Hi everyone
It's a trend I see more and more at auction houses indeed, Heritage included.
Last year, a page was sold attributed to Kerry Gammill who penciled the first
story of the book whereas that page came from the second story of said book and
was drawn by Randall. The two artists are difficult to mistake for the other.
Luckily it popped on CAF and I alerted the buyer who was able to set things
right with Heritage.
It seems that the "do your research" axiom is true not only for buyers but
sellers as well 😉
Best, Fred
________________________________
From: comicartl-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <comicartl-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of Bob Kopman <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2021 5:38 PM
To: comicartl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <comicartl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [comicart-l] Re: Heritage errors in attribution
Archie artist attribution is a topic that interest me.
I've notified Heritage several times in the past when I was sure that their
description was in error. They've usually corrected it.
In general, if they don't know, I'd prefer that Heritage list a piece as artist
unknown rather than attributing to an artist.
I've also been contributing to GCD data for Archie art, when I'm sure about the
artist.
Best,
Bob
On Tuesday, January 5, 2021, 11:32:22 a.m. EST, Rodrigo Baeza
<rodrigobaeza2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 12:37 PM Bill Morrison
<bill.littlegreenman@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:bill.littlegreenman@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in auctions of Archie art at Heritage. Several
lots have listed "Dan DeCarlo (Attributed)” as the artist when the art is
clearly by another artist and shows no sign of Dan even touching it. I’ve
emailed Heritage about these errors but to no avail. I’m wondering if they have
someone in-house who does the attributions of art, or are they just taking the
word of the person who’s putting the art up for auction?
As George H. says, they rely a lot on GCD data. So when that data is incomplete
or incorrect, they end up with incorrect auction listings. I've noticed,
however, that they put more effort on accurately identifying pages (artist,
date, original publication) in their bigger, Signature auctions. (The weekly
Sunday/Monday auctions on the other hand seem to be assembled more quickly,
therefore having a larger percentage of errors.)
I send them corrections regularly: my latest was a few weeks ago, when I
informed them that what they'd listed as a "1950s Jungle Jim" page by "Unknown"
was actually a Blackhawk page by Reed Crandall (this apparently happened
because the consignor didn't know much about the art he was selling). They do
show a bit more resistance when I inform them of fakes or forgeries (anyone
remember those double-sided pieces of art from a couple of years ago that were
offered as "Keeping Up with the Joneses" dailies, but were in fact amateur
tracings of Barney Google strips?), but most of the time they do process the
corrections I send.
Rodrigo
