In a setback for the guardians of Frida Kahlo’s work, the Mexican attorney general’s office has declined to bring charges against two art dealers who say they have an enormous collection of paintings (shown right), keepsakes and letters that belonged to the artist. The Mexican trust that owns the copyright to Kahlo’s work says that the works are fakes and last year asked prosecutors to investigate. Independent collectors of the ARTKABINETT social network know that a valid provenance is critical in establishing and maintaining art value.
The attorney general’s decision was issued last summer but not publicized by the dealers, Carlos Noyola and his wife, Leticia Fernández, until this week.
“They have proven our innocence in this,” Ms. Fernández said.
But prosecutors made no ruling on whether the works were forgeries. Art forgery is not a crime under Mexican law. Hilda Trujillo, the director of the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City, said that the only authority with legal standing to rule on the works’ authenticity is the state-run National Institute of Fine Arts, which backed away from submitting any opinion in the case. “We did everything we could,” she said. “We have no more legal instruments until the authorities decide to help us.”
Ms. Trujillo, along with art experts and several descendants of Kahlo’s husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, held a news conference on Thursday to denounce the works as fakes after the Noyolas said this week that they hoped to display the collection, which is now tucked away in a back room in their gallery in the town of San Miguel de Allende.
“They have no real provenance,” said James Oles, an art historian at Wellesley College who has argued that the works are forgeries. If they were real, he added, they would “triple the number of known works by Frida Kahlo.”
At last year's Dallas art fair, the first part of the controversial symposium “Finding Frida” took off. The owners of the Noyola Collection Carlos Noyola and Leticia Hernandez de Noyola started the presentation talking about how they met sharing their love and dedication to art collecting and to their Art and Antiques store located in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
After telling how proud they are of their children who followed in their steps, they went on to explain how Frida Kahlo got between them to never let go and how they share a passion for her works like nobody they know.
Carlos Noyola (pictured right) and his wife attended the Dallas Art Fair in 2010 to vindicate themselves by corroborating the authenticity of the works of Frida Kahlo which they have gathered throughout the years. They printed a book called “Finding Frida Kahlo”.
They tried to reasset their claim by offering a video of how they have obtained validation from several sources including Arturo Garcia Bustos, Arturo Estrada, Chavela Vargas, Rina Lazo and Diego Maria Alvarado Rivera.
After proudly playing the video, they were immediately questioned by James Oles about the documentation supporting the provenance of the works.
James Oles is professor of art history at Wellesley College, curator of Latin American Art, and researcher of the Frida Kahlo archives at the Casa Azul Museum in Mexico City. He has identified valid issues that overcloud the provenance and authenticity of the collection.
Oles pointed out how the flag that reads “Viva Trosky” was misspelled as shown here with Kahlo expert Salomon Grimberg (Trotsky is the correct spelling); and how the fact that the Noyola’s obtained 1200 works; 40+ original paintings that no Frida Kahlo nor any Latin American Art expert had ever seen or heard about.
Followed by James Oles were Mary Ann Martin and Grimberg.
Mary Ann Martin is the owner and director of Mary Ann Martin Fine Art in New York City and she is one of the leading dealers of Latin American Art in the United States.
She asked the Noyola’s about how in the 90’s, they mentioned the source of the provenance of the collection to one newspaper as being from Manuel Marque and later on they told a different newspaper that the source was Abraham Jimenez Lopez.
The question confused the Noyola’s; they seemed unorganized and struggled to answer the question as though they did not understand it. Their advisor Jed Paradies came into their rescue only to be shut down by moderator Jason Edward Kaufman pointing out the uncertainty of their rationale of where the artworks ultimately come from.
Moreover, Grimberg, who co-authored the Kahlo catalog raisonnee "Das Gesamtwerk”, has expressed serious doubts the works are authentic.
