspended in an informational vacuum.
The Edmonton Art Gallery's cast of The Age of Bronze is
a case in point. What does the date, 1876, signify? The
date of the original artistic conception? The date of
the cast? Was a cast sanctioned by the Musée Rodin prior
to making its way to Canada? Who donated the piece to
the Edmonton Art Gallery? When? Only his hairdresser
knows for sure.
Rodin cast his first version of this sculpture in 1876.
Ironically, its first exposure to the public in 1877 was
marked by scandal; Rodin was accused of casting it from
a live model. The mid-sized variation exhibited here was
gifted by Westburne International Industries to the EAG
in 1978, and was cast by the Musée Rodin in 1970. It
bears their stamp on the underside. (I had to phone the
gallery to find out.) But the label here offers no such
information, the exhibition has no catalogue to which
one can turn, and MacLaren curators Mary Reid and Colin
Wiginton gamely struggled at a press conference earlier
this week to provide definitive answers. It seems the
MacLaren has not had the time or resources to gather
full information on these objects.
But wait. Isn't that the research museums are entrusted
and funded to do?
To a certain degree, as the ROM and the MacLaren have
pointed out, confusion would be inevitable in any
exhibition foregrounding Rodin's working methods; the
byproduct, perhaps, of Rodin's lust for replication. In
1981, the U.S. critic and theoretician Rosalind Krauss
wrote that Rodin participated "in the transformation of
his own work into kitsch," referring to his zeal to
disseminate his work, to clone it in a variety of sizes
and materials, and to reassemble or break up his
sculptural compositions, depending on the appetite of
his clients. He even arranged, in his will, for the
proliferation of his works in limited edition after his
death under the imprimatur of the Musée Rodin. As Krauss
writes, echoing the phrase of Walter Benjamin, Rodin
works from "a position deep in the ethos of mechanical
reproduction," notwithstanding his popular incarnation
as the "form giver, creator, crucible of originality."
(At his behest, for example, 319 versions of The Kiss
were made between the years of 1898 and 1918 alone.)
More than his unconventionally loose handling of the
body, more than his modernist championing of form over
subject, more than his oo-la-la eroticism, Rodin's main
claim to art-history fame may turn out to be the way he
plumbs the late-19th century dialectic between the human
hand and the industrial machine.
Who can grasp the complexity of this cyclone of
invention? The deeper you dig into Rodin, the further
into a hall of mirrors you find yourself, and that's not
even taking into account the innumerable opportunities
for forgery that such rampant productivity made
possible. But while Rodin had every right to complicate
the issue to his heart's content, the museum of the 21st
century does not. Our job is to untangle and clarify. To
mount an authoritative exhibition to deal with such a
complex subject would be daunting for even the most
experienced Rodin scholar. But to do so without seasoned
expertise, and without the full collaboration of the
Musée Rodin, which remains the epicentre of Rodin
scholarship, is, arguably, lunacy.
William Moore, director of the MacLaren Art Centre,
seems not to have missed a lot of sleep when he agreed
to receive these donations. In his decision to go
forward with the project, however, he has broken ranks
with colleagues to whom he might have turned for
counsel, among them Bernard Barryte of the Cantor Art
Centre at Stanford University in California, one of the
largest Rodin holdings in the United States. Barryte, in
the assumption of scholarly fraternity, agreed to lend
two small works to this show. But this week he confirmed
that his institution has been approached over the past
several years by donors who are offering works from the
Gruppo Mondiale holdings, and that he has consistently
declined the gifts. Moore's enthusiasm for what he
describes as "bringing art to the people" -- an echo of
the MacLaren's motto "people to art" -- seems to have
drowned out the warning bells that would have been
audible to a more cautious ear.
Instead to going to the leading experts, Moore entrusted
the process of authentication and condition reporting,
he says, to a U.S. independent curator, David Schaff.
The MacLaren and the ROM are anxious to describe Schaff
as a Rodin expert, but a search for his record of
publications reveals scattered papers on everything
from medievalism to architectural history. His only
published writing on Rodin appears to be a catalogue
prepared for a 1998 exhibition in Venice of part of this
same group of plasters, at that time still owned by
Gruppo Mondiale.
It is Schaff's name that is signed at the bottom of the
handful of "declaration of authentication" forms
released to the press this week. Yet in a telephone
interview on Thursday, Schaff stated that he was merely
hired as a consultant on the plasters, and that
provenance (the all-important history of ownership by
which a work's authenticity can be defended) was
investigated by Moore. He was surprised to hear himself
described as "curator" of the show and a "noted Rodin
scholar" in the press materials for the show. "That,"
Schaff said, "would be a bit of an exaggeration," adding
that were he to have had control of the show, he would
likely have narrowed the selection of plasters,
jettisoning some of the most damaged ones, and
eliminated the 1999-2000 bronze casts. These exclusions,
he said, would be "about the condition of quality."
So how does all this affect the museumgoer? Does it make
a difference to how the work looks? It would seem that
it does. Quality here is a problem. Visitors who are
anticipating the articulated musculature and sense of
pent-up physicality and sensuality for which Rodin is
justly famous may be, in many cases, disappointed. In
plaster cast after plaster cast, the forms are blunted
and abraded, sometimes as if dipped in a coating which
has congealed over their surfaces, leaving the shapes
generalized -- which indeed may be the case, depending
on what, precisely, the casts were made for. Some of
them are scratched and dinged or badly softened. In many
instances, they are coated with sepia or
caramel-coloured amber staining, presumably the residue
of the casting process. Like elegant courtesans
surprised in their shopworn housecoats, a number of them
have a morning-after feel, striking the viewer as
awkwardly déshabillé. Nothing is learned by looking at
these plasters about the nature of Rodin's gift; in
fact, his gift has arguably been obscured. All one can
see is the purported physical evidence of standard
19th-century foundry casting techniques, hardly the
stuff that epiphanies are made of.
Looking at the bronzes, one develops a different set of
worries. The two 1999-2000 castings of The Age of Bronze
made by the Gruppo Mondiale, for example, don't show the
sculptor to best advantage. They seem strikingly
generalized compared to the earlier Edmonton Art Gallery
version beside which they stand. The wrists are thicker
and less defined, ribs have melted away, fingers are
swollen, the musculature seems less closely observed.
As one would feel looking at photographs of photographs,
one senses the ever so subtle loss of texture and
detail. Or not so subtle, like the gargantuan 1999-2000
Thinker in bronze which has for weeks graced the lobby
of the ROM, a bloated and disfigured monster of a thing
that leaves one fantasizing about pigeon target-practice
but not much else.
It is clear that Rodin scholarship is sufficiently
convoluted to furrow even the most experienced brow into
a replica of the great Thinker himself.
Moore and the ROM's CEO, William Thorsell, cannot be
faulted for not knowing everything there is to know
about Rodin; but they should be savvy enough to know
what they don't know. Why was the project processed
hastily through the ROM's Cultural Innovations
consulting division, instead of working its way slowly
through the customary curatorial channels, where the
many complexities of the subject could have been given
due consideration and real answers could have been
sought?
A museum is entrusted to prepare, through its holdings,
a record of the past, to be the ultimate disinterested
judge on issues of authenticity, to safeguard and
protect the rights of the artist, and to stage a
faithful and dignified representation of the artist's
work during his lifetime, and in perpetuity. If a museum
fails in this regard, it runs the risk of becoming a
platform co-opted for commercial ends, a place where
goods intended for donation can accrue the benediction
of the museum without the scrutiny of in-depth
scholarship to support the claim.
The international community understands these standards
of museum practice. We must insist on them here at home.
From Plaster to Bronze: The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin
runs until Dec. 23 at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
Author's note as of 28 May
2003:
The following two articles have been on
the Web since 18 months now, as part of a larger report (altogether
ca. 180 pages) on the Toronto exhibition "Plaster to Bronze" and the
related Symposium on the question of originality in Rodin's work, in
November 2001.
Today, I was informed by a spokesman of
the Gruppo Mondiale Est (the original collector of the plasters
shown in Toronto) that the Musée Rodin in its recent communication
with other institutions would refer to my essays to question the
quality of the discussed plaster items, the exhibition "Plaster to
Bronze" and the competence of Canadian Museum staff.
The Rodin-Web is an independent,
academic platform. The articles published in this web folder were
researched in order to establish the most elementary information on
a series of art objects, that already were in the center of an
international cultural controversy, although simple, basic
documentation on the names of their pre-owners, their age of
creation and their physical state in comparison to other reference
plasters was neither available to the invited Symposium speakers nor
to the larger public.
I deleted most of my original text -
containing extensive chapters on the significance of foundry
plasters, on the role of damage in Rodin´s work, on the posthumous
casting practice of the Musée Rodin, on economic aspects of Rodin
sculptures, on the communication between the Musée Rodin and the
Canadians, on the disastrous lack of information, among others -
from the Internet as early as January 2002; I saw no reason to
dedicate so much web space to a discussion to which none of the
parties materially involved (the MacLaren Art Centre, the Canadian
donors, the Gruppo Mondiale, the Musée Rodin and various
institutional experts) was willing to contribute an articulate,
written analysis at all.
The inability of public institutions to
initiate and maintain a proper academic dialogue is stunning and
embarrassing. I am quite surprised to hear today that the remaining
chapters of my report now seem to play a role in the ongoing
"debate" again.
Although the MacLaren Art Center has not
published any written materials yet to sustain the quality of their
collection in a scholarly way, I have been informed that various
high-ranking Rodin experts have recently formulated a positive
opinion on these sculptures. But none of these appraisals has been
available for review or publication till now - the donation still
being under review of the Canadian authorities.
I agree with the Gruppo Mondiale that
the precise age of the plasters only is of limited significance with
regard to their morphological quality. Talking of shape, it is
irrelevant if a plaster copy was drawn from the mould 20, 50, 70 or
100 years ago - except for aspects of patination from the air,
damages that happen in the course of time, etc. It could even be
argued with good reason that "shape" is the only property that
really matters for a foundry plaster, that is, for an object that
was created for translation into other materials, like bronze.
Obviously, the Musée Rodin is of the same opinion: For the
production of posthumous casts, fresh foundry plasters are drawn
from the bon creux moulds in Meudon. The Gruppo Mondiale now
claims that for many important Rodin works, the Musée Rodin even
does not possess such bon creux moulds (negative
forms) at all - which means that some newly produced foundry
plasters would be reproduced from existing plaster positive forms.
This would be a most interesting issue to settle in the course of
further research.
Still I maintain that the provenance and
age of the MacLaren plasters is a topic that should be researched,
documented and published with urgency - especially when a public
Museum claims to display the world´s largest collection of
"original", "lifetime" or "early" Rodin plasters outside Meudon and
tax deductions amounting to 50 Million Can $ should be granted in
order to facilitate its donation. My report on these questions has
been the first publication worldwide that has attempted to analyze
the relevant categories and initiate a dialogue with the exhibition
curators, in order to collect basic facts on quality, provenance and
age of individual plaster items.
My offer still holds: Any person or
institution that wants to contribute his (or her) information or
opinion to the current debate is invited to submit his text proposal
to the Rodin-Web and have it published here. In the meantime, the
Rodin-Web team will set forth its own morphological research
programme, to document the precise shape of original Rodin plasters
in various Museum collections in an objective, exact way.
Hans de Roos
Gallery faces closure
over bronzes
MacLaren in dispute over title to 510
Rodin sculptures in multimillion-dollar deal
JAMES ADAMS
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
A multimillion-dollar deal to bring
hundreds of bronze sculptures attributed to the French master
Auguste Rodin to a small Ontario art gallery has collapsed, with the
result that the gallery may be forced to close its doors as early as
next month.
The MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont.,
a city of about 120,000 people, 90 kilometres north of Toronto, was
expecting to take possession last year of 510 Rodin bronzes,
purportedly worth more than $135-million, from an Italian-based art
company, Gruppo Mondiale.
Some of these bronzes would then have
been sold to collectors and institutions, with Gruppo and the
MacLaren sharing in the proceeds; others would have stayed in Barrie
as a linchpin to something called ArtCity, an ambitious project,
first conceived in the mid-eighties, to place sculpture by Canadian
and international artists in and around Barrie, thereby turning the
locale into a tourist destination the equal of Stratford and
Niagara-on-the-Lake.
While the MacLaren claims to have clear
title to the bronzes, all supposedly cast from 1999 onwards, it has
yet to see the 10 editions made from each of the 51 Rodins,
including such classics as Eternal Spring and The Age of
Bronze. Negotiations between the MacLaren and Gruppo Mondiale to
get the bronzes to Barrie have been ongoing for more than two years,
but reached an impasse recently.
