Whiteley on Trial
WHITELEY ON TRIAL
WHITELEY
ON
TRIAL
GABRIELLA COSLOVICH
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS
An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited
Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
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www.mup.com.au
First published 2017
Text © Gabriella Coslovich, 2017
Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2017
This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.
Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.
Text design and typesetting by Sonya Murphy at Typeskill
Cover design by Design by Committee
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Coslovich, Gabriella, author.
Whiteley on trial/Gabriella Coslovich.
9780522869231 (paperback)
9780522869248 (ebook)
Whiteley, Brett, 1939–1992,—Forgeries.
Art—Forgeries—Australia.
Fraud investigation—Australia.
Art thefts—Investigation—Australia.
364.1635
In memory of Roslyn Guy
Contents
Dramatis Personae
Part I: Tell the Truth
Part II: Sydney—Wendy, Wealth and Wood Ducks
Part III: Melbourne—Mavericks, Middlemen and the Missing Link
Part IV: The Contest
Part V: The Aftermath
Acknowledgements
Index
Dramatis Personae
The Suspect Paintings
Big Blue Lavender Bay
Supposedly created in 1988; 151 centimetres high by 242 centimetres wide. Oil and mixed media on plywood door. Sold to Sydney investment banker and Sydney Swans chairman Andrew Pridham in November 2007 for $2.5 million.
Orange Lavender Bay
Supposedly created in 1988; 121 centimetres high by 215 centimetres wide. Oil and mixed media on plywood door. Sold to Sydney luxury car dealer Steven Nasteski in December 2009 for $1.1 million.
Lavender Bay through the Window, also known as Through the Window Lavender Bay
Supposedly created in 1988; 121 centimetres high by 198 centimetres wide. Oil and mixed media on plywood door. Offered to Sydney art dealer Ralph Hobbs in November 2009 for $950 000. Hobbs declined. Subsequently given to café owner Guy Angwin by Peter Gant as security for a $950 000 debt.
The Authentic Painting
View from the Sitting Room Window, Lavender Bay
Created 1991; 122 centimetres high by 198 centimetres wide. Oil, mixed media and collage on board. Also known as the ‘brown’ painting. Commissioned from Brett Whiteley in 1991 by Sydney accountant Ian Robinson. Bought at a Deutscher-Menzies auction in Sydney by Peter Gant on 13 March 2007 for $1.65 million. Delivered straight to Aman Siddique’s Collingwood studio on 19 April 2007.
The Individuals
Guy Angwin
Former owner of Café Sweethearts in South Melbourne. Peter Gant gave him the suspect painting Lavender Bay through the Window as security for a $950 000 loan.
Anita Archer
Melbourne art consultant. Acted as intermediary for Peter Gant in the sale of the suspect painting Big Blue Lavender Bay to Andrew Pridham for $2.5 million.
Susan Borg
Crown prosecutor in the trial of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique. A great fan of Brett Whiteley, Borg began creating paintings inspired by the artist after the stresses of the trial. Her first creation was titled Not a Whiteley.
Barbara Cain
Melbourne art collector and former friend of Peter Gant.
Magistrate Suzanne Cameron
Presided over the committal hearing of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
Dermot Connors
Defence barrister, represented Peter Gant in the committal hearing.
Andrew Crawford
Sydney art dealer. First raised concerns about the authenticity of Orange Lavender Bay.
Justice Michael Croucher
Presided over the trial of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique.
Elmyr de Hory
The author’s anonymous source, using the pseudonym of one of history’s most infamous forgers.
George Defteros
High profile Melbourne lawyer, known for having represented the city’s underworld figures. Aman Siddique’s solicitor during the committal hearing and trial, until they had a falling out.
Chris Deutscher
Melbourne art auctioneer and co-director of Deutscher and Hackett. Rejected Orange Lavender Bay for auction following concerns about the painting’s provenance.
James Dowsley
Aman Siddique’s new solicitor after he parted ways with George Defteros.
