Following the disaster of the 2000 Expo in NY in March, and until June 2000, relations between my rep and me had entered into a sort of silent routine. I no longer believed anything that such a lying, crooked individual might say and, always bearing in mind that my paramount interest was to keep providing the daily bread at home, I didn't mind continuing to work with this agent until 2004, as stipulated in our contract. Since one doesn't find a new agent from one day to the next and my remoteness from the traditional galleries in my country, added to the the fact that six years had gone by since I had direct contact with them and I had been careful not to maintain or create contacts with other agents, respecting the exclusivity of representation specified in our contract, I practically lost all possibility of rapidly working with someone else without risking the possibility of ending up on the streets in the meantime.
One of the biggest mistakes I myself had made was that I had allowed myself to be convinced by my agent at the end of 1999 after signing the contract for the next five years, to drop my private painting lessons. Since mid 1998 he had hounded me at every turn, saying that I was wasting time for those meager cents that I received for my classes, instead of devoting myself entirely to my painting and thus being able to produce more, "since I will buy all of them from you" as he had stated. This was all said and done before the disaster that I discovered at the Expo in March 2000. As a result, having gotten rid of all my students and ceased teaching, I was practically under his thumb, and he knew it only too well.
In the last week of June of that year, 2000, a couple of friends from my country came to visit me at my house and with great delight told me that they had been on a cruise to Alaska and on that cruise ship had attended an art auction. There, to their surprise, they had seen some of my works. It had made them very happy to see my art so far away on a ship, which was to them such an unusual locale for art sales.
The interesting part of this incident is that they brought me as a present an invite which was handed out on the ship to the passengers to attend the auction. On this invite which was printed in color on thick paper, five by six inches, there was also one of my pieces. At first I was very happy and was asking myself who the devil were these auctioneers and where did they get that piece from. I started imagining that someone must have bought it from my agent and they were selling it there. Good. I left the invitation on my table and continued to attend to my guests and talk about other things.
Next day I picked up the invite and held it closer so that I could see what was written on it. To my surprise it said that those attending the auction, which they had to pay X number of dollars to participate in, would receive as a gift this beautiful x" by x" print of that work of mine; but what raised doubts in my mind was that I had never seen, let alone supervised the printing process for and even less hand signed, a print of that size. With the aid of a magnifying glass I tried to get a better look at the signature which appeared on the lower right border of the passe-partout frame of this supposed print and with amazement saw there a standard artist's signature of mine which I placed on my home page on my website some years ago. What most surprised me was that that signature on that print had the look of a pencil signature. I was not at all sure that I understood what it was I was seeing on that invite since I had never signed any prints of that image. Nor was I able to identify the name of the auction company which had put on this art selling event. But I did recognize the image as one of my paintings from 1998 of a narrow street in a village on the Costa Brava of Spain and it was one of the paintings which I had sold to my agent in 1998.
So, that same day, I called my agent in Florida where he then was, and told him what I had discovered and demanded explanations, asking him who that auction company was and how they had managed to make that print of one of my works without our knowledge. I suggested to him that they might be stealing from us, to which he answered that that was the Big Boss's company and that he knew nothing about it but would find out immediately and call me back.
That was the first time I had heard the name of the "Big Boss's" company mentioned although I had suspected already that my agent had been working with them for quite some time. Since my agent never told me and had also never before revealed the name of the company, I had lost interest in that and had stopped asking.
He called me the next day and told me not to worry, that everything was under control and that this was just a small "souvenir" which was given away as a promotion. I was in no way "not worried" that they were using what appeared to be my signature on a print supposedly signed by me. In fact all that business of creating an image of my signature "like an original in pencil" supposedly signed by me on the edge of the paper outside the image itself left me very worried and not at all calm, because if they wanted a souvenir all they had to do was produce an offset print with the image of the painting with its original signature in the place where I had signed the painting, just as it was, as one sees in all artists' posters which are sold in museums and other galleries to promote their artists or the museum.