Indeed, there are concerns if all 510
bronzes actually exist as bronzing experts say it takes anywhere
from 3½ months to six months to make one finished, professionally
acceptable bronze, depending on the size and complexity of the
object being cast.
In the meantime, the MacLaren says its
reputation has been "tarnished" in the last five months by reports
in the Barrie media and from a local alderman questioning how it --
an institution less than 20 years old with an operating budget last
year of just over $3.3-million and visitors numbering no more than
65,000 -- obtained title to bronzes by Rodin (1840-1917), one of the
most famous sculptors in Western art. The MacLaren has held off
defending itself from the innuendo until now because, in the words
of board chair Rodney Burns, "we didn't want to jeopardize our
negotiations with Gruppo."
Now that those negotiations have ended
acrimoniously and legal action may be a possibility, the MacLaren
wants "to clear our name among our stakeholders," beginning this
week, and start to raise funds again since at least 80 per cent of
its annual budget has come from donations of various kinds, rather
than government grants.
It's not the first time the MacLaren has
courted controversy with sculptures attributed by Rodin. In 2001, it
took possession of more than 35 Rodin plasters from Gruppo Mondiale,
and another 17 plasters in 2002 from a London-based intermediary of
Gruppo Mondiale. The majority of the 2001 plasters, along with
several bronzes, were shown at a controversial exhibition at the
Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in fall, 2001, an exhibition whose
authenticity was hotly contested by the Musée Rodin in Paris, the
legal heir to the sculptor's legacy.
The MacLaren has been under renewed
stress in recent weeks. In late January it accepted the resignation
of its veteran director, William Moore, one of the main architects
of the Rodin deal. More recently, it's laid off five permanent
staff; reduced its hours of public operation to five days from six;
reported a deficit for calendar year 2003 of $1-million; and failed,
for the first time in three years, to make a payment to the city of
Barrie on the $2.7-million left on a $4.1-million promissory note
the city provided for a building project completed in late 2001.
The MacLaren is hoping it can assemble
some sort of rescue package in the next few weeks. Without it, the
gallery could shut it doors by mid-April, according to Hanne Fynbo,
the gallery's acting director.
The innuendo now swirling around the
MacLaren has centred on a complex series of financial transactions
conducted a couple of years ago, involving organizations and
individuals in Canada, the United States, Italy, Great Britain and
Lichtenstein -- all ostensibly designed to get Barrie its Rodins
while offering as many as 5,000 Canadian investors breaks on their
income tax.
Part of the transactions story was
brought to light last year by David Aspden, a former Barrie police
officer who is now a Barrie alderman for the ward in which the
MacLaren is located, as well as chair of the city's police services
board and its director of culture and recreation funding. (The
MacLaren currently receives about $53,000 yearly, or about 1.5 per
cent of its budget, as a civic grant.) What intrigued Aspden were
the 2001 and 2002 tax statements filed by the Toronto-based Ideas
Canada Foundation, a non-profit private charity established in 2000
to provide grants to "qualified donees such as universities, art
galleries, performing arts centres, museums, etc." In those years,
Ideas reported to Canada Customs and Revenue that it made "gifts"
totalling more than $140-million to the MacLaren. Indeed, for 2002,
of the almost $75.8-million Ideas "gifted" to five cultural
organizations, the MacLaren is credited with receiving 99 per cent
of that total. (The Toronto Symphony, by contrast, received $20,000;
the Vancouver Art Gallery $10,000). The MacLaren acknowledges that
the money was directed largely for the purpose of buying the Rodin
bronzes from Gruppo Mondiale, but this week its chairman Burns
claimed that "those millions have never been in a MacLaren bank
account." In fact, "the funds have gone to art dealers,
manufacturers, lawyers and accountants, not us. And that always was
the intention."
According to informed sources, Ideas
Canada drew $141.8-million (and placed in a Toronto law firm's
escrow account) from a pool of about $162-million supplied by Nova
Scotia's Berkshires Funding Initiatives Ltd. Twenty per cent of this
pool -- approximately $32.4 million -- was provided in cash by
several thousand investors seeking relief on their income tax by
making donations to a registered charity. The remaining 80 per cent
-- roughly $129.6-million -- came from these same investors, but
through a 25-year, non-interest bearing loan from Talisker Funding
Ltd. Of the $162-million pool, Berkshires kept a 12 per cent
commission of about $19.4-million.
The $141.8-million in Canadian funds
were subsequently converted to $109-million (U.S.) and given to an
art dealer in Britain, Jerry Jennings Art Consultants. (Jennings is
a former Torontonian who managed Gallery Moos in the city and was a
senior associate with Ritchie's Auctioneers and Appraisers). In late
2000, the U.K. art dealer forwarded the $109-million to a U.S.
dealer, Joan Krawczyk Fine Arts Inc. of New York, who bought the 510
bronzes from Gruppo Mondiale for $6-million (U.S.). Titles for the
bronzes were then given to the U.K. dealer who, in turn, sent the
titles to the MacLaren.
MacLaren officials say they have
fulfilled their parts of the deal, and want the bronzes. Gruppo
Mondiale, however, argues that the deal is not completed; in fact,
in a letter sent to the MacLaren last week, Gruppo Mondiale's
principal Jon Gary Snell says his firm was to be "remunerated tens
of millions of dollars." Snell's litigation lawyer, Thomas Curry of
Toronto, said yesterday that "no one's complied with what they've
promised . . . The elements of the transaction that Gruppo entered
into and that the MacLaren had with different parties are all up for
grabs."
From:
<RVHorth1@...>
Date:
Wed Feb 19, 2003 10:07 pm
Subject: Gruppo Mondiale Bronzes
Mr. DeRoos,
I have been through your site every day for the past two
months, and read just about all of the information that you
have compiled in regards to Rodin, and first of all, let me
compliment the work you have put in to this project.
On to my query... As an expert on Rodin, or as one who
would best be in a position to offer an objective view of
Rodin and the validity of posthumous castings, could you
please offer me your view of the Gruppo Mondiale plasters
and subsequent bronzes? As a consumer what might be the
appeal? As a scholar what might be the validity and the
drawing power of such a collection?
I have read about the controversy that this collection
of plasters and bronzes has caused, some of which parallels
the journeys of the Cantor collection through the annals of
scholarly debate. Is there a solution? Can these sculptures
be justified on all fronts?
I ask of you any or all information which may help in
this query. And please accept my thanks in advance for your
assistance, and for the excellent scholarship you have
endeavored.
Best Regards,
Reed Van Horth
RVHorth1@msn.com
From:
"Contact Rodin-Web" <contact@...>
Date:
Thu Feb 20, 2003 10:48 pm
Subject:
Reed van Horth and questions about Gruppo Mondiale
Est
Dear Mr Van Horth, dear Rodin-Web Network members,
I refer to the questions posted by Mr Van Horth in the Rodin-Web
Network, concerning the Rodin plasters collected by Gruppo
Mondiale Est, now being donated to the MacLaren Art Centre
in Barrie, Canada.
Dear Mr Van Horth,
Thank you for your interest in the Rodin-Web and your kind
words about my research (see Rodin-Web messages as of yesterday and as of 5 February 2003).
I am not sure, however, how I could help you from this point
on. Most of what I have found out about the Gruppo Mondiale
plaster collection has been published in my essays
already, which are accessible though the Rodin-Web. Beyond
the questions raised in these articles and the
tentative answers given, I cannot contribute much more to
the current debate, I am afraid.
By now, it is public and undisputed knowledge that this
cache of plasters has its origin in the settlement of the
Rudier Foundry and was acquired by the Gruppo Mondiale from
various sources by the end of the 1990´s. Most of the
plasters admittedly are foundry duplicates, some of them
seem to be genuine studio, exhibition or presentation
plasters directly drawn from the
bon creux moulds.
Most of the plasters, as far as I can judge, are in a fine
condition. A few look damaged and battered, or show traces
of the casting process. Presumably, most of them are from
Rodin´s lifetime or shortly after, if we follow the
arguments formulated by Dr. David Schaff,
whose reasoning seems to be valid and based on genuine
connoisseurship. Some of them may have been produced as late
as the 1950´s, again according to David Schaff.
Only few of these plasters may have been created by Rodin
with his own hands, when any. This especially disturbs your
Florida countryman and fellow-gallerist Mr Gary Garseneau,
who has put up a campaign to discard these items
together
with all posthumous casts as "fakes". For the
Musée Rodin
in Paris, these plasters seem to be a nuisance as well. The
correspondence between Paris and the Canadian Museums that
organized the "Plaster to Bronze" exhibition in Toronto
shows a shocking lack of precise analysis/critique of the
questioned items. By now, official appraisal reports have
been written, that have not been published yet. For more
specific questions, I must refer to the MacLaren Art Center
in Barrie.
For some collectors and art lovers, the morphological
likeness to accepted, authorized Rodin plasters in Paris,
Meudon, San Francisco etc. may be the decisive criterion for
judging these plasters, and the posthumous bronze casts
derived from them. A modern bronze cast produced from an
undamaged plaster with good craftmanship will have the same
physical appearance as a Rudier cast - as a matter of fact,
all bronze casts are "just" multiples. But as you know for
sure, for many other art collectors, the age and provenance
of the item, its historical singularity or rarity, its
immaterial aura or the formal approval by the
Musée Rodin will
weigh as much when they make a purchase decision; that is
why lifetime or pre-war bronze casts sell at a significant
premium, compared to newer posthumous bronzes. Compared to
bronze casts issued by the Musée Rodin, the Gruppo Mondiale
casts certainly are more affordable. If such a cast will
make a good long-term economical investment I cannot judge.
I noticed you own a gallery and art consultancy firm
"Collection Privée" with outlets in Palm Beach, South Beach
and Tampa, Florida, specializing in painting and sculpture.
Among others, you offer a total art investment concept for
both private and corporate collectors, starting with a
minimum of $100,000 for collectors who want to build a total
tax deductible art concept. In this function, you understand
certainly more than I do about the tax incentives that may
have supported the building of the Cantor collection and the
donation of the Gruppo Mondiale plasters by a group of
wealthy Canadian businessmen, and other art market mechanisms
that help build - and destroy - prices.
On your Website
http://www.collectionprivee.com, you promise your
clients that you offer only authentic and original works. As
Rodin-Web publisher, I can supply you with some analysis
and factual information, but as an art dealer and
consultant, you must back up your promise with your own
reasoned opinion, which I cannot replace. I will neither
advice you or your clients to purchase plasters or bronzes
offered by the Gruppo Mondiale Est, nor discourage you to do
so. Still I hope my dialogue with the MacLaren Art Centre
and the Toronto symposium participants, as published on my
Website, will help you to come to well-informed conclusions.
With my best regards
Hans de Roos
Publisher Rodin-Web.org
Munich
http://rodinweb.com/report_rom/2_7_18.htm
H. de Roos - The critique of the
toronto exhibition
6. The absence of
a catalogue would impair an evaluation of the plasters
(18)
An
Intended Suppression Of The Facts?
In the light of
these efforts, the accusation of deception, as put
forward by Jacques Vilain and Gary Arseneau, seems to be
unjustified. Whether 2/3 or even 3/4 of the donated
collection actually consists of lifetime plasters, as
David Schaff claims, or less, will remain open to
academic debate and for certain items, a difference of
opinion may persist. Deception, on the other hand,
assumes a willful distortion of the truth, an intended
suppression of the facts.
Although the
exhibition at the R.O.M. does not expressly engage the
visitors in a discourse on the dating question, The Hand
of God is duely indicated as a work "after Rodin". In
the list of exhibition items supplied by the MacLaren,
Rodin´s Hand Holding A Female Torso is listed as a
composition by "Paul Cruet or Amadee Berhault", produced
1917: in this point, Arseneau´s critique is not
justified and the Maclaren´s inventory list is more
accurate than the entry in the Joconde Database supplied
by the Musée Rodin. The Idyll of Ixelles (early babies)
and Feminine Torso are listed as "attributed to Rodin".
As for the bronzes,
Gary Arseneau actually detected an inaccuracy in dating:
The MacLaren Art
Centre's "From Plaster to Bronzes: The Sculpture of
Auguste Rodin" exhibition checklist lists the "Eustache
de St. Pierre" with the dates and description: "(1884)
1895 version bronze (lifetime cast)." As I document on
page 32 of my symposium presentation, the Vancouver Art
Gallery emailed that the foundry for the "Eustache de
St. Pierre" was Georges Rudier which went into business
in 1952. Also this that their was an "incision on left
side at back: Rodin 1964." If the MacLaren Art Centre
and their "in my opinion" expert Dr. Schaff can't
properly document the date of something so obvious, are
we to accept anything the wishful speculate on?
