Alec Baldwin Hosts New ‘Art Fraud’ Podcast

Amagansett property owner Alec Baldwin is web hosting iHeartRadio’s new Art Fraud podcast primarily based on fellow Hamptonite Michael Shnayerson‘s 2012 Vainness Fair report on Manhattan’s now-infamous Knoedler Gallery, which unknowingly, or knowingly — relying on who you talk to — offered dozens of Summary Expressionist forgeries and defrauded collectors out of thousands and thousands of dollars above virtually two many years. Baldwin’s desire could have been piqued due to his personal history as a sufferer of a fraudulent art sale.

Portion of the wildly well-liked correct crime style of podcasts, brought to the fore by Sagaponack native Sarah Koenig‘s Serial in 2014, the eight-episode Art Fraud sequence is touted as an “investigative journey by means of 1 of the largest circumstances of artwork fraud in US history.” This tale, which is also informed incredibly well in Barry Avrich‘s 2020 documentary Produced You Glance: A Legitimate Tale About Bogus Artwork, now streaming on Netflix, explores art planet greed, willfulness, gullibility and, in lots of methods, the fragile believability of the full gallery system.

Many of the artists who had been forged are amongst all those who lived and labored in the Hamptons, which includes Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning. East Hampton artist Alfonso Ossorio, former proprietor of Ron Perelman‘s The Creeks estate, also played an essential purpose in the story, as the first seller of the forgeries, Long Islander  Glafira Rosales, stated he brokered the deals that inevitably landed the paintings in her palms.

In a statement, iHeartRadio clarifies the show and why the story was particularly scandalous, provided the point that Knoedler Gallery was at its center. “In operation considering the fact that 1846 and property to some of the metropolitan areas finest artists, the gallery’s fortune modified the instant an unassuming girl walked via the door with a canvas less than her arm allegedly painted by the Summary Expressionist master Mark Rothko,” it suggests. “So started a 17-calendar year partnership that would result in the sale of approximately 40 paintings from the likes of Motherwell, de Kooning and Jackson Pollock totaling far more than 80 million pounds. The only problem was that they were being all faux.”

Baldwin is no rookie in the podcasting world. He hosted his Here’s the Matter conversation podcast for WNYC Radio from 2011 to 2020, recording additional than 150 interviews, before shifting it to iHeartRadio, where he carries on to make episodes.

It must be pointed out that Baldwin may well have had a special affinity for internet hosting Artwork Fraud because he experienced his have taste of perfectly-heeled artwork galleries performing in poor faith when NYC art seller Mary Boone agreed to offer him Hamptons artist Ross Bleckner’s 1996 portray “Sea and Mirror” for $190,000, but she couldn’t get the piece from the collector who owned it, so the seller had Bleckner paint a copy and gave that to Baldwin in 2010, without having his information, rather.

The New Yorker chronicled the tale in “Moist Paint,” describing that Baldwin received the portray signed and dated with the suitable inventory range assigned to Bleckner’s unique “Sea and Mirror.” Baldwin found the big difference, and when he requested Boone about it, she mentioned the portray had been cleaned. Then, right after five several years of owning the painting, Baldwin experienced it examined by an specialist from Sotheby’s who uncovered the fraud, and Bleckner admitted to developing the duplicate when the actor confronted him about it.

In the conclude, Boone dodged legal prosecution because of to the statute of limitations on the crime, but she lost a civil match and was forced to give Baldwin a six-determine settlement in 2017.

Baldwin and Shnayerson are equally credited as govt producers of Art Fraud, which aired its initially two episodes yesterday, February 1, on iHeartRadio and is out there on all main podcast platforms, which includes Apple Podcasts. Hear to the preview below.