Defamation lawsuit over alleged fake Western painting tossed

This content has been archived. It may no longer be accurate or relevant.

From a 2017 story in The Santa Fe New Mexican:

With Western American art long dismissed as unworthy of the fine art world, few collectors would have even cared 25 years ago if an early 20th-century oil painting of cowboys or Indians on the frontier was authentic or not.

Now, the owner of galleries in New Mexico and New York City is suing one of the world’s largest Western American art auctions, a Nevada gallery and others for defamation, accusing them of falsely claiming a $1 million painting he sold is a fake.

Gerald Peters of Santa Fe seeks unspecified damages from Peter Stremmel Galleries of Reno, the Coeur D’Alene Art Auction of Nevada and auction partner Mark Overby of Hayden, Idaho. The defendants’ lawyers say the claims have no legal basis. They filed motions in federal court in Reno last week to dismiss the suit.

. . . .

“It wasn’t really until the late 1980s or mid- to early-1990s that a lot of art historians and museums began to start taking Western American art seriously,” said Amy Scott, chief curator of the Autry Museum of Western Art, founded in Los Angeles in 1988.

The lawsuit centers on The Rain and the Sun, which Peters says is the work of Iowa-born Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939), a onetime illustrator for Field and Stream magazine who became famous for his oil paintings of nighttime frontier scenes.

Peters sold it years ago for $750,000 as part of a trade with other artwork to R.D. Hubbard, a well-known Western art collector, business tycoon and horse-track owner.

Peters says he took back the painting from Hubbard last year after Stremmel, of Reno, repeatedly insisted it was a forgery.

In its current tainted state, the painting is worthless, his lawsuit says.

“Word travels quickly within this small community when a work of art is called a fake,” the suit says. “It is hard, if not impossible, to unring that bell.”

. . . .

In this case, he insists the work is that of Johnson, dubbed the “master of moonlight” for his nocturne paintings known for their remarkable depth and color.

. . . .

But Johnson almost exclusively painted scenes of cowboys, Native Americans and their horses. More than a dozen have sold at Nevada’s massive annual Coeur D’Alene Auction, most recently Cowboys Roping the Bear for $965,250 in 2012.

In 2008, when the auction sold a record $36.8 million worth of art, Johnson’s The Sheriff’s Posse went for nearly $1.1 million.

Less famous than Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, Johnson is of special interest because he worked with Hollywood studios to create backdrops after he moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s when the Western movie genre was being invented, said Scott, of the Autry Museum.

Link to the rest at The Santa Fe New Mexican

And the rest of the story from Business Insider:

A federal judge has thrown out a defamation suit a Western art collector filed against a prestigious auction house and the owner of a Reno gallery who claimed an early 20th century cowboy painting he sold for $750,000 was a fake.

The judge in Reno dismissed the lawsuit last week against Peter Stremmel Galleries and the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction of Nevada.

Gerald Peters, who owns galleries in New York City and Santa Fe, New Mexico, said in the lawsuit filed last year that the defendants told his longtime friend and business partner R.D. Hubbard a 1937 oil painting wasn’t an original work of Frank Tenney Johnson, who is well-known for his paintings of cowboys.

Defense lawyers argued Peters wasn’t maligned because the statements about the authenticity of “The Sun and the Rain” didn’t refer directly to Peters.

Link to the rest at Business Insider and thanks to The Art Law Blog for the tip.

Here is an illustration created by Johnson as the frontispiece of a book titled Riders of the Silences. A Google Images search for Frank Tenney Johnson will show many more.

4 thoughts on “Defamation lawsuit over alleged fake Western painting tossed”

  1. “In its current tainted state, the painting is worthless, his lawsuit says.”

    It was never of any more value than what someone was willing to pay for it.

    Heck, I think at least half of Trump’s tweets are faked – and I know over half of our news is faked as in they’ll say just enough to make it sound interesting but leaving out important bits.

    “Man Eating Alligator” – that he hit with his truck. He also intends to see if he can’t get a nice pair of boots out of the non-mangled parts of the hide.

  2. So, if I understand the argument, if I say your wares are knockoffs/fakes, that’s okay, as long as I don’t say you’re selling fakes? They defamed the painting but not him as the seller? Really?

    Hopefully there will be written reasons to see what the judge’s rationale was…

    Because I’m pretty sure if you say you’re selling genuine articles in a world that relies on reputation, and someone else accuses your wares as being fake, it’s pretty hard to separate that from the damage to your reputation, particularly if you can’t prove it. By the same token, maybe he can counter claim that the expert is diddling someone else’s wife which wouldn’t be defamation as he was criticizing his genitalia, not him personally?

    P.

  3. actually both articles are in error

    f.t.j was an illustrator, like charlie russel, wyeth and others… as per the illus that PG put up here. After that ftj became as many commercial artists who came to Taos, Santa Fe and surrounds, a fine art painter of many many landscapes. Disney cell illustrators, mag rag illustrators… many turned what was already a well developed talent into the more loose and painterly canvases.

    That said, old Gerald P. who is about a billion years old now, does not own half of Santa Fe. Santa Fe old timers have definitely lost their grip on their 1960s squatting all over the land there. Same in Taos. Just returned from SF and trust, Canyon Road is like a ghost town with same ol same ol subjects in art, and NO young collectors as the old white haired ones shuffle off the planet

    And yet there are still old collectors throughout southwest and northeast who likely will not touch a ftj or any other painting that someone claimed was a fake without absolute proofs. Doesnt matter. Without absolute providence by the seller, one’s word in the ‘art industry’ is hot air.

    Back in the day [1960s] there were so many fake Feschin’s and Garpard’s that eventually collectors wondered where Santa Fe had been hiding them all. I wont name the artist who had an entire industry of faking [and very well] the well known taos artists of the 30s 40s and 50s, suffice… some were ftj’s.

    Its not outside the pale for many an extremely well executed ‘old guy’ painting, to be a fake. BAck in the day, there were dealers who sold them for big bucksm, the artist made a mint, and the collector thought they had cought a gold nugget with a pittance, as the dealer ALWAYS give you a special ‘deal.’

Comments are closed.