Steven Drake
Melbourne engineer and the so-called fourth victim. Bought Orange Lavender Bay in August 2013 for a ‘bargain’ $122 000, after it had been disparaged in the media as a fake.
Peter Stanley Gant
Melbourne art dealer with a chequered past. The source of the three suspect Whiteley paintings at the centre of the 2016 trial. Maintains he commissioned them directly from the artist in 1988. Found guilty of art fraud in 2016. Acquitted in 2017.
Richard Grabsch
Managing director at M & J Quality Doors. Identified the ‘doors’ or wooden panels on which the suspect Whiteley paintings were created as his company’s product.
Terry Grundy
Peter Gant’s long-time solicitor—until the money ran out.
Daniel Gurvich, QC
Melbourne barrister, appointed by the Office of Public Prosecutions as senior counsel representing the Crown in the appeal of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique.
Tom Gyorffy, QC
Crown prosecutor in the committal hearing of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique.
Justin Hannebery
Melbourne barrister who represented Andrew Pridham in his compensation claim against Peter Gant and Aman Siddique following their conviction.
Robyn Harper
Junior counsel to Crown Prosecutor Susan Borg in the trial of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique.
Peter Hickey
Sydney artist and former gallery owner who negotiated with Brett Whiteley to commission the ‘brown’ painting, View from the Sitting Room Window, Lavender Bay, on behalf of Sydney chartered accountant Ian Robinson in 1991.
Ralph Hobbs
Sydney art dealer. Was offered the suspect Lavender Bay through the Window for $950 000 by Anita Archer, and declined.
Jeremy James
Son of printer Kenneth James and a friend of Peter Gant’s. Testified that he photographed Orange Lavender Bay and Big Blue Lavender Bay in 1989.
Shane Kenna
Instructing solicitor for the Crown.
Vanessa Kowalski
Painting conservator at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. An expert witness in the trial. Conducted an infra-red examination of the two suspect paintings Orange Lavender Bay and Big Blue Lavender Bay.
Robert Le Tet
Peter Gant’s friend and financier. Gant provided false documentation suggesting that Robert Le Tet had commissioned the suspect Big
Blue Lavender Bay in 1988 directly from Brett Whiteley.
Brett Lichtenstein
Brett Whiteley’s chief framer for sixteen years, from 1976 until the artist’s death in 1992. Specialised in making Whiteley’s preferred 23-carat gold, water-gilded frames.
Bill Luke
Melbourne illustrator who followed the case through the committal and trial, depicting the courtroom drama with comic panache. Luke’s portrait of Remy van de Wiel, QC, was chosen as a finalist in the 2017 Archibald Prize.
Detective Sergeant James Macdonald
The first policeman on the case. Took an anonymous call from whistleblower Guy Morel in September 2007 warning of an alleged large art fraud in progress.
Rosemary Milburn
A former gallery assistant for Peter Gant. Testified that the three suspect paintings were delivered to Gant’s South Melbourne gallery in June 1988 and that she signed them in.
Simon Moodie
Instructing solicitor on the defence for Peter Gant, from Robert Stary’s legal firm Stary Norton Halphen.
Guy Morel
The whistleblower. Bookbinder and tenant at the Collingwood studio of art restorer Aman Siddique. From 2007 to 2010, secretly photographed the creation of three large paintings in the style of Brett Whiteley.
Stephen Nall
The stepson of artist Robert Dickerson and a relentless campaigner against the trafficking of fakes. Robert Dickerson and fellow artist Charles Blackman sued Peter Gant in 2010 over the sale of fake drawings.
Steven Nasteski
Sydney luxury car dealer who bought the suspect Orange Lavender Bay for $1.1 million in December 2009. Has been dealing in art since the early 2000s.
Barry Pearce
Former head curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. An expert on Brett Whiteley, he co-curated the artist’s retrospective which opened at the gallery in 1995.