[From: Letter from Gary Arsenerau to the author, 26 Dec.
2001]
Confronted with
this critique, Schaff reacted as follows:
As for the bronze
cast of the small "Eustache de St Pierre," whose signage
I did not oversee, it seems an unfortunate, minor
mistake - not a capital crime.
[From: Letter from Dr David Schaff to the author, 27
Dec. 2001]
http://rodinweb.com/frames.htm
http://www.rodin-web.de/report_rom/2_7_07.htm
H. de Roos - Towards a catalog of
the Maclaren collection
A discussion with
Gary Arseneau and Dr David Schaff (7)
Some
Tangible Indications About Individual Plasters
Dr David Schaff,
who had the task of determining the authenticity of the
plasters for the MacLaren Museum, gave his opinion on
the age issue as follows:
The Idyll of
Ixelles is a unique (and
very repaired) tinted plaster; the Feminine Torso
is not catalogued, so we must be cautious with these
two. The large Hand of God is definitely after
Rodin, not made or authorized by him or by the Musee
Rodin.
On the other hand,
every other image comes from an approved, documented
model. As you know, some of the works are inscribed by
Rodin; others clearly came from his studio or from his
founders just after 1900. These include all the large
and major forms, for which there is further evidence
revealed in their recent conservation and in the casting
histories.
What is most
important is that their are no refabrications (...), nor
are there any enlargements (...). Some items may be
later - the Eve with round Base at these
dimensions was the model for numerous marbles but was
not cast until the late 1950's - so it's possible that
this plaster, but not the mold, dates from that time.
The small dancers
were not cast during Rodin's lifetime (only Dancer A
was, in 1915), so these may be either items sent to
Rudier for the Browse and Darby casting (1956?) or
plasters made by Georges Rudier.
The casting of
the medium Age of Bronze by Alexis Rudier
continued into the twenties and beyond, so this item
might be marginally beyond Rodin's life even though the
consignment of the form to the foundry dates to ca.
1902, like all the other Ages of Bronze.
[From: Letter from David Schaff to the author, 29 Nov.
2001]
For the first time,
these were very tangible indications regarding the
individual plaster casts.
http://rodin-web.org/collections/major/maclaren.htm
MACLAREN ART
CENTRE / ART CITY, BARRIE, ONTARIO
MacLaren Art Cente
37 Mulcaster Street
Barrie, ON Canada L4M 3M2
(North of Toronto)
Tel. 001 - 705 - 721 96 96
Fax 001 - 705 - 739 13 91
As reported by ArtBusiness and ArtFocus, 100 Rodin plasters were
donated to this Museum in the little town of Barrie, north of
Toronto, Ontario.
A collection of 21 bronzes and 21 original plasters have been
donated in April 2001. When the donation process is complete the
collection will include another 29 bronzes and 29 plasters. In sum,
the donation is claimed to be worth Cdn$ 40 Million. A full size
version of the Thinker(1903) is valued at Cdn$ 1.6 Million.
The works have been exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum from Fall
2001 till Spring 2002. This exhibition caused a bitter controversy
between the Canadian Museums and the Musée Rodin in Paris, which
claimed the plasters - coming from the settlement of the Rudier
Foundry - would be foundry duplicates, damaged and mollified by
replication processes.
Most of the bronzes in the collection were cast in 1999-2000 and
will be part of the ArtCity project. ArtCity is an initiative of the
MacLaren and the City of Barrie to promote cultural tourism by
placing art in parkland and public spaces, so that the whole town
becomes a City of Art. The MacLaren is also looking into building a
separate pavillion to house the plasters and some of the smaller
bronzes.
The Museum Website informs us that prior to MacLaren's acquisition,
only one plaster and less than thirty bronze and marble sculptures
by Rodin were known to be open to public view across Canada.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/canadians-lose-appeal-over-damage-to-rodin-sculptures-1.624216
Canadians lose appeal over damage
to Rodin sculptures
CBC Arts · Posted: Nov 22, 2006
A group of prominent Canadians will not be reimbursed for damage
allegedly done to their collection of disputed Rodin sculptures when
a representative of a French museum inspected them, the Ontario
Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday.
The court overturned a previous Superior Court ruling giving the
group of businessmen $10,000 after an inspectorfrom the Musée Rodin
allegedly damaged the works of art during an inspection of their
authenticity.
The court upheld the Superior Court decision allowing the
inspector's report to go to the France government, despite
protestations from the businessmen that he was unqualified.
The 28 plaster sculptures have been at the centre of a long-running
fight between the collectors and the Musée Rodin, an institution
dedicated to the works of master sculpture Auguste Rodin, known for
The Thinker and The Kiss.
The sculptures were purchased from an Italian dealer by a group of
businessmen including Rolling Stones tour manager Michael Cohl,
pollster Martin Goldfarb and Allan Slaight, executive chairman of
Standard Broadcasting. The investors originally intended to donate
the sculptures to the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont.
But a dispute between the businessmen and the French government
arose soon after when the curator at the Musée Rodin called their
legitimacy as genuine artworks into question just before a 2002
exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
"I've had a chance to see these plasters," Musée Rodincurator
Antoinette Romaine wrote in a Toronto newspaper in 2001.
"And I was disappointed by what they presented. I consider that
they're sorry plasters who, in fact, were just tools for work and
not authentic pieces of art."
William Moore, the MacLaren Art Centre director until 2004, defended
the exhibition at the time as authentic and said their display
waslegitimate.
"We're not saying that they are anything but beautiful foundry
plasters, part of the process of Rodin," Moore said.
The French museum, which owns the rights to all of Rodin's works in
France, is involved in a wide-ranging investigation into the
possibility of alleged fakes of Rodin plasters and bronzes.
The French government sent inspector Gilles Perrault to take
photographs, measurements and conduct tests on the surface as part
of an effort to determine the authenticity and nature of the
sculptures. The collectors allege that during this process, several
small pieces fell off some of the sculptures.
The sculptures have been in storage at the MacLaren since the 2004
decision to allow the inspection. The museum said in June it would
not be taking the collection into its permanent collection, leaving
them in the hands of the individual collectors.
http://www.rodin-web.org/symp/articles/defended.htm
Sculpture exhibit defended after
head of Paris Rodin Museum calls it a fraud
Tuesday July 31 5:12 PM EST
By ANDREA BAILLIE
TORONTO (CP) - A Canadian exhibit featuring the work of Auguste
Rodin is authentic, says the man behind the project, even though a
Paris museum devoted to the famous sculptor has suggested the
display is a fraud.
"We have immense documentation supporting (authenticity)," said
William Moore, who spent several years trying to obtain the Rodin
pieces as director of the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont. Moore
defended the exhibit Tuesday after Jacques Vilain, director of the
Rodin Museum in Paris, wrote a letter to a Toronto newspaper
condemning the pieces, which are to be displayed next month at the
Royal Ontario Museum.
"We have always maintained the collection in question cannot be
considered authentic," wrote Vilain. "The public must not be
misled."
The exhibit, featuring plaster casts by the French sculptor renowned
for works like The Thinker and The Kiss, is eventually to be housed
at a museum in Barrie.
In his letter, Vilain insisted the collection, which is valued at
$40 million and divided between bronzes and plasters, is not
authentic because it includes foundry plaster casts, coated with
substances that could have softened them.
Other items, he says, are enlargements that were made after Rodin
died in 1917.
Responding to Vilain's allegations Tuesday, Moore said foundry
plasters are an essential step in Rodin's creative process and added
that none of the pieces have degraded to the point where they
require significant work.
He also denied the exhibit contains enlargements made after the
sculptor's death.
"We've had conservators spend a great deal of time ... just having
these things looked at," he said. "There is no significant problem
with this.
"All of our presentation ... is within the international standards
of the (International Council of Museums)."
Vilain's letter said he has written the Royal Ontario Museum and the
MacLaren Art Centre to object "in the strongest possible language
(to) the advisability of going ahead with this project."
But William Thorsell, the ROM's president and CEO, said Tuesday he
has no concerns about the exhibit.
"The authenticity I think is clear on the plasters," he said, adding
that the museum exhibit will delve into issues surrounding what
constitutes original sculpture. "We're very interested in the
intellectual and artistic issues around the nature of sculpture, how
sculpture is done, what is 'an original,' what is a copy, what is a
reproduction?" he said.
Much is riding on the project in Barrie, where the Rodin display is
part of a larger project called ArtCity that is designed to promote
cultural tourism in the area. A group of art patrons has agreed to
donate the Rodin sculptures to the newly refurbished MacLaren Art
Centre, which is scheduled to open next month. Moore hopes the
exhibition will travel around the world to raise money to construct
a permanent Rodin Museum in Barrie.
A spokeswoman at the Rodin Museum in Paris said Tuesday that Vilain
was on holiday and unavailable for comment.
https://jonimitchell.com/library/print.cfm?id=686
Rodin Thinkers to the Rom: We
think not, thank you
Toronto Globe and Mail
October 20, 2001
The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto was hoping to host a big
symposium on the French sculptor Auguste Rodin Nov. 6. But with less
than three weeks to go, the response of would-be participants is
less than overwhelming.
Last month the ROM mailed dozens of letters to Rodin scholars and
buffs around the world, inviting them to the Ontario capital to
weigh in on the legacy of the sculptor, using its current,
controversial exhibition of Rodin plasters from Barrie, Ont.'s
MacLaren Art Centre as the hook.
Thus far, only six individuals have reportedly confirmed their
attendance. Organizers had hoped representatives of the Muséé Rodin
in Paris, the executor of the Rodin estate and the institution that
has been the most vociferous in trashing the ROM, would show. But
earlier this month Jacques Vilain, director of the Musée, and
Antoinette Romain, its curator of sculpture, gave them the big non.
Meanwhile, there are reports that institutions in South Korea, Japan
and Vancouver are interested in taking the Rodin show after it
closes in December, but so far nothing has been firmed up. One thing
these places shouldn't take is the contents of the Rodin gift "shop"
at the ROM. It consists largely of clunky plaster reproductions,
most made in Mexico, of such Rodin hits as The Thinker ($125 for the
small one) and Eternal Spring ($425 for the big one). Even one of
the prime movers of the exhibition acknowledged last week that this
stuff is "an embarrassment."
But who knows, maybe the MacLaren Art Centre, home of the 60
plasters, will someday make its own reproduction casts. The centre's
director, William Moore, says he has no plans for this, but there's
pretty much nothing to stop the MacLaren from doing so. Since Rodin
died in 1917, there are no copyright concerns and, despite all the
bleatings of the Musée Rodin, no impediments in terms of legal or
moral rights. Rodins, rain down on us!
https://bluff-rodins.weebly.com/
François-Auguste-René Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917),
known as Auguste Rodin (/oʊˈɡuːst roʊˈdæn/ oh-GOOST roh-DAN; French:
[oɡyst ʁɔdɛ̃]), was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally
considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to
rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a
craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic
recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost
school of art.
Auguste Rodin died in 1917
For the last 70 odd years after Auguste Rodin's death in 1917, the
Musee Rodin owned an exclusive "right of reproduction to objects
given by him," which in part and/or whole, fell into the public
domain in the late 1980's. Yet, despite Auguste Rodin's 1916 Will
mandating the "right of reproduction to objects given by him" upon
his death to the State of France, the Musee Rodin has admitted at
one time on their website [subsequently removed] and to this scholar
[in written correspondence] to violating Auguste Rodin Will by using
posthumously reproduced plasters for casting in bronze, rather than
his original lifetime plasters, resulting in 2nd-generation-removed
bronze forgeries, not reproductions, much less sculptures. The Musee
Rodin's fraud is further compounded by their posthumous inscription
of non-disclosed counterfeit "A Rodin" signatures and bogus edition
numbers to these non-disclosed posthumous 2nd-generation-removed
bronze forgeries.
Remember, Auguste Rodin died in 1917. The dead don't posthumously
sign, much less edition.
To add insult to injury, these non-disclosed posthumous
second-generation-removed bronze forgeries with counterfeit "A.
