IRS Qualified
https://www.irs.gov/appeals/art-appraisal-services
Qualified appraiser
The IRS recognizes that some appraisers need not belong to one of the unnamed organizations, as long as they can verify education and experience.
FROM: IRS.GOV
A qualified appraiser is an individual with verifiable education and experience in valuing the type of property for which the appraisal is performed.
The individual:
Has earned an appraisal designation from a generally recognized professional appraiser organization, or,
Has met certain minimum education requirements and 2 or more years of experience. To meet the minimum education requirement, individuals must have successfully completed professional or college-level coursework obtained from:
A professional or college-level educational organization,
A professional trade or appraiser organization that regularly offers educational programs in valuing the type of property, or,
An employer as part of an employee apprenticeship or education program similar to professional or college-level courses.
The individual regularly prepares appraisals for which they are paid.
The individual is not an excluded individual. (See Publication 561 PDF for list of excluded individuals.)
When I spoke up
REPRINT OF AN ARTICLE THAT APPEARED IN THE CHICAGO READER IN 2008 by Deanna Isaacs
https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/buyer-beware/
The usually zipped-up local art world got a jolt two weeks ago when federal agents raided the Kass/Meridian Gallery at 325 W. Superior. It was a surreal scene, with a platoon of U.S. Postal Service police and the FBI lugging framed works by the likes of Chagall and Dalí out into the snowy street. The official explanation, courtesy of an FBI spokesman, is that the agents executed a search warrant as part of an ongoing investigation—there were no arrests made and no charges filed, and documents have been sealed. Kass/Meridian owners Alan and Grace Kass did not return calls; other gallery owners I talked to in the River North district, where Kass/Meridian has been around for 22 years, expressed surprise.
But one longtime local dealer says it was about time someone got on the problem of fakes. Peter Bartlow of Peter Bartlow Gallery, which like Kass/Meridian deals in prints by modern masters, was quoted in the Sun-Times the day after the raid saying he’d told federal investigators a year and a half ago that he thought Kass/Meridian was selling fakes. Over the next few days Bartlow, who has a sideline in authentication, stepped up to talk about fakery in art sales as a widespread problem that has largely gone unaddressed. As for Kass/Meridian: “Over the years,” he told me, “clients have brought things in to show me that they bought from Kass that appeared to me to be fake.”
Bartlow says he’s known Alan Kass since 1973, when Kass sold him some prints for a gallery he had in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. He says that “Kass has consistently given people their money back if they had a complaint,” and nothing more would be heard about it. That’s human nature, Bartlow says: “When you get duped, do you want everybody to know? Or do you just want your money back?”
“Everybody wants to think they outsmarted the dealer,” Bartlow adds. “And dealers rely on that.” The same folly is at work in parts of the auction market, he says. “You’ll see these ads in the paper: ‘Doctor’s Estate for Sale’—they show a picture of a mansion and list the names of the artists. It’ll be Pissarro, Miró, Chagall—and then in fine print it’ll say the majority of items are from another source. Smart people, clients of mine, will call me all excited. I’ll say, ‘It’s not what you think,’ but they want to believe it. They want it to be what they want it to be.”
Dealers say the last time a sweep of this magnitude occurred was in 1993, when Donald Austin, a former barber who built a Chicago-based national chain of 30 galleries, was charged with fraud for selling hundreds of fake modern masters’ prints. Austin blamed his suppliers, and his lawyer argued that he was just trying to make art affordable for the masses, but he was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Forgeries are so prevalent, claims Bartlow, that “I think virtually anybody who sells this stuff has sold fakes”—wittingly or unwittingly. Some people in the business “don’t want to know enough to identify the phony work,” and some don’t do their homework. “The attitude is ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ If they can buy something for two or three thousand dollars and sell it for ten or twelve or fifteen, that’s all they want to know.” He says several years ago he asked Natalie van Straaten, the executive director of the Chicago Art Dealers Association at the time, if the group would “help do something about the people who are selling fakes,” but nothing came of it. (Bartlow is a former CADA member; neither he nor Kass/Meridian is a member now.) Van Straaten couldn’t be reached for comment, but former CADA president Roy Boyd says, “Even big museums have bought fakes. I think it’s a problem beyond the scope of a small organization like this.”
Why Not Join AAA or ISA?
There is no such thing as a “Certified Appraisal”. Even though some might see the term, “certified appraisals”, there is no governmental licensing or certification for personal property appraisers There are appraiser trade organizations in which a member can earn the right to be called “Certified” within the association. For AAA it would be after ten years of membership, biannual refresher courses, testing, and attendace at association events. Members need not have a college degree in the field, but must complete courses with tuition paid to the association. As long as you keep paying you have earned the right to put an official sounding title after your name.
