Unfortunately this event has now been cancelled. Please look out for details of future plans from Dumfries & Galloway Arts Society.

Provenance Matters: the mass faking of the Russian Avant Garde on the world art market 2000-2018

With the opening of Russia post-glasnost came a huge surge of interest in the Russian Avant Garde. Previously-unknown artists became famous and much sought-after by the new Russian-buying public. But with their reappearance came an industrial-scale level of faking of their pictures.

This lecture will examine the evidence for and against such faked paintings. The various attempts by specialists untainted by scandal to cleanse the market will also be examined with special attention paid to the 2017 exhibition of Russian Avant Garde at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts, closed by Belgian Police in April.