Chasing the 'Kaufmann' link in Tony Greco's collection
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The most intriguing story line in Tony Greco's repertoire has to do with the collection of works he says were created by the likes of Miro, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Dali, Rockwell and others.
The pieces are not "museum-quality works," he says, but are mostly small sketches on paper that would not be cataloged or be of interest to large auction houses.
Over the years, he has declined to submit them to the artists' estates or foundations for authentication because, he says, he doesn't trust them. He has given inconsistent explanations as to their source.
Tom Sokolowski, director of The Andy Warhol Museum, and Joe Wos, founder of the ToonSeum in Pittsburgh, say he has told them conflicting stories. Even fellow collector of "The Munsters" memorabilia and good friend Kevin Burns, who believes that Mr. Greco has a lot of genuine art and is honest, says he had a hard time getting a straight story.
"Then he finally told me something that made the most sense."
What Mr. Greco told him was that he inherited unsold inventory from the fine art department of Kaufmann's Department Store. However, knowledgeable sources do not remember such a department, and there is no record of it in the store's archives at the Heinz History Center.
Some big department stores did sell fine art in the postwar years. In their biography of Jackson Pollack, authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith recount the 1942 rivalry between two New York retail palaces. Gimbels sold paintings from William Randolph Hearst's collection of old masters, and Macy's countered with its own sale of "authenticated paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, etc ... A $130,000 collection of paintings at our lowest prices."
In the 1960s, Sears sold fine art in its stores all over the country. Its main buyer was the actor Vincent Price, an art connoisseur. The company gave him carte blanche during his world travels to acquire works for sale to the public. Mr. Price bought whole collections and even commissioned artists, including Salvador Dali, to do works specifically for Sears to sell.
First Published April 11, 2010 12:03 pm