John Playfoot
Melbourne art dealer. An intermediary for Peter Gant in the sale of Orange Lavender Bay to Steven Nasteski for $1.1 million.
Andrew Pridham
Sydney investment banker and Sydney Swans chairman. Bought Big Blue Lavender Bay in November 2007 for $2.5 million.
Stuart Purves
Melbourne art dealer and director of Australian Galleries. Represented Brett Whiteley and was a close friend of the artist. Held many of Whiteley’s major exhibitions, including his Lavender Bay series in 1974.
Christian Quintas
Brett Whiteley’s studio assistant. Deceased. A fellow heroin user, Quintas would source drugs for Whiteley. Was known to sell artworks directly from the artist’s studio.
David Rellim
Melbourne artist who became acquainted with Peter Gant. In 2017, while Gant was on bail pending an appeal, Rellim began painting his portrait for entry into that year’s Archibald Prize. The portrait missed out on being chosen as a finalist.
John Ribbands
Melbourne barrister and junior counsel on the defence for Aman Siddique.
Robert Richter, QC
Defence barrister, represented Aman Siddique in the committal hearing.
Antonio Rincon
Melbourne framer, who was taught how to make 23-carat gold, water-gilded frames by Whiteley’s chief framer, Brett Lichtenstein. Aman Siddique ordered three water-gilded frames from him.
Ian Robinson
Sydney chartered accountant, now living in Hong Kong, who commissioned the ‘brown’ painting, View from the Sitting Room Window, Lavender Bay, directly from Brett Whiteley in 1991.
Mohamed Aman Siddique
Melbourne conservator highly regarded for his skill, accused of creating fake paintings in the style of Brett Whiteley with the intention to deceive in a joint criminal enterprise with Peter Gant. Found guilty of art fraud in 2016. Acquitted in 2017.
Richard Simon
Director of Door Impressions. Delivered fourteen doors of odd sizes to Aman Siddique’s Collingwood workshop from 2007 to 2008.
Professor Robyn Sloggett
Director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. Expert witness in the committal hearing and trial of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique.
Paul Smallwood
Melbourne barrister who represented art dealer John Playfoot in his compensation claim against Peter Gant and Aman Siddique after their conviction.
Geoffrey Smith
Chairman of auction house Sotheby’s Australia. Art dealer John Playfoot alleged in court that when first shown the suspect painting Orange Lavender Bay, Smith thought it ‘fantastic’. Smith’s recollection of the conversation differs. He does not believe the painting is the work of Brett Whiteley.
Robert Stary
Criminal defence lawyer and principal of Stary Norton Halphen, Peter Gant’s legal counsel during the trial.
Detective Senior Constable Justin Stefanec
Victorian police officer who took over the case from Detective Sergeant James Macdonald. His investigation led to the arrest and charging of Peter Gant and Aman Siddique.
David Stein
Sydney private conservator and professional peer of Aman Siddique.
Peter Stephenson
Tasmanian artist, once represented by Peter Gant.
Kathie Sutherland
Melbourne art historian, compiling the catalogue raisonné of Brett Whiteley.
Arthur Thompson
Melbourne businessman whose foray into art collecting came to an abrupt end after an unsatisfactory experience involving Peter Gant and Jeremy James.
Fiona Todd
Melbourne barrister and junior counsel on the defence for Peter Gant.
Remy van de Wiel, QC
Melbourne barrister and Senior Counsel on the defence for Aman Siddique. Van de Wiel’s portrait, painted by Bill Luke, became a finalist in the 2017 Archibald Prize.
Brett Whiteley
Celebrated Australian artist known foremost for his sensuous paintings of Sydney Harbour. Struggled with heroin addiction. Died alone in 1992 in a motel room in Thirroul, New South Wales, aged fifty-three.
Wendy Whiteley
Brett Whiteley’s ex-wife, assistant and muse, was married to the artist for twenty-seven years. The couple divorced in 1989 and were no longer living together in 1988 when the suspect paintings were supposedly created.