I choose not to join any of the several appraiser associations. They are a fine way for a young person to break into the profession and get some credibility, for an annual fee. I paid my dues with a career that has spanned over 50 years.
I started evaluating 19th C paintings in December of 1972 when I and my partners opened Davis-Bartlow Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. Our London partner sent us a crate of 44 antique oils. He bought whole estates in Ireland where paintings had been hung floor to ceiling for generations. They were cleaned, framed and shipped to us in six-week intervals. It was a bulk operation and most of the research on the artists and values had to be conducted after they reached the States. I had a twelve-volume BENEZIT DICTIONARY OF ARTISTS which had the sales, auction records and biographies of thousands of artists. I researched each painting and assigned prices based on the quality and condition and the sales performance records of the artists.
This was my 10,000 hours in the field. I began to recognize the particular styles of different artists and the age of the canvas and wood stretchers. The darker tha back of the painting generally meant it was older. The dryness of the wood stretcher and even the type of nails became information I could use later when I began appraising. In our five years we handled about a thousand paintings. We distributed them to the Federated Department stores throughout the Midwest and down to Atlanta. I sold to antique dealers and interior designers in between the stops at the big stores. We also had a retail gallery in Columbus, my home town and where I earned a B.A., History of Art at OSU. I was exposed to art and art business on many levels and in many places.
Audrey and I moved to Chicago in 1977 where I took a sales position at Merrill Chase Gallery. On Michigan Avenue in the opulent Water Tower Place, it is a vertical shopping mall attached to the Ritz-Carlton. It was there that I learned about fine prints. Ivo Kirschen, head of the print department, shared his knowledge of and passion for fine prints that inspired anyone in his orbit. His library of fine print catalogues was second to none.
With many shoppers coming off the elevator from the Ritz, there was enough demand to justify the stockof the best and most expensive prints by Durer, Rembrandt, Renoir, Lautrec, Picasso, Chagall, Miro, Calder, and others. We routinely had months of $300,000 sales in 1977. I learned a lot from Ivo, and it was his knowledge and enthusiasm that kept everything humming. I became the top producer inthe nine-store chain within a year.
After two years I joined Samuel Stein Fine Arts in the legendary 620 N Michigan Building in Richard Gray’s former space. Sam, like Ivo, had been a representative of London Arts, a company out of Detroit that was and early pioneer in introducing Americans to fine prints. Sam’s territory on the road was the Midwest and included Chicago, he had in his portfolio cases the latest editions from artists such as Calder, Vasarely, Miro, Chagall, Appel, and Peter Max. After a particularly good Picasso sale, Sam took over the Richard Gray space and convinced Paul Jenkins to show with him.
We had an established business in Modern fine prints by Chagall, Picasso, Miro, Calder and others. We also were dealing in Pop Art and became a major source for Tom Wesselmann prints. I developed the careers of several new artists chosen from the many who applied to the gallery.
I fielded many calls from art appraisers who asked me for replacement values of whatever prints they were evaluating. This happened many times over the years. When Sam retired in 1991, and I bought the gallery, I started appraising for a fee.
Over time, I also began getting asked to authenticate Modern fine prints. I had a contact who later was convicted for selling counterfeit prints. He traveled in that shadowy world, and when he showed us a Miro or Chagall or Picasso we would just laugh and tell him to get lost. But we always wanted to see his wares for then we knew which prints to avoid in the future. I could call him and ask about a print that seemed OK. He would know where it came from and who was passing it around. He would say something like.”Oh that’s Jimmy’s from Florida”. I always told him to stop what he was doing and that I would not lie to protect him . He did a lot of time as a guest of the Department of Corrections.
The appraisal associations like to portray themselves as the only ones qualified to write appraisals compliant with the rules for courts and tax deductions. They insist on selling applicants courses on the proper formatting etc. They also make sure their members have not been caught in any unethical behavior. These are important things, of course. There are things that one cannot do. One cannot appraise something low, then buy it and resell it for a profit, for example. Common sense, right. An appraiser must have a clean record. My record is clean, although some might question a lawsuit I filed and lost. I stand by my decision to file. We lost largely due to the $3million and 14 lawyers it took the defendant to convince the judge. Much more on this subject will come out in the form of a book.
My education and expertise allow me to write legally binding appraisals. One does not become an expert by taking a fifteen-hour course online. Years of touching thousands of artworks and seeing money change hands for them is what makes an expert.