Rodin" signatures in bogus editions have been misrepresented by the
Musee Rodin, museums and collectors as original works of visual art
ie., sculptures, falsely attributed to Auguste Rodin, creating a
false market for huge profiteering through admission fees,
city-state-federal grants, corporate sponsorship, outright sales and
tax write-offs, while deceptively leading the public that they were
in the presence of an original work of art ie., sculpture, much less
something Auguste Rodin created, much less approved.
Remember, Auguste Rodin died in 1917. The dead don't sculpt.
So, when Georges Rudier foundry, that cast non-disclosed posthumous
second-generation-removed bronze forgeries for the Musee Rodin from
1952 to the late 1980's, went bankrupt, the Gruppo Mondiale and its
director Gary Snell snapped up the opportunity to acquire this
bankrupt foundry with its' collection of posthumous plaster
reproductions, authorized by the Musee Rodin, from Auguste Rodin's
original lifetime plasters.
So, instead of a corrupt Musee Rodin having exclusive rights to
flood the marketplace with the sale of non-disclosed
second-generation-removed bronze forgeries with applied counterfeit
"A Rodin" signatures falsely attributed as original works of visual
ie., sculpture to a dead Auguste Rodin, others like Gruppo Mondiale
could now participate and profit almost indistinguishably from the
Musee Rodin's posthumous collection by using the same posthumous
plasters, moulds and the like for casting in bronze.
GRUPPO MONDIALE AND PINOCCHIO
Unfortunately, Gruppo Mondiale is very much like The Coachman in the
old 1940 Disney classic movie Pinocchio. As you may know, the movie
is the story of a wooden puppet named Pinocchio who desperately
wants to become a real little boy. In his journey to become human,
Pinocchio comes across The Coachman’s hench men Honest John and
Gideon who lure him to Pleasure Island to eat whatever he wishes and
create havoc all day when the true and sinster purpose is to turn
wayward boys into donkeys for sale. (Source: Wikipedia)
GRUPPO MONDIALE EST AND MACLAREN ART CENTRE TO SPLIT $135 MILLION In
the Globe and Mail's published March 10, 2004 "Gallery faces closure
over bronzes" article by James Adams, The reporter wrote: "A
multimillion-dollar deal to bring hundreds of bronze sculptures
attributed to the French master Auguste Rodin to a small Ontario art
gallery has collapsed, with the result that the gallery may be
forced to close its doors as early as next month. The MacLaren Art
Centre in Barrie, Ont., a city of about 120,000 people, 90
kilometres north of Toronto, was expecting to take possession last
year of 510 Rodin bronzes, purportedly worth more than $135-million,
from an Italian-based art company, Gruppo Mondiale. Some of these
bronzes would then have been sold to collectors and institutions,
with Gruppo and the MacLaren sharing in the proceeds; others would
have stayed in Barrie as a linchpin to something called ArtCity, an
ambitious project, first conceived in the mid-eighties, to place
sculpture by Canadian and international artists in and around
Barrie, thereby turning the locale into a tourist destination the
equal of Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake."
510 RODINS NEVER DELIVERED BY GRUPPO MONDIALE EST Additionally, the
James Adams wrote: "While the MacLaren claims to have clear title to
the bronzes, all supposedly cast from 1999 onwards, it has yet to
see the 10 editions made from each of the 51 Rodins, including such
classics as Eternal Spring and The Age of Bronze. Negotiations
between the MacLaren and Gruppo Mondiale to get the bronzes to
Barrie have been ongoing for more than two years, but reached an
impasse recently. Indeed, there are concerns if all 510 bronzes
actually exist as bronzing experts say it takes anywhere from 31⁄2
months to six months to make one finished, professionally acceptable
bronze, depending on the size and complexity of the object being
cast."
MACLAREN ART CENTRE GOES BANKRUPT In Globe and Mail's published June
14, 2005 "Deal lacked proper checks, report says" article by James
Adams, the reporter wrote: "The 16-page report, more than a year in
the making, was ordered by Barrie's city council last April.
Councillors in the city, with a population of about 130,000, created
the six-member Rodin Transaction Examination Committee upon learning
that the MacLaren Art Centre was facing a deficit of at least
$1-million and unable to make any payments on the $2.7-million it
owed the city for an expansion and renovation of its space."
ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM GAINS $200,000 IN UNPAID BILLS As for the Royal
Ontario Museum, their initial financial stake that turned into a
loss was addressed in a Globe and Mail published January 18, 2003
"Inside the hidden kingdom" article by Sarah Milroy, the reporter
wrote: " last year's Rodin fiasco (which ended up costing the ROM
more than $200,000 in unpaid bills when the MacLaren Art Centre's
proposed world tour of the exhibit found no other takers)."
$40 MILLION DONATION TAX WRITEOFF In the Globe and Mail's published
November 5, 2006 "Canadian collectors cry foul on report" article by
James Adams, the reporter wrote: "At stake is the fate of versions
of some of the world's most famous sculptures, among them three
plaster renditions of The Kiss, two of The Thinker and three of the
Age of Bronze, part of a collection that the 10 businessmen bought
from an Italian dealer in 2000. By donating their 28 plasters to the
MacLaren, a registered Canadian charity, they would have been able
to claim their full market value as a break against taxable income.
At one time, the MacLaren valued the entire Rodin project at more
than $40-million."
WHO ARE THESE BUSINESSMEN? Additionally, in this Globe and Mail
published article, the reporter James Adams names those ten
businessmen. They are: 1) Rolling Stones' tour manager Michael Cohl,
2) broadcasting billionaire Allan Slaight, 3) Toronto investment
banker Robert Foster, 4) pollster Martin Goldfarb, 5) developers
Garnet Watchorn and 6) Graham Goodchild, 7) Standard Broadcasting
CFO David Coriat, 8) venture capitalist Anthony Lloyd, 9) Mad Catz
Interactive founder Pat Brigham and 10) the estate of the late John
M. S. Lecky, Calgary-based founder of Canada 3000 airlines.
GRUPPO MONDIALE EST. PARTNERS WITH RODIN INTERNATIONAL Rodin
International L.C., located at 201 Bird Road in Coral Gables,
Florida, began selling Gruppo Mondiale Est.'s so-called Rodins
sometime after 2002.
On their rodininternational.com/Posthumous.html website, it stated:
"These are only three examples of major sculptors with posthumous
bronzes, but the list could be continued endlessly. The essence of
this is that posthumous casts are an essential part of our
understanding of the artist’s lifetime work. They complete the image
and character of the artist, and sometimes formulate it altogether.
These works are significant additions to their respective
collections and are visited by millions of visitors annually. At
recent auctions some posthumous bronzes have actually sold at much
higher prices than lifetime casts."
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/72078/Controversial-Rodin-Plaster-Bronze-Exhibit-to-Open-Today
Controversial Rodin Plaster,
Bronze Exhibit to Open Today
September 20, 2001
TORONTO -- The firestorm over an exhibit, entitled "From Plaster to
Bronze: The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin" which opens here Thursday,
continues to simmer between the Rodin Museum in Paris and exhibitors
here.
The exhibit, opening at the Royal Ontario Museum and organized by
the Barrie, Ontario-based Maclaren Art Center, will put on display
40 plaster and 30 bronze casts, including some which were created
after the artist's death in 1917.
The artistic spat erupted months ago when the Rodin Museum, which
has overseen Rodin's work bequeathed to the French government,
publicly called into question the authenticity of the casts.
In an August letter to the Toronto ****Star**** newspaper -- one of
the sponsors of the exhibit -- Rodin Museum Director Jacques Vilain
said: "The collection in question cannot be considered authentic."
Maclaren Art Center Director William Moore counters the works'
history of ownership -- or provenance -- is "clear" and that Rodin
Museum officials "have been aware of that for a long time."
Rodin Museum officials say the exhibitors should disclose the
provenance.
On Tuesday, Moore provided AFP with several declarations of
authentication, dated August 28, 2001, for some of the casts.
It appeared that most of the casts had a clear provenance, except
for one unnamed private collector.
The Paris-based museum, which is charged with protecting the
interests of Rodin's estate, also says the casts should not be
exhibited because they are of poor quality and in no part reflect
Rodin's creative vision.
Moore, while saying he "deeply respects" the museum, disputes these
claims saying the exhibit really "moves back to that sense of
originality and original thinking."
"Rodin would create a clay model which was his first conceptual
component; then he would move from clay into the plaster. The
plaster was made from a mold of the clay because the clay would
eventually fall apart.
"Then he would rework the plasters often in a number of forms. those
plasters were as close you could get to the original sense of Rodin
because he wasn't involved particularly in the making of the
bronzes, which were made by highly specialized bronzes," Moore said.
The exhibit will run until December 23 and then travel to the United
States and Asia. Tickets for which cost upwards of 20 dollars (13
dollars us).
https://www.muskokaregion.com/news/maclarens-reputation-damaged-by-rodin-scheme-says-report/article_9ae82235-acf0-544b-a25d-ec106d0aba57.html
MacLaren’s reputation damaged by
Rodin scheme, says report
By Laurie Watt Huntsville Forester
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
The MacLaren Art Centre came out a bit ahead financially in the
failed Rodin bronzes transaction, but it cost the gallery much more
in terms of its reputation, focus and ability to raise funds, city
council heard Monday night.
In April 2004, city council threw the gallery a $750,000 lifeline.
At the same time, it required the gallery to open its books to a
city committee, chaired by longtime banker Stewart McBoyle, and
discuss a tax-assisted investment scheme that was to have resulted
in long-term financial stability for the gallery through the sale of
special-edition Rodin bronzes.
The transaction failed, with the gallery never being able to secure
the bronzes. Efforts to obtain the bronzes not only drove up the
centre’s legal bills, but created a cloud of uncertainty, which
frustrated the gallery’s fund-raising efforts and distracted gallery
staff from running exhibitions, said McBoyle, who conducted 26
interviews with gallery staff, UK and American art dealers and an
art manufacturer, transporter and curator in Italy.
Names were kept confidential, he said, as the committee faced a
threat of being sued and many people interviewed over the past year
demanded confidentiality. He noted there have been “at least 25”
drafts of his report.
“The MacLaren has in its possession title documents to 510 bronzes.
It would seem some type of recovery action should be taken to get
the bronzes,” McBoyle told the media, adding the gallery can’t
afford to, because it’s in “a financial strait jacket.
“From what we have examined, we could not find anything other than
internal issues of governance, nothing that could be considered
criminal in nature. The MacLaren needs to have a proper business
plan and relook at the vision it had when it first undertook the Art
City project,” he said, adding it’s unlikely the centre will be able
to carry through on its vision to have buildings and pavilions for
art in public spaces throughout the city.
Mayor Rob Hamilton said although the gallery came out ahead - as it
acquired a Henry Moore collection (valued at $35 million) and
received 17 Rodin plasters, and $1.2 million for its building fund -
gallery officials focused their attention on obtaining the bronzes
at the expense of the gallery’s mission and other fund-raising
efforts.
“They didn’t tend to their knitting. They didn’t focus on their
other fund-raising,” the mayor said, after listening to McBoyle’s
16-page presentation.
Of the $1.2 million the gallery received, $709,159 went to reducing
the building loan held by the city. The remainder went into
operating budgets. “It got sucked up,” said Hamilton.
MacLaren board chairperson Jim Fairhead said the board has already
begun to implement several recommendations from the report.
“We have already started our strategic planning process and will
ensure that the report’s recommendations are reflected in the
official plan, which will be available to the public in September,”
he said.
“Despite the challenges of the Rodin Transaction, the report
identifies there were tangible benefits for the MAC. While we did
not achieve the financial sustainability we had hoped for, our
collection and capital campaign both benefited.”
The report also stated that MacLaren’s former director had “greater
leeway than might be expected and less than perfect communication
with the board.”
Former director William Moore could not be reached for comment as
The Advance went to press.
https://www.simcoe.com/news/barries-maclaren-can-put-rodin-story-behind-it-lawyer/article_f6f98187-dae9-57be-b577-e8be52c8f690.html
By Laurie Watt Barrie Advance
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
An Ontario Superior Court judge
has ushered the MacLaren’s Walking Man lawsuit to the door.
Ontario Superior Court of Justice Guy DiTomaso ruled last week a
$1.55-million lawsuit relating to damages to the Auguste Rodin
plaster and two other pieces came too late to go to trial.
“This is very good for the gallery. It will put the Rodin experience
behind it,” said the gallery’s lawyer, Arnold Schwisberg.
Ontario Superior Court of Justice Guy DiTomaso ruled last week a
$1.55-million lawsuit relating to damages to the Auguste Rodin
plaster and two other pieces came too late to go to trial.
