At first glance, they might be identical. Two orange lozenges leaning out of shards of blue. Two paintings purportedly by the same artist. But look a little closer, and you’ll start to notice differences. The one on the left seems clunkier, its gradations in colour less subtle. The palette seems reduced, the brushwork less varied and interesting. The one on the right is
Painterly Architectonic (1917) by Liubov Popova, a cubist and suprematist painter who lived a brief and active life in early 20th-century Moscow. The one on the left is a fake.
The paintings have been on show in ‘Russian Avant-Garde at the Museum Ludwig: Original and Fake – Questions, Research, Explanations’ (currently closed due to Covid-19 restrictions; due to run until 7 February 2021), an attempt by this museum in Cologne to answer questions about its collection. The field of the ‘Russian avant-garde’ – paintings made from the late 1890s through to the early 20th century – is especially prized by the art market; a painting by Kazimir Malevich, whose work is represented in the exhibition, sold for nearly $86m at Christie’s in 2018. The market is also rife with fakes. In the same year, an Israeli art dealer named Itzhak Zarug was convicted of falsifying provenance statements. Separately in 2018, an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent closed when scholars questioned the authenticity of some of the show’s works. The Museum Ludwig, which was built in 1976 to display the private collection of the chocolate heirs Irene and Peter Ludwig, has been going through its paintings – a mix of Russian avant-garde, American Pop art, and Picassos – and examining them. This exhibition is a result of that action, and it is presented as an educational experience.