Among the general public, the market and the scholarly community, there seems to be an assumption that it is always possible to determine the authorship of an artwork, or to tell a forgery from a legitimate work. In truth the compilers of some catalogues raisonnés will encounter situations where for particular works certainty of attribution is impossible to establish given the unique limitations of connoisseurship, provenance research, archival records and technical analysis as related to the artist under study. The goal of this panel is to begin a discussion of best practices for catalogue raisonné authors regarding how to handle red flags and how best to communicate uncertainty to readers and owners.  Our panel of experts with wide-ranging backgrounds will consider the do’s and don’ts in this sensitive debate.

Panelists

Stephanie D’Alessandro, Curator, Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Vivian Barnett, Independent scholar and freelance curator who compiled four volumes of the Wassily Kandinsky catalogue raisonné plus a final addendum
Jim Coddington, Formerly Agnes Gund Chief Conservator at The Museum of Modern Art
David Nash, Co-owner of Mitchell-Innes & Nash and co-author of online catalogue raisonné of paintings by Paul Cezanne

Co-Organizers

Elizabeth Gorayeb, Executive Director, The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
Charles Stuckey, Independent Scholar, and the Head of Research, Yves Tanguy Catalogue Raisonné