“This is very good for the gallery. It will put the Rodin experience
behind it,” said the gallery’s lawyer, Arnold Schwisberg.
The Rodin story goes back to 2001. The gallery had hoped to receive
international recognition and acclaim with its Rodin exhibition. The
exhibition lost money, a long-term funding plan involving Rodin
works failed and Walking Man, with its lawsuit and its costs, kept
the wound open.
DiTomaso brought it all to an end, saying one of the pieces’ owners,
a Calgary litigator who is also an avid art collector, should have
known the Limitations Act and made his damages claim by Oct. 19,
2009.
The statement of claim was filed Nov. 19, 2009, then later amended
in 2010. The case was heard in Barrie April 3 and July 26.
DiTomaso told owner Grant Vogeli to “take immediate steps” to take
back Walking Man, which the gallery has been paying to store since
it exhibited it in the fall of 2001. The gallery estimates that cost
at $8,522.55, plus interest.
“Sadly, Walking Man is the subject of what in the art world is known
as a failed ‘art flip’ for tax purposes,” DiTomaso said. “It has
become the rejected gift that keeps on giving.
Ontario Superior Court of Justice Guy DiTomaso ruled last week a
$1.55-million lawsuit relating to damages to the Auguste Rodin
plaster and two other pieces came too late to go to trial.
“This is very good for the gallery. It will put the Rodin experience
behind it,” said the gallery’s lawyer, Arnold Schwisberg.
The Rodin story goes back to 2001. The gallery had hoped to receive
international recognition and acclaim with its Rodin exhibition. The
exhibition lost money, a long-term funding plan involving Rodin
works failed and Walking Man, with its lawsuit and its costs, kept
the wound open.
DiTomaso brought it all to an end, saying one of the pieces’ owners,
a Calgary litigator who is also an avid art collector, should have
known the Limitations Act and made his damages claim by Oct. 19,
2009.
The statement of claim was filed Nov. 19, 2009, then later amended
in 2010. The case was heard in Barrie April 3 and July 26.
DiTomaso told owner Grant Vogeli to “take immediate steps” to take
back Walking Man, which the gallery has been paying to store since
it exhibited it in the fall of 2001. The gallery estimates that cost
at $8,522.55, plus interest.
“Sadly, Walking Man is the subject of what in the art world is known
as a failed ‘art flip’ for tax purposes,” DiTomaso said. “It has
become the rejected gift that keeps on giving.
“To complicate matters, our Waking Man is a controversial figure.
Some claim it is a genuine work attributed to the famous French
sculptor Auguste Rodin and is of considerable value. Others dispute
its authenticity and provenance, which is a polite way of saying our
Walking Man is a cheap, valueless fake.
“This controversy takes on a greater significance when one considers
Walking Man’s current deteriorated and damaged condition. One thing
agreed upon is that is damaged beyond repair.”
The question of authenticity begins with the purchase of Walking Man
in 1998. A group including Vogeli purchased the piece for US$62,500.
The Vogeli group provided no receipt or authenticity certificate,
not even a cancelled cheque, to prove they purchased the piece they
later claimed was worth $450,000.
The group lent six plasters, including Walking Man, to the MacLaren
for a Rodin show, coinciding with the opening of the new gallery in
September 2001.
Because they did so, the owners qualified for an income tax credit
for six times what they paid. Later, however, the Canadian Revenue
Agency disallowed the credit, while the Musée Rodin initiated an
investigation into Walking Man, which required the piece to be
impounded and examined in Ottawa.
During the French investigation, which concluded in December, 2004,
the piece was damaged.
Because of the failure of the income tax funding plan, which
disallowed an array of donations and a plan to sell Rodin pieces,
the gallery also experienced financial troubles so severe, it sought
protection under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
While Walking Man was impounded, the MacLaren ended its loan
agreement with Vogeli and requested information, such as a shipping
address, to return it when it was released. The gallery has been
paying storage costs ever since.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/oct/02/artsfeatures.arts
I think, but I'm not quite sure
who I am
2001
When is a Rodin not a Rodin? And whose decision is it anyway? Aida
Edemariam on a show that's split Canada and France
Stop someone in the street and ask them to name two famous statues.
Odds are they'll think of Michelangelo's fey David, or Rodin's
Thinker - or possibly another Rodin, The Kiss. From Plaster to
Bronze: The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, at Toronto's Royal Ontario
Museum, is a collection comprising 70-odd plasters and bronzes,
including The Thinker and The Kiss, that is worth around £17.5m. It
has been billed as "The world's largest single collection of
plasters outside the Musée Rodin in Paris."
But are they authentic? The Musée Rodin, to which Rodin bequeathed
nearly 7,000 plasters when he died in 1917, says not. "It's a
scandal, a forgery, a delusion," says curator of statues Antoinette
Romain. Museum director Jacques Vilain has told Canadian newspapers
that this is the biggest scandal he has ever faced. "I have the
support of all France."
Invective has been flying across the Atlantic for weeks, but the
issue isn't fakes versus originals. Given that "original" Rodins are
cast, what exactly is an authentic Rodin? Who gets to decide? Rodin
himself, as much entrepreneur as sculptor, does not make the task
any easier. Born in 1840, a stonemason by trade, he didn't develop
his emotional, realistic style until he was 35, when he went to
Italy and saw the work of Michelangelo, Donatello, Ghiberti. His
next piece, The Age of Bronze (L'Age d'Airain), was so realistic
that he was accused of having cast it from a living person. Then
there was his statue of Balzac, commissioned for the Société des
Gens de Lettres. All he had to go on, wrote Kenneth Clark in
Civilisation, was that Balzac was short, fat, worked in his dressing
gown. People were horrified by the result, and he had to take the
Balzac sculpture back.
For most people, there's just one original Thinker, and it's big and
bronze. In fact, the first Thinker (Le Penseur) was small, designed
to be part of a bronze door Rodin was making for the Musée des Arts
Decoratifs. The Gates of Hell, unfinished, was inspired by The
Divine Comedy, and The Thinker was a portrait of Dante. Rodin was
fascinated by the statue and began playing around with it. The Kiss
(Le Baiser) was also part of the Gates of Hell - and there are 319
casts of that, cast between 1898 and 1819.
The figures the public saw were not necessarily touched by Rodin.
Small templates, in unpreservable clay, were used to make a mould
into which plaster was poured. Rodin distinguished between two
levels of plaster. The first from the mould was a finished,
original, independent work of art, the form in which he liked to
show his work. Visitors could order copies in marble or bronze. For
this process, Rodin, and his assistants, used other plasters, known
as foundry plasters, not meant for public consumption.
If authenticity is defined as the fewest number of removes from
Rodin's hands, then all these forms are authentic, but the first
plaster is more authentic than the first bronze, and so on. Matters
are further complicated by the fact that authenticity can be
conferred by French law, which allows a maximum of 12 original
casts. The last "original" large-form bronze Thinker was cast in
1974; any identical Thinker after that date is a reproduction. The
Musée Rodin still produces originals, from plasters yet to be cast
12 times.
No one is disputing that the Canadian bronzes are reproductions,
cast in 1999 and 2000. No one is disputing that the show - which
comes from the MacLaren Art Centre in Ontario, and is to tour the US
and Asia - includes foundry plasters. Points of contention are
quality, dating and provenance. Director of the MacLaren Centre
William Moore is confident that the plasters date from Rodin's
lifetime, pointing out that they are signed. Romain says only
posthumous plasters were signed - these date from the 1950s, and
could have been made from moulds taken from other plasters.
Some plasters are damaged, and the claim is that Rodin would have
made sure they were destroyed. Moore counters that these are
interesting in themselves, for insights they provide into how Rodin
worked, and that the exhibition will provide technical analysis of
the casting process. The Musée Rodin says it has all the original
plasters except for a few in New York's Met.
Moore provides provenances that trace the plasters back to Rodin via
his foundry. The Musée Rodin says it asked for but never received
those provenances. Nor does it recognise the expert Moore has
enlisted. Moore says he received the museum's approval a year ago.
The museum says that it was never granted. Moore accuses the museum
of being proprietorial. The museum says it is the custodian of
Rodin's image: "We think the public should not be cheated." Both
sides have thought about turning to lawyers.
What it all comes down to is value. The public has an instinctive
belief in the sanctity of art, in art as holy relic touched by one
hand only. And the art market can play on that instinct. The fewer
pieces there are, the more you can get for them. The art world lives
in horror of such operations as Bronze Direct, where small Thinkers
are available for $250. "Want a Rodin's Masterpiece for yourself?"
reads the ad. "Come to www.bronzedirect.com.
The matter ultimately returns to the question posed by the
Washington Post's chief art critic Blake Gopnik: "Do these things
look exactly like objects that Rodin would have recognised as being
by him?" The ROM is organising a symposium on November 6. They have
invited Rodin scholars from around the world, including
representatives from the Musée Rodin - which has not yet accepted
the invitation.
https://www.simcoe.com/news/maclaren-faces-1-55m-lawsuit/article_f8897a94-b56d-5d31-b336-25c2154e1306.html
MacLaren faces $1.55M lawsuit
By Barrie Advance
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
BARRIE - The ghost of Auguste Rodin has returned to haunt the
MacLaren Art Centre.
The gallery is facing $1.55 million in lawsuits relating to plasters
it borrowed to be part of a travelling exhibition.
In three separate statements of claim, the lenders accuse the
gallery of negligence and failing to properly ship the artwork –
plasters by Auguste Rodin the gallery used as part of a 2001
exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum.
The Rodin exhibition was unprofitable, due primarily to a sudden
drop in tourism after 9/11. The event, however, put the small
gallery on the international art scene as the sculptures on display
included not only plasters, but posthumous bronzes it had
commissioned to be a long-term fundraising tool as well as a way of
placing sculptures throughout the city, to make Barrie ArtCity – a
cultural tourism destination.
The tax-assisted financing idea, however, failed.
The gallery spent time and money, albeit unsuccessfully, to obtain
all the work it commissioned and was to sell over 20 years.
In the wake of the ROM exhibition, the gallery began 2002 with a
$750,000 operating deficit. The failed Rodin Transaction, as it was
known, raised almost $1.3 million, much of which went to pay a
$2.9-million building loan from the city.
Cash-strapped, the gallery turned to the City of Barrie for not only
increased operating grants, but also to maintain its city-owned
building that was renovated and expanded in 2001. In 2004, then
executive director William Moore was released from his duties at The
MacLaren.
A City of Barrie investigative report in June 2005 cleared the
gallery of any impropriety and the city stepped in to help the
gallery with loans and increased grants. Since then, the gallery has
cut and restructured programs. Its current director Carolyn Bell
Farrell came to the gallery in July 2007.
MacLaren’s lawyer Arnold Schwisberg told The Advance the three files
are in the process of being consolidated and, once that is complete,
he will file a statement of defence.
“The centre shall be filing its single statement of defence in 30
days or less after the consolidation order is made. Until then, it
would be inappropriate for me to comment, and I would suggest that
any reportage also be deferred,” he said in an email.
“I can, however, indicate the centre believes that the claims do not
have the validity or magnitude alleged, and a fully particularized
defence shall be pursued accordingly.”
In the first court file, James and Molly Longo are asking for
$550,000 for losses relating to the piece entitled 4 Movements of
Dance. They claim they requested the gallery return their art in
June 2004, and again in the summer of 2007.
They said art consultant and former gallery director Moore, who
inspected all three pieces, reported 4 Movements of Dance had been
severely damaged. The piece was valued at $525,000. In a similar
claim, Dino Deluca and Grant Vogeli say the piece they lent the
gallery, Walking Man, is no longer of any value. It was worth
$450,000 and, according to the court file, Walking Man had major
breaks in both legs and was severely cracked.
In the third civil suit, Celia Martin, Martin Johnson and Geoffrey
Goad are asking for $500,000 for losses relating to Medium Eve. They
claim when their consultant inspected Medium Eve, valued at
$460,000, he reported she had been “severely damaged.”
In all three claims, the plaintiffs allege the gallery did not
provide required documents, such as conservation and exhibition
history, as well as condition reports, which are filed at each
venue.
The suits all claim, in the summer of 2007 the gallery said it would
arrange to ship the pieces, once it was paid to do so. However, the
loan agreement they signed stipulated the gallery would not only
provide safekeeping for the pieces, but it would insure them and
return them to the lenders.
https://bluff-rodins.weebly.com/deception/1
MACLAREN ART CENTRE
COLLECTION OF BRONZES FOR SALE
2/1/2008
http://www.rom.on.ca/rodin/intro.html
The MacLaren Art Centre organized
September 20 to December 23, 2001, From
Plaster to Bronze: The Sculpture of
Auguste Rodin exhibition at the
Royal Ontario Museum is introduced on
the www.rom.on.ca website as: “In the
first stop of a major international
tour, this revealing exhibit brings
together almost 70 sculptures by Auguste
Rodin, one of the seminal figures in
modern art.”