A $35 booklet called USPAP, perfectly gives step-by-step instructions on the acceptable format for appraisals. Anyone can buy it and follow it if they have the expertise in the art they are appraising.
It’s Complicated
Apollo 13 was a movie about an American mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster. Tom Hanks starred as Captain James R. Lovell, Flight Commander. I know many people would think it would be cool to hang out with Tom Hanks for an afternoon, but even cooler for me was hanging out with Jim Lovell.
My friend, Marla Friedman, had completed a portrait bust of Captain Lovell for the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, in North Chicago, and she asked me if I would appraise it and some other items being donated to the facility. I was told to go there and someone would meet me.
It is the first combination military base health center and V.A. hospital in America. As I entered there were a few elderly men seated on a bench waiting for appointments. One of them smiled warmly, stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Jim Lovell. He had seen my picture and was expecting me. None of the other men knew who he was, he told me with a twinkle in his eye.
He walked me a few steps to a grand rotunda dominated by a twenty-foot-wide painting of the god Apollo in his chariot behind his three magnificient horses with hooves flying just above a choppy sea with the sun breaking through the clouds behind. This was the main subject of the charitable contribution from Lovell to the Hospital.
We spent the afternoon going over the history of the painting and the space memorabilia displayed in the facility. There were plaques with sealed flags and pages from notebooks carried on the mission that nearly ended when a malfunction ocurred onboard the Apollo 13. The Ron Howard film dramatically tells the story.
Lovell first saw the painting in a hotel while on a publicity stop in New York as NASA was boosting public support for the space program. He immediately ordered the Apollo 13 mission patches to be based on the design.
Years later,when the hotel was sold and being completely remodeled, the painting was put up for sale at auction. Tom Hanks surprised Lovell by giving it to him at a celebration of his birthday.
Lovell told me that each astronaut was allowed to take twenty pounds of personal articles aboard the spacecraft. He had 480, 6x8 inch American and other national silk flags aboard. Today they are averaging $5,000 each at auction when signed and mounted with a brass plaque.
When the crew began selling them after their service, NASA tried to stop them saying they were the property of NASA, but the astronauts won in court. NASA then rewrote the policy which limits what astronauts can keep or sell. This effectively made Lovell’s flags a very limited edition collectible.
After I finished the appraisal I sent it to Lovell with a long list of instructions for him to take it to the head of the facility and then to his accountant to fill out the proper forms, and for him to sign them and make sure it was filed within sixty days to qualify for the tax deduction.
He called me and said it all seemed too complicated, I replied, “Jim, getting back from the moon was complicated.” He chuckled, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Holy Smoke and Mirrors
It all begins with an idea.
Some years ago I received a referral from the Art Institute of Chicago. A man was told I would probably be able to authenticate a Chagall he had purchased while on a tour of the Holy Land. Apparently nobody else would or could do it.
I have seen many Chagall lithographs, and have all the catalogues. I know what they should look like, how the ink should lay on the paper, and what the paper should feel like in the hand. I know which ones were problematic because unscrupulous people had offered them to me. If it was not one of those I would see if other impressions of the same image had popped up at more than one auction the same year. This would be a very rare thing to happen. Counterfeiters would submit them to smaller local auctioneers without the resources to fully research fine prints. They would also be sold to dealers in other countries.
I knew this was a different story when he told me which of the thousand different Chagall lithographs he had purchased. It was a large, colorful bouquet of the type that would sell for over $30,000. he was charged only $11,000, and I knew it was bad. I told him to bring it in.
It was still crated in plywood and I removed the lid and took out the large gold framed print. At first glance it looked pretty good, but when I measured it the size was off about 1.5 cm. That is way beyond the margin of error from what is listed in the official Chagall lithograpghs catalogue. A further check of auction records going back to the 1980s confirmed the correct size, so I knew this was counterfeit without even opening the frame.
After removing it from the frame, the sheet was heavier than proper Archeslithograph paper. It was a digital print that had been made from a high-resolution scan of a real print. It was a good enough counterfeit to fool a tourist. The buyer was on a Sinclair Network bus tour of the Holy Land with a scheduled stop at a gallery in an area that Jesus is said to have walked. These Fundamentalists in a convoy of buses all stopping at this particular gallery fully trusted their hosts. Although, my client felt uneasy enough to have me look at it once he got back to Chicago.
A fancy certificate of authenticity from the gallery along with an elaborate story about the acquisition of the print print from the family of Chagall was taped to the back of the frame. My experience is that the longer the story the higher likelihood of the con.
I contacted the gallery.with a copy of my report. ademanded a refund for my client. The gallery held fast to their story, but sent a full refund of $11,000 upon return of the painting.