Jud Wimhurst
Melbourne artist who worked as a part-time assistant for Aman Siddique from May 2005 to September 2007.
Trevor Wraight, QC
Melbourne barrister and Senior Counsel on the defence for Peter Gant.
Almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie.
Orson Welles
Apart from drugs, art is the biggest unregulated market in the world.
Robert Hughes
Life is a blank canvas, art is filling it in.
Brett Whiteley
PARTI
Tell the Truth
‘I WAS JUST NEVER sure what I’d seen. I’m not saying I’m sure now.’
To the casual observer it would have seemed the most innocuous of things, a cluster of unfinished paintings, impressions of Sydney Harbour. But what Jud Wimhurst saw and how he made sense of it would shadow a decade of his life, consume the art world, and lead to Australia’s most significant and ultimately controversial examination of art fraud. What he saw was never far from his mind.
‘I wished I hadn’t gone to work that day,’ he said. ‘As soon as I saw it, everything changed.’
I was asking him to tell me again what had happened. We were both trying to understand it, to resolve what we’d heard in court with what we knew, or thought we knew. His voice was earnest and candid, the voice of someone who told stories straight, even when there was nothing straight about them. We were sitting around the corner from the now headline-making studio where it had happened, having coffee at a footpath table, taking in the morning sun and exhaust fumes. Wimhurst was an easygoing, young-looking 42-year-old, with plump ski
n and black-rimmed glasses, neatly dressed in black—cap, t-shirt, sneakers—and loose-fitting, rolled-up denims with a long silver key chain trailing from a pocket, a look that suggested his skateboarding past. He was an artist and had a musketeer-like goatee. We had spoken several times by phone, but this was the first time we’d met; the only time I’d seen him other than when he stood in the witness box. Trams rattled by as he took me back to that grey winter’s morning ten years earlier in 2007.
As usual, he had been the first to arrive at his work, in the industrial and gentrifying inner-Melbourne suburb of Collingwood. Victorian Art Conservation was housed in a double-storey, red brick warehouse in Easey Street, a street synonymous with the city’s history of crime. Wimhurst had worked there for just on two years. His priority was his art, but art didn’t pay the bills. So three days a week he made frames, stretched canvases, varnished paintings and built plinths for his boss and owner of the business, Aman Siddique. A painting restorer of high regard, Siddique generally left Wimhurst alone to do his work. This suited him and despite Siddique’s sometimes gruff manner and occasionally explosive temper, Wimhurst genuinely liked him.
‘I did like him. I respected him and maybe the liking him was because I respected him. I was there to learn and he was happy to teach me.’
Siddique had also been kind to him when his father was dying of cancer, giving him as much time off as he needed. This happened in the first month of him starting work there and had left him feeling loyal towards his boss. He loved too that at Siddique’s he had the chance to see the work of Australia’s prime artists at close range.
‘That felt like a great privilege, to be honest. It was anyone and everyone, but it was always interesting for me when something of note came in, so when Gleesons came in I liked that, when Arkleys came in, when Whiteleys came in, when Tuckers came in, things like that, your classic Australian artists, it was great for me to be able to see those paintings.’
But the paintings he saw on this particular morning would shatter his faith in the business. Just before 10 a.m. he unlocked the building’s fortress-like red front door and began his daily routine: security system off, lights on, check the answering machine on the second floor. When he reached the top of the metal stairs he saw that something was different. Directly in front of him was Siddique’s desk, to the right, the retouching room, and next to that a smallish storeroom. Wimhurst had never seen the storeroom open and had often wondered what was in there. What was so important that it needed to be locked away? Valuable artworks, some worth millions, were continually passing through the workshop to be cleaned or restored. Paintings were left out overnight. There was no need to lock them up—the security system was first rate. Today the twin sliding doors of the storeroom were wide open. The sight jolted him—had there been a break-in? Unlikely. He had just turned off the security system. He walked towards the storeroom and glanced inside.