These "almost 70 sculptures," is
actually 66 total, with the museum's
checklist descriptions given as: 18
“Auguste Rodin bronzes” and 48 “Auguste
Rodin plasters.”
As for the 18 so-called "Auguste Rodin
bronzes," 17 are non-disclosed
forgeries, posthumously forged between
1962 and 2000 with counterfeit “A
Rodin” signatures applied.
On page 661 of the Seventh Edition of
Black's Law Dictionary, -forgery- is
defined as: "the act of fraudulently
making a false document or altering a
real one to be used as if geniune."
Auguste Rodin died in 1917. The dead
don't sculpt.
The Mackenzie Art Gallery's “bronze”
titled Eternal
Spring (1916) is potentially the
only attributable lifetime cast to
Auguste Rodin in this exhibition.
Additionally, the Musee Rodin admits on
their website to the posthumous practice
of sending plaster forgeries of Auguste
Rodin's original plasters for casting in
bronze to the foundries. Thus not only
violating Auguste Rodin's 1916 Will but
making the subsequent posthumously cast
bronzes by the Musee Rodin
second-generation-removed forgeries in
bronze.
Therefore, thirty-seven of the 48
“Auguste Rodin plasters" listed in this
exhibition, as “foundry plasters”(28)
and as “studio or foundry plasters”(9)
with so-called “A
Rodin” signatures applied, acquired
from foundries that cast for the Musee
Rodin would be posthumous forgeries.
The dead don't sign.
As for the other eleven "studio cast"
plasters in this exhibition, are we to
suspend disbelief or just believe, that
despite the MacLaren Art Centre, Royal
Ontario Museum and Gruppo Mondiale Est.
misrepresenting at least 55 plaster and
bronze forgeries as "sculptures by
Auguste Rodin," that these -studio
casts- are authentic lifetime plasters
realized by Auguste Rodin?
So, what is at stake?
This monograph documents these
contentious issues of authenticity and
avarice by the principals Gruppo
Mondiale Est., MacLaren Art Centre,
Royal Ontario Museum and wealthy
investors.
MACLAREN ART CENTRE'S EXHIBITION
CHECKLIST SUMMARY
(Summarized directly from the MacLaren
Art Centre’s published checklist for
"Foundry Casts," "Studio or Foundry
Casts," "Posthumous Casts" and "Lifetime
Casts" have numbering mine and MacLaren
Art Center's numbering enclosed with (
), with their given title and listed
date.)
FOUNDRY CASTS {plaster}
1. (#1) The
Thinker (medium) - 1880
2. (#3) The
Kiss (medium) - 1903
3. (#7) Man
with a Broken Nose - 1872
4. (#8) The
Age of Bronze (small) - 1898
5. (#9) The
Kiss (small) - 1903
6. (#10) Bust
of Balzac (reduction) - 1898
7. (#17) Fallen
Caryatid Carrying Her Stone -
1880-82
8. (#19) Study
for Eustache - 1886
9. (#21) Bust
of Burgher Jean D’Aire - 1898
10. (#22) Ninjinsky (small)
- 1912
11. (#23) Daniad -
1888
12. (#25) Iris,
Messenger of the Gods (small) -
1891
13. (#28) Fugit
Amor - 1900 14. (#29) Torso
of Adele - 1881
15. (#31) Feminine
Torso - 1880
16. (#42) The
Hand of Adam - 1881
17. (#43) The
Hand of God - 1898
18. (#46) Balzac (Nude)
- 1892
19. (#48) Balzac
in a Monk’s Robe - 1893
20. (#52) The
Kiss - 1885
21. (#53) Dance
Movement “A” - 1910-1911
22. (#54) Dance
Movement “B” - 1910-1911
23. (#55) Dance
Movement “C” - 1910-1911
24. (#56) Dance
Movement “D” - 1910-1911
25. (#61) Nijinsky -
1912
26. (#63) Right
Hand of Pierre Wiessant - 1886
27. (#64) Left
Hand of Pierre Wiessant - 1886
28. (#67) The
Thinker (great) - 1903
STUDIO OR FOUNDRY CASTS {plaster}
1. (#13) Eve (large)
- 1881
2. (#14) Age
of Bronze (large) - 1876
3. (#15) Bust
Age of Bronze (large) - 1898
4. (#18) Eve (second
version) (medium) - 1883
5. (#20) Head
of Eustache Saint Pierre - 1886
6. (#26) Andrieu
d’Andres (reduction) - 1898
7. (#32) Iris,
Messenger of the Gods - 1891
8. (#33) Crouching
Woman - 1881
9. (#37) Bust
of The Age of Bronze (small) - 1898
STUDIO CASTS {plaster}
1. (#4) Idyll
of Ixelles - 1874-1876
2. (#11) Hand
of Rodin Holding Torso - 1917
3. (#16) Torso
Morhardt (large) - 1891
4. (#24) Study
of Danaid - 1886
5. (#27) The
Shade (First Version) - 1881
6. (#30) Torso
Walking Man - 1878
7. (#36) The
Age of Bronze (medium) - 1898
8. (#41) Head
of St. John the Baptist - 1879
9. (#45) Head
of Balzac - 1879
10. (#50) Eternal
Spring 1884
11. (#65) The
Hand of God (Date not known)
POSTHUMOUS CASTS {bronze}
1. (#34) Fallen
Caryatid Carrying Her Stone -
1999-2000
2. (#35) Study
of Danaid - 1999-2000
3. (#38) The
Age of Bronze - 1999-2000
4. (#40) The
Age of Bronze - 1999-2000
5. (#44) Eve (large)
- 1881
6. (#57) Dance
Movement “A” - 1999-2000
7. (#58) Dance
Movement “B” - 1999-2000
8. (#59) Dance
Movement “C” - 1999-2000
9. (#60) Dance
Movement “D” - 1999-2000
10. (#62) Nijinsky -
1999-2000
11. (#66) Hand
of Rodin Holding Torso - 1999-2000
12. (#>66) Large
Clenched Left Hand with Half-Length
Figure of a Woman - 1972
13. (#>66) Blessing
Left Hand - (posthumous)
14. (#68) The
Thinker - 1999-2000
LIFETIME CASTS {bronze}
1. (#2) Eustache
de St. Pierre Holding Torso (lifetime)
- 1895 (Vancouver)
2. (#39) The
Age of Bronze - 1876 (Edmonton)
3. (#49) Balzac -
1897 (Edmonton)
4. (#51) Eternal
Spring - 1916 (MacKenzie)
To properly address the contentious
isseus of authenticity with From
Plaster to Bronze: The Sculpture of
Auguste Rodin exhibition at the
Royal Ontario Museum, it is a must to
first document the definitions of the
key terms: reproduction, replica,
original, sculpture, sculptor,
signature, fake, forgeries and
counterfeit.
Then using those independent and
published definitions, the documented
facts surrounding this exhibit with the
relevant statutory laws applied and
including industry’s endorsed standards
on ethics, one will come to only one
conclusion: “The dead don't sculpt.”
RODIN’S -RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION- GIFT TO
FRANCE First, let’s address one
important and serious omission the
MacLaren Art Centre and others involved
in this deception make.
MACLAREN ART CENTRE The MacLaren Art
Centre writes: “He {Rodin} bequeaths his
estate to the French government for the
installation of a Rodin museum at the
Hotel Biron.”
The key but very important -omission- is
that Auguste Rodin specifically gave in
writing in 1916 to the State of France
upon his death the “right of
reproduction” to his art.
WHAT IS AN OMISSION? On page 1116 of
the Seventh Edition of Black's Law
Dictionary, -omission- is defined as:
"The act of leaving something out."
This “right of reproduction” is
documented by the former Musee Rodin
curator Monique Laurent on page 285 in
the National Gallery of Art’s 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered exhibition catalogue: “Let
us indicate right away on this subject
that he never fixed a precise limit to
the number made. The only indication on
this point occurs in the text of the
donation of 1 April 1916, according to
which “notwithstanding the transfer of
artistic ownership authorized to the
State of M. Rodin, the latter expressly
reserves for himself the enjoyment,
during his life, of the reproduction
rights of those objects given by him,
being well understood that the said
right of reproduction will remain
strictly personal to the donor who is
forbidden to cede it for whatever reason
to any third party. He will have, in
consequence, the right to reproduce and
to edit his works and to make
impressions or mold for the usage which
suits him. In the event that M. Rodin,
exercising the right that he has thus
reserved, contracts with an art editor
for the reproduction in bronze of one or
several works included in the present
donation, the contract of publication
cannot be made for a period of more than
five years and the number of
reproductions of each work shall not
exceed ten.”
This excerpt from Auguste Rodin’s
1916 Will makes it quite clear that
Auguste Rodin understood his “right of
reproduction” he was giving to the State
of France upon his death. It is also
very clear that the State of France also
understood the “right of reproduction”
so well that they got edition of “ten”
restrictions and “five year publication”
time constraints put on Auguste Rodin
before his death but with no such
posthumous restrictions put upon
themselves.
After Auguste Rodin died November 17,
1917 the State of France then owned the
“right of reproduction” to Auguste
Rodin’s art to make -reproductions-.
Eighty-four years later in 2001, much of
Auguste Rodin’s art is in the public
domain so anyone can reproduce it.
Why would the MacLaren Art Centre and
others fail to disclose this specific
“right of reproduction?”
WHAT IS A REPRODUCTION? In Ralph
Mayer’s A Dictionary of Art Terms and
Techniques, -reproduction- is defined
as: “A general term for any copy,
likeness, or counterpart of an original
work of art or of a photograph, done in
the same medium as the original or in
another, and done by someone other than
the creator of the original.”
In the J. Paul Getty Trust’’s www.getty.edu website,
under their Getty Vocabulary Program,
0reproduction- is defined as: “Use with
regard to copies of art images, art
objects, or other valued images or
objects, made without intent to deceive;
with regard to art images, includes
photographic reproductions; implies more
precise and faithful imitation than does
the term -copies (derivative objects).'
Where the intent is to deceive, use
“forgeries” or “counterfeits.”
Based on the prior two documented and
independent definitions for
reproduction, anything reproduced from
Auguste Rodin’s art would be a
-reproduction-. Anything posthumously
reproduced directly from Auguste Rodin’s
art would absolutely have to be a
-reproduction- since it obviously would
have to been “done by someone other than
the creator of the original” since
obviously Auguste Rodin would have still
been dead at the time.
MACLAREN ART CENTRE AND CASTS
THAT REPLICATE The MacLaren Art
Centre’s www.plaster2bronze.com website
writes: “These {foundry plasters} are
casts that replicate either the
exhibition or reserve plasters and
provide the first step in the process of
translating a sculpture from plaster to
bronze. The accuracy and detailing of
the foundry plasters is essential. This
helps to ensure that the finished work
captures and conveys with as much
fidelity as possible the form,
dimensions, and nuances the artist
intended.”
WHAT IS A REPLICA? In Ralph
Mayer’s Dictionary of Art Terms and
Techniques, -replica- is defined as: “In
the fine arts, an exact copy or
duplicate of a work, done in the same
size and in the same medium, and done by
the artist who created the original (or,
sometimes, done under the artist’s
direct supervision). A replica is
considered in all important respects to
be equal of the original and of other
replicas of the same work. The word is
sometimes loosely used for any copy of a
work done in the same medium by someone
other than the creator of the original.”
So, based on the above definition unless
the artist creates the replica it would
not be a -replica-. It would instead be
a reproduction.
Therefore, why is the term
"translating,” used by the MacLaren Art
Centre's description, instead of
-reproducing- in describing the bronze
casting process for these posthumous
bronze reproductions?
If these objects were fully and honestly
disclosed, wouldn’t the MacLaren Art
Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum and
Gruppo Mondiale Est. have to admit that
they are at least -reproductions-? This
admission would mean these objects were
“done by someone other than the creator
of the original?”
So, are they -reproductions- or
something worse?