All this left a very bad taste in my mouth and suspicion that something strange was going on without my knowledge.
It should be noted that I still did not know what type of relationship they had. Until then I knew that they had been "in talks". All that came out of that phone conversation was the name of the company owned by the "Big Boss" whom I already knew from the visit to my studio and my agent's wedding.
On one of those days, with the disagreeable sensation that something bad was happening with my paintings, I started looking for that company's name on the Internet on Google and it was then that I discovered the most horrendous thing I could ever have imagined might be happening with my works of art and my reputation as a serious artist. My name came up especially in eBay and there were more than 15 of my images up for auction with prices of between $1 and $250 - all those images of those supposed prints which I had never signed or chosen to use for limited edition prints from my originals.
What affected me very badly and really pained me was the discovery that images of my artworks were displayed on sale amongst toys, watches, furniture, stamps, dolls, posters of sports figures, and among a pile of items which were not related to fine art but more like rubbish from garage sales.
I started to go through, item by item, and found that they were all published and displayed for sale with official certificates of authenticity from the "Big One" or another executive or partner, signed (a printed facsimile of their signature), describing the technique, size, paper and year of the editions, certifying that they were indeed prints from my original works.
There were two images on display there, the one which previously had appeared on the invite which my friends had brought me from their cruise and another one which was new to me and much bigger than that one, all bearing the printed version of my artist's signature which I had examined with the magnifying glass on that invite. All those signatures were the same and were called, according to their official certificates of authenticity, "signed in the plate", in other words, bearing a printed artist's signature. Also in the ads placed by the eBay sellers there was a description of the item and some of them called them "artist's limited edition" and others said "signed in the plate by the artist" which is to say a complete blurring and confusion of terms and erroneous technical nomenclature which would make any buyer believe that it was something of far greater value since it was understood that I, the artist, had been involved in the creation and signing of those prints.
The worst thing was that the larger print, also a painting which had never been selected by us for reproduction as a limited edition print, was stated on the certificates and in the sellers' ads to be "from the edition of 9500"!!!!!
Even worse, and this is what worried me the most, where the number of prints is specified, the figures should be written as a series as follows: 1/9500...2/9500, etc. In other words, number 1 out of 9500, number 2 out of 9500...etc. until you finally arrive at the end of the edition which would be number 9500 out of 9500 and would be written 9500/9500, the last print in the series. There is no point simply writing "9500" since that can be printed an infinite number of times without anyone knowing which print they had bought of this supposed limited edition of 9500. Therefore, as stated, this ad and statement is a huge trick on the public. An edition which does not mention numbers is understood to be an "open edition" and no client or collector would care how many times that image had been printed, so this "from the edition of 9500" is a huge and diabolical fraud by blurring these terms. The problem is that most people do not understand the Law of Fine Art Multiples and their numbering and terms such as A.P "artist's proof" and an endless amount of complicated nomenclature with regard to editions which can easily confuse someone who doesn't understand the subject and so can easily become the victim of fraud.
Well, there I really exploded, since my contract with my agent clearly stated that all the editions of prints would be limited and all of them, I quote, "on paper up to 600" and "on canvas up to 200 pieces" per image or edition, which is to say, no more than 800 pieces per image, and all of that supervised, accepted and signed by me.
Here I was, much to my surprise, faced by a product which above all I had never agreed to, faced by an edition which was way over the maximum number to be printed per image and even worse, the other print is an open edition because the certificates for that one did not mention numbers. In other words, this revelation was the discovery that a million dollar underground market had been created behind my back and without my permission or agreement, with products bearing my artist's name, fame and reputation, displayed for sale in places of dubious repute and from which I received not a penny or any profit or gain. Quite the contrary, according to my reckoning this underground market would create direct competition with my authorized limited edition prints signed by my hand, and paradoxically a strange and incomprehensible self-competition generated between those same prints and the limited editions of them.
The reality that I understood from this was it was clearly nothing less than a multi-million dollar fraud created so that when I no longer worked with them they would be able to go on printing, year after year indefinitely those images and sell them on and on at relatively low, competitive prices because the secret quantities being produced by the printers in the basement would bring them millions forever with me "out of the picture."