THE SAME PLASTER MODEL WILL BE USED On
page 279 of the essay “An Original in
Sculpture” in the National Gallery of
Art’s 1981 Rodin Rediscovered exhibition
catalogue, University of Paris Professor
and former Director of the Museums of
France Jean Chatelain wr0te: “The
examples are made from the same model
but are eventually completed by
different craftsmen at intervals of
several years. When the twelfth copy of
The Burghers of Calais is cast, the same
plaster model will be used as was used
the first time in 1894, but of course
different craftsmen will carry out the
casting.”
In other words, Jean Chatelain believes
and wants the reader to believe that
same lifetime plasters realized by Rodin
would used for casting lifetime and
posthumous bronzes.
MUSEE RODIN WENT OFFICIALLY INTO
BUSINESS IN 1919 For future reference,
the Musee Rodin went officially into
business in 1919.
Therefore everything Musee Rodin
authorizes is -posthumous- or in other
words after Auguste Rodin’s November 17,
1917 death.
NOT FROM THE ORIGINAL PLASTERS
Now contrast Jean Chatelain’s published
1981 statement: “the same plaster model
will be used” with the two independently
documented 2001 statements by the Musee
Rodin’s curator Antoinette Romain:
1) On their current 2001 www.musee-rodin.fr website,
the Musee Rodin curator Antoinette
Romain wrote: “Consequently, whenever it
is decided to release a new "subject", a
copy is first made from the old mould
which can be sent without risk to the
foundry where it undergoes the necessary
preparations for casting. It is coated
with an unmoulding agent, usually in a
dark colour, and cut, before being cast
again. This practice not only ensures
absolute fidelity to the original but
also preserves the old plasters which
are obviously more valuable since they
were made during the lifetime of Rodin.”
2) The Musee Rodin curator Antoinette
Romain confirmed, in a February 2, 2000
fax, the Musee Rodin practice of making
plaster copies of Rodin’s “original
plasters” for reproducing in bronze.
Translated from “French” to “English” by
me using AltaVista Translations and The
Oxford French Dictionary, the Musee
Rodin curator states: “We take a new
proof in the moulds which we possess to
avoid sending the original plasters to
the foundry. These moulds are the moulds
of Rodin, and thus ensure us a perfect
fidelity. In this way the original
plasters remain intact.”
The University of Paris Professor and
former Director of the Museums of France
Jean Chatelain has just be contradicted.
In other words, by avoiding sending the
hypothetical original plasters to the
foundry, they have willingly given up
the authentic original surface details
made by the working fingers of Rodin
himself or that Rodin approved through
his collaboration with his “sculpteur
reproducteur habituel” Henri Lebosse.
Each time the surface of one of these
subjects is approximated by the
necessary crude handling of the
materials used in the reproduction
processes, there is visible change. The
resulting pieces may be interesting to
look at, but it is an absurdity to
pretend they are just the way Rodin
would have wanted and intended for them
to appear.
FRENCH DECREE AND DISCLOSURE AS
REPRODUCTION
What laws or decrees by the State of
France require disclosure of
reproductions as "reproductions?”
In March 3, 1981 the State of France
passed a decree 81.255 on the
suppression of frauds in transactions
involving art works.
REPRODUCTIONS MUST CARRY THE
NOTATION REPRODUCTION
This is decree is documented on page 281
in Jean Chatelain’s essay “An Original
in Sculpture,” published in the 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered exhibition catalogue. In
part, he wrote that Article 9 of this
decree published March 21, 1981 in the
Journal Officiel requires: “All
facsimiles, casts of casts, copies, or
other reproductions of an original work
of art as set out in Article 71 of
Appendix III of the General Code of
Taxes, executed after the date of
effectiveness of the present decree,
must carry in a visible and indelible
manner the notation ‘Reproduction’.”
After 1981 does the Musee Rodin mark
their authorized -Rodin- bronze
reproductions in a “visible and
indelible manner” as “reproductions” as
required by this French decree?
No.
Since, the Musee Rodin readily admits
they do not send the original plasters
realized by Auguste Rodin during his
lifetime but posthumous plaster
forgeries for casting in bronze, the
results would be
second-generation-removed bronze
forgeries.
Those foundries involved in the
posthumous bronze casting of plaster
forgeries sent to them by the Musee
Rodin, in part, are “Alexis Rudier” and
“Georges Rudier.”
LIST OF FOUNDRIES (Source:
Monique Laurent, 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered (pages 285-293)
1880-1883 Gruet Jeune 1881-1904 F.
Rudier April 1882-Jan 1883 F. Laird 25
April 1882 Eugene Gonon 1884-1889 Pierre
Bingen 1891-1895 Adolpe Gruet 1895 to
mid-1898 J.B. Griffoul 1895-1898
Thiebaut Freres 1895 Societe Nationale
des Bronzes, formerly J. Peterman
1896-1901 Leon Perzinka 1887-1894
Griffoul, associated with Lorge 4 April
1898-1908 Thiebaut Freres, Fumiere et
Gavignot June 1898 to March 1899 A. (Auguste)
Griffoul et Cie 24 October 1898, MM.
Fumiere et Gavignot 1899 Camille Groult,
heir to Dargenton et Groult 1901 L.
Gasne 1902 E. Gruet Jeune 1902 G. Sevin
1903 Pierre Griffoul 1904 Philippet
1906-1908 H. Gonot et E. Joret 1910 C.
Durant 1912 Valsuani 1912-1913 Phillippe
Montagutelli 1913 Rene Fulda 1898-1918
Le Blanc-Barbedienne 1902-1952 Alexis
Rudier 1917 Auguste Rodin dies 1952-
Georges Rudier 1964-1978 Susse 1969-
Godard 1973- Coubertin
COLLECTION OF BRONZES FOR SALE
The collection consists of a series of
over 50 Rodin sculptures, from which
will be cast 8 pieces each, with a
certificate of authenticity. This
document guarantees that the bronze was
cast by the lost wax process from a
foundry plaster identical to the
original. Each bronze is finished using
the exact same patinas and techniques as
used during the life of the artist. All
dimensions and details are exact to life
time casts. Each cast has Masters
Limited Edition cachet and is numbered."
http://www.rodin-art.com/
GRUPPO MONDIALE EST.
The Gruppo Mondiale Est. claims on
their www.rodin-art.com website that
their “Master Edition Auguste Rodin
bronze casts” are from “Rodin’s original
plasters.”
On the Gruppo Mondiale Est.’s www.rodin-art.com website,
they provide -provenance- for their
“Rodin plasters” as:
1) Alexis Rudier Foundeur, Paris;
2) Eugene Rudier, Paris;
3) Georges Rudier, Paris; and
4) Private collection (France) to Gruppo
Mondiale Est.
How can Gruppo Mondiale Est. have
“Rodin’s original plasters” for
posthumous casting in bronze, if the
Musee Rodin doesn't even send Auguste
Rodin's original plasters to those same
foundries: Alexis Rudier and Georges
Rudier that Gruppo Mondiale Est. claims
to have acquired them from?
The Gruppo Mondiale Est., located in Via
Roma, 74 33050 Trivignano Udinese, Udine
Italy, is the source of the majority of
the -plasters- and -bronzes-, donated to
the MacLaren Art Centre Collection, that
are currently exhibited in the From
Plaster to Bronze: The Sculpture of
Auguste Rodin exhibition at the
Royal Ontario Museum.
RED FLAGS
Aside from Musee Rodin’s
admission of sending plaster forgeries
to those prior mentioned foundries,
there are other -RED FLAGS- to Gruppo
Mondiale Est. claim that they have
“Rodin’s original plasters.”
What are some of those -red flags-?
ALEXIS RUDIER WAS RUN BY EUGENE RUDIER
One of those -red flags- is Gruppo
Mondiale Est. listing “Alexis Rudier”
and “Eugene Rudier” separately when
actually they were the same foundry
using his father’s name -Alexis Rudier-
that was run by Eugene Rudier from 1902
till his death in 1952.
ALEXIS RUDIER CASTS ARE IN
MAJORITY POSTHUMOUS
On page 290 of the 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered exhibition catalogue’s
“Rodin and His Founders” essay, the
former Musee Rodin curator Monique
Laurent writes: “Studying of the
existing {Musee Rodin} archives brings
out a curious paradox: not a single
document is found from Alexis Rudier, so
that this prestigious mark, long
considered Rodin’s ideal standard in
bronze and symbolizing for amateurs the
old cast acknowledged and endorsed by
him, is actually a label of little
significance. ...the Musee Rodin owns no
proof of collaboration between Alexis
and Rodin. Even more, his name appears
for the first time on 24 March 1902,
five years after his {Francois} death,
with the formula “Alexis Rudier, Veuve
Alexis Rudier et Fils Successeur...
starting in 1902, the uninterrupted
production of the firm concerned in
reality the activity of Alexis’s son
Eugene.” ...the casts of Alexis Rudier
{foundry} are in the great majority
posthumous since the mark was used for
at least thirty-five years after the
sculptor’s death... Georges Rudier,
Eugene’s nephew, took over the directing
of the business and made casts under his
own name ...sometime around 1952 or a
“year or two later.”
HENRY BONNARD IS ACTUALLY HENRY-BONNARD
Gruppo Mondiale Est. commingling of
dates, facts and terms brought to memory
a 1995 telephone conversation with the
Remington Museum Director Lowell
McAllister. In that conversation he told
about the inside joke on all the
posthumous forged “Remington bronzes.”
It was that those individuals
deceptively selling them to unsuspecting
victims would promote them as being from
the original “Henry Bonnard Bronze
Company.” The joke is the “Henry Bonnard”
is actually two separate people Mr.
Henry and Mr. Bonnard. It’s really the
“Henry-Bonnard Bronze Foundry.”
PROVENANCE UNAVAILABLE FROM GRUPPO
MONDIALE EST When Gruppo Mondiale Est.
was directly asked to provide complete
documentation for the provenance of
these plasters, their representative
Colin Mills responded in January 27,
2001, by stating: “We have officially
recognized ‘provenance’ for our pieces,
although for legal reasons it can only
be disclosed to certified attorneys.”
Despite Gruppo Mondiale Est.
representative’s “legal reasons” not to
fully disclose the provenance for their
-Rodin plasters-, what other historical
and published documentation might give
doubt to their claim that they have
“Rodin’s original plasters?”
LEONCE BENEDITE, FIRST MUSEE
RODIN DIRECTOR
First, the last few years before Auguste
Rodin’s death, his control and oversight
of his plasters was subverted by those
entrusted by the State of France to
protect it. A prime example of this
subversion is the first Musee Rodin
director Leonce Benedite.
GATES OF HELL REARRANGED BY BENEDITE
On page 148, in Albert Elsen’s
1985 Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin catalogue,
on page 148, the author wrote: “As
events after Rodin’s death were to
prove, Benedite did overstep his
authority on certain occasions. In the
matter of the final assembly of the
doorway, Judith Cladel, who was
dismissed by Benedite as a curator at
the Musee Rodin, wrote during the years
1933-36 that workmen told her in 1917
that Benedite edited their efforts on at
least one occasion in a way they felt
Rodin would not have approved: ‘Some of
Rodin’s scandalized assistants who cast
his plasters made it known to me that,
charged with the reassembly of The Gates
of Hell, they received orders to place
certain figures in different arrangement
than that which the artist wanted,
because 'that would be better.’”
BENEDITE AUTHORIZED POSTHUMOUS
ENLARGEMENTS
One of those -occasions- that Albert
Elsen refers to is in his Footnote 17 on
page 253 of his book. It stated: “In
1921, during the course of a trial on
charges brought by the State against a
founder who was casting Rodin’s work
without authorization, it was shown that
Benedite had authorized the enlargement
of Rodin’s La Defense after the artist’s
death.”
HENRI LEBOSSE, SCULPTEUR REPRODUCTEUR
HABITUEL Second, on page 253 in Albert
Elsen’s “Rodin’s “Perfect Collaborator,”
Henri Lebosse” essay, in the National
Gallery of Art’s 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered exhibition catalogue,
Stanford Professor and Rodin scholar
wrote: “From the mid-1890’s until his
death, Rodin entrusted most if not all
of his important enlargements and
reductions to this dedicated and today
unknown technician who referred to
himself as Rodin’s ‘sculpteur
reproducteur habituel.’ Lebosse wrote
the master on January 24, 1903. ‘I would
like to be your perfect collaborator.’”
HENRI LEBOSSE BETRAYS RODIN'S
LEGACY
Unfortunately, on page 256 of this
essay, Albert Elsen documents that Henri
Lebosse became one of Auguste Rodin’s
biggest betrayers. After August Rodin’s
death in 1917, the Musee Rodin Director
Benedite directed Henri Lebosse to
increase the original scale of the
sculpture “The Defense” four times.
Albert Elsen wrote: “Tragically for
Rodin’s “perfect collaborator,” the
Verdun enlargement became part of a 1920
scandal involving fake works, marble
carvers who continued to turn out
sculpture signed with Rodin’s name, and
unauthorized bronze casts by the
Baredienne foundry.”
1918-1919 RODIN FAKES IMPLICATE
ITALIAN SCULPTOR
On page 289 in the 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered exhibition catalogue,
Monique Laurent further explains the
circumstances behind the 1919 scandal
and trial when she writes: “As for
Philippe Montagutelli, founder, 54,
avenue du maine in Paris, who worked in
1912 and 1913 on Clemenceau, France and
Carrie-Belleuse, among others, but in
September 1913, Rodin challenged him and
filed a complaint for counterfeiting.
This first affair would be followed in
1918-1919 by a famous trial for fakes
and counterfeits in which the sculptor
Archilles Fidi of Italian origin, was
also implicated.”
Is it obvious that if it makes no
difference to the Musee Rodin whether
Auguste Rodin’s “original plasters” are
used for reproducing bronzes, why would
Gruppo Mondiale Est. want to make that
distinction?
WHAT IS AN ORIGINAL?
In the J. Paul Getty Trust’’s www.getty.edu website
that “supports limited research and
cataloging efforts.” Under their Getty
Vocabulary Program the term -original-
is defined as: “Use to distinguish from
reproductions or other types of copies.”
In Ralph Mayer’s Dictionary of Art Terms
and Techniques, -original- is defined
as: “An artist’s independent creation.
2. a work of art considered as a
PROTOTYPE, as that from which copies and
reproductions have been made.”
WHAT IS A SCULPTURE?
On page 352, in Ralph Mayer’s Dictionary
of Art Terms & Techniques, -sculpture-
is defined as: “The creation of three
dimensional forms by carving, modeling
or assembly. In carving, the sculptor
removes unwanted material.... In
modeling on the other hand, the sculptor
creates a form by building it up...”
This definition is further confirmed by
J. Paul Getty Trust’s www.getty.edu website.
Under their Getty Vocabulary Program.
-sculpture- is defined as: “Use for
works of art in which images and forms
are carried out primarily in three
dimensions, especially those that retain
the quality of being tangible objects or
groups of objects.”
WHAT IS A SCULPTOR?
This is answered in the J. Paul Getty
Trust’s www.getty.edu website. Under
their Getty Vocabulary Program,
-sculptor- is defined as: “Artists who
specialize in creating images and forms
that are carried out primarily in three
dimensions, generally in the media of
stone, wood, or metal.”
Based on the above documented
definitions for the terms original,
sculpture, and sculptor, Auguste Rodin
would have to be living to be a
-sculptor- which would obviously allow
him the ability to create his own
-original- works of visual art in
-sculpture-.
Therefore, anything reproduced from
Auguste Rodin’s art, after his death
November 17, 1917, would be obviously a
-reproduction-. Obviously, if it is a
-reproduction-, it would have been done
by someone other than the artist. As a
result it could not be an -original-
work of visual art ie., -sculpture-.
The dead don't sculpt.
So, anything posthumously and faithfully
reproduced from Auguste Rodin’s art
would at best be a -reproduction-.
As noted earlier, a -reproduction- is
defined as: “A general term for any
copy, likeness, or counterpart of an
original work of art or of a photograph,
done in the same medium as the original
or in another, and done by someone other
than the creator of the original.”
Since, the Musee Rodin authorized
“Rodin” bronzes cast from posthumous
plaster forgeries instead of from
Rodin’s “original work{s} of art” ie.,
lifetime plasters as required under the
definition reproduction, much less his
1916 Will, what should they be called?
WHAT IS A FAKE?
On page 617 of the Seventh Edition of
Black’s Law Dictionary, -fake- is
defined as: “Something that is not what
it purports to be.”
Would forgeries forged from
reproductions of Auguste Rodin’s
original art misrepresented as sculpture
be “something that is not what it
purports to be?”
-A RODIN- SIGNATURE
In referring to Auguste Rodin’s lifetime
practice of signing his bronzes, on page
22 of the former Musee Rodin curator
Monique Laurent’s 1988 RODIN book, the
former Musee Rodin curator wrote: “Most
of the bronzes are stamped with the
artist’s signature (copied from an
example supplied by him and also with
the stamp of the foundry). Some,
although perfectly authentic, are
unsigned. But there is no question of
any of them being numbered or dated;
these are modern methods, linked with
notion of rarity and speculation in
art.”
This documentation directly confirms
that during Auguste Rodin’s lifetime he
authorized his “signature” to be stamped
on his bronzes.
So, once Auguste Rodin died in 1917, the
State of France would have the “right of
reproduction” to his art but would
anyone other than a living Auguste Rodin
have the right to posthumously apply his
signature?
-A RODIN- CACHE MARK ADDED AFTER
1919 TRIAL
In her essay “Rodin and His
Founders” on page 290 in the 1981 Rodin
Rediscovered exhibition catalogue, the
former curator Monique Laurent wrote:
“It had been thought that a dating
element could be found thanks to the
cachet A. RODIN, cast in relief on the
interior of certain casts by Alexis
Rudier. According to the founder Georges
Rudier, the addition of this mark would
have been agreed on with the Rudier
Foundry after the trial of 1919 in which
Montagutelli was implicated in order to
betray illicit castings, but there exist
several casts made during Rodin’s
lifetime bearing this signature.”
The above published reference shows the
arrogance of the Musee Rodin and the
State of France. They act as if they are
the only ones that can counterfeit
Auguste Rodin’s signature. When in fact
no one but the living artists themselves
can sign their name.
WHAT IS A SIGNATURE?
This is answered in the J. Paul Getty
Trust’s www.getty.edu website. Under
their Getty Vocabulary Program,
-signature- is defined as: “Persons'
names written in their own hand.”
On page 1387 of the Seventh Edition of
Black’s Law Dictionary, -signature- is
defined as: “A person's name or mark
written by that person or at the
person's direction.”
WHAT IS A FORGERY?
In Ralph Mayer’s Dictionary of Art Terms
and Techniques it defines -forgery- as:
“In the fine arts, the creation of a
spurious work with intention of
deceiving and/or defrauding; also, the
spurious work itself. A forgery is
rarely a copy of an original.”
In J. Paul Getty Trust’’s www.getty.edu website,
under their Getty Vocabulary Program,
-forgery- is defined as: “Use for valued
objects or documents that are made or
altered with intent to deceive; may
range in falsehood from counterfeiting
of whole works to altering of signatures
or other deliberate misrepresentations.
Distinguished from "copies (derivative
objects)" by the intention of
deception.”
As noted earlier, on page 661 of the Seventh
Edition of Black's Law Dictionary,
-forgery- is defined as: "the act of
fraudulently making a false document or
altering a real one to be used as if
geniune."
If the Musee Rodin’s authorized -Rodins-
are: “the act of fraudulently making a
false document or altering a real one to
be used as if geniune," would they be
considered -forgeries-?
WHAT IS COUNTERFEIT?
This is answered in the J. Paul Getty
Trust’’s www.getty.edu website. Under
their Getty Vocabulary Program,
-counterfeit- is defined as: “To forge;
to copy or imitate, without authority or
right, and with a view to deceive or
defraud, by passing the copy or thing
forged for that which is original or
genuine.”
On page 354 of Seventh Edition of
Black’s Law Dictionary, -counterfeit- is
defined as: “To forge, copy, or imitate
(something) without a right to do so and
with the purpose of deceiving or
defrauding."
New York statute 11.01 defines
“counterfeit” as: “a work of fine art or
multiple made, altered or copied, with
or without intent to deceive, in such a
manner that it appears or is claimed to
have authorship which it does not in
fact possess.”
Would the any sculpture in the From
Plaster to Bronze: The Sculpture of
Auguste Rodin exhibition be
-counterfeit- if: “altered or copied,
with or without intent to deceive, in
such a manner that it appears or is
claimed to have authorship which it does
not in fact possess?”
What if any documentation has been
presented to authenticate any of these
objects promoted as “sculptures by
Auguste Rodin?”
1 Comment:
3/2/2019
The works of Auguste Rodin and their intellectual property have
been in public domain since 1987 because, in line with the
near-universally adopted Berne Convention for the Protection of
Literary and Artistic Works, the right to enforce copyright
expires 70 years after an artist’s death.
The article contains a number of factual errors, namely:
Gruppo Mondiale/Gary Snell have NOT sold thousands of Rodin
bronzes as alleged. Just over 600 bronzes of 60 different images
have been produced. These were sold at a fraction of the cost of
a lifetime bronze or of posthumous casts made by Musee Rodin.
Musee Rodin has cast and sold thousands of posthumous bronzes
over the years.
Gary Snell did not manage Gruppo Mondiale.
The Rudier foundry mark was never used on the bronzes. There
were never any artist signatures posthumously placed on any
bronzes other than the ones placed on the plasters by the
artist.
The bronzes cast do NOT represent a transgression of the Rodin
estate “moral right”. Numerous experts, including the former
employee of Musee Rodin Alain Busier, have praised their
quality. All cast have clearly used accurate and period casting
techniques, correct measurements, correct patinas and are cast
from Rodin foundry plasters. They have been publicly exhibited
throughout the world.
In a 2014 action against Gruppo Mondiale & Gary Snell the French
court delivered a judgment stating that the French State had no
jurisdiction over the Snell bronzes and that French law was
therefore not applicable.
Regarding the McLaren Museum, the tax structure failed and both
the museum and Snell lost significant amounts of money rather
than profiting.
7. Gary Arseneau, aka the Rodin Chaser has little credibility if
any. He is not a scholar or an expert but a FL based artist who
attacks Musee Rodin, The Canter Center for Visual Arts at
Stanford, Gruppo Mondiale, Gary Snell and any museum that
exhibits posthumous casts. He does not realise that the majority
of Rodin sculptures in the world and at major museums are
posthumous, the procedures of casting, or the rights accorded in
public domain.
Point 6 and 7 can be made ONLY if articles refer to these
individuals.
In all cases, provide a link to the article: http://www.bbeyondmagazine.com/rodin-art-gary-snell-france-legal-case/
French version
Les œuvres d’Auguste Rodin et leur propriété intellectuelle sont
dans le domaine public depuis 1987 car, conformément à la
Convention de Berne pour la protection des œuvres littéraires et
artistiques, adoptée à l’unanimité, le droit d’auteur expire 70
ans après le décès de l’artiste.
L'article contient un certain nombre d'erreurs factuelles,
notamment:
1. Gruppo Mondiale / Gary Snell n'ont pas vendu des milliers de
bronzes Rodin comme allégués. Un peu plus de 600 bronzes de 60
images différentes ont été produits. Ceux-ci ont été vendus à
une fraction du coût des bronzes originaux ou des moulages
posthumes réalisés par le Musée Rodin.
Le musée Rodin a produit et vendu des milliers de bronzes
posthumes.
2. Gary Snell n'a pas géré le Gruppo Mondiale.
3. La marque de fonderie Rudier n'a jamais été utilisée sur les
bronzes. Aucune signature d'artiste n'a été apposée à titre
posthume sur des bronzes apart celles apposées sur les emplâtres
de l'artiste.
4. Les bronzes posthumes Gruppo Mondiale/Snell ne représentent
PAS une transgression du «droit moral». De nombreux experts,
dont l'ancien employé du musée Rodin Alain Busier, ont vanté
leur qualité. Tous les moulages ont clairement utilisé des
techniques de moulage précises et d'époque, des mesures
correctes et des patines correctes. Ils ont été exposés
publiquement dans le monde entier.
5. Dans une action engagée en 2014 contre Gruppo Mondiale & Gary
Snell, le tribunal français a rendu un jugement déclarant que
l'État français n'était pas compétent en ce qui concerne les
bronzes de Mr Snell et que le droit français n'était donc pas
applicable.
6. En ce qui concerne le musée McLaren, la structure fiscale a
échoué et le musée et Mr Snell ont perdu d'importantes sommes
d'argent au lieu de réaliser des bénéfices.
7. Gary Arseneau, alias le Rodin Chaser, a peu de crédibilité,
voire aucune. Il n’est ni un érudit ni un expert, mais un
artiste basé en Floride qui attaque le Musée Rodin, le Centre
Canter pour les arts visuels de Stanford, le Gruppo Mondiale,
Gary Snell et tous les musées présentant des œuvres posthumes.
Il n&rs
 artist
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