I started to take screen grabs of each item and kept them on my computer along with the names of the sellers and all the details they had placed there. I didn't know much about that site called eBay which I had only recently heard about in connection with a laptop that a friend of mine bought at one of those Internet auctions. I had never paid any attention to it and had never visited the website. It was for me a revelation of a whole world of sales of items ranging from light aircraft to needles.
Furious, I called my agent again and explained to him what I had found on the Internet. He calmly explained to me as follows: "Don't worry about it, people sell anything they can get their hands on." This didn't calm my fears at all and I insisted that I wanted in writing a promise that no one would ever print anything containing my artistic images without my consent and that I saw this clearly as a blatant suppression of my author's rights and that it was clearly a breach of our contract. I told him I wanted it in writing and signed by the Big Boss as well.
On the 13th of July of that same year my agent sent me a fax with a copy of a fax which the Big Boss had sent him (my agent), in which he explained the purpose of those prints and said that in future I would be informed as well. It was understood from what was written that they had previously agreed to this between themselves which frightened me! It also convinced me that many things had been agreed between them with regard to my work without my knowing it ahead of time. In other words if, when I complained to my agent about the auction invite which my friends had brought me in June he said he knew nothing about it and that he would check into it and now on the Internet sales he told me "not to worry", it became apparent that between them they had created an evil and malicious joint venture for illegal profiteering.
Since according to their certificates, the first image was from 1999 and the second from 2000, which is to say that this already had its origins and history, it was apparently nothing new to my agent. Naturally I kept that fax and still have it.
Around the middle of 2002 and after my exhibition at "the big place" in May of 2002 I discovered a new printed image on sale as an open edition, this time, interestingly, with an image of the painting which was on the invites and catalog of that same exhibition in that country which I shall describe in the next section. I never again spoke to my agent on the subject because the only thing that could have been done in that case was to immediately sue those two criminals for fraud, forgery, violation of my rights without authority, breach of copyright, breach of contract and other things I am sure. But not only did I not have the money nor the physical health to embark on such a suit two years before my contract was up, I also had no other means of income with which to support my family.
I have to detail a very, very important point in order for the reader to understand the crooked way in which those individuals hatched bit by bit and phase by phase their criminal scheme with regard to my work and the illegal use of my forged signature in order to create a plot more villainous and machiavellian than anyone could imagine could be carried out with an artist. Thus the following explanation:
On the 24th of March, 2001, my agent called me on the phone with a very strange request, telling me that he would send me a fax in which he would write up a way of resolving the problem about my signature on the prints in case of my premature death or temporary or permanent inability to sign the prints which were in the process of being printed within the time of our contract, which is to say, until 7 September 2004, and also to solve the problem of any editions still being in the process of being printed after our contract ended on 7 September 2004.
I asked him how this would be done and told him I had never heard of that situation. He explained to me in a very vague way that a sort of logo of my signature would be made and that it would be stamped on the prints. He called it a "facsimile signature."
When I asked him who would be paid the fees for the signatures he told me that it would be my heirs. I asked him if they would be paid the same amount that I was being paid and he said they would only get 50%. I then told him that I would not accept it and that my heirs ought to get 100%, just as I was receiving. He accepted this.
On the 26th of March 2001, he sent me a preliminary draft in his handwriting so that I could read it over. On that document the way of including the signature (or logo) in the printing was stipulated. It was all to be solely in case of my death or my inability to sign for myself and that my heirs should cooperate in all of this and they would receive the full amount of the fee just as was specified in our contract from 1999 to September 2004.
I saw this as something reasonable and told him to send me the final document for me to sign. The same day the final document arrived by fax, specifying all of the above. The strange thing was that it had still not been signed by him. So I called him on the phone and asked him why he hadn't yet signed it. He said not to worry, that he forgot and that the moment my fax with my signature arrived he would sign it right away.
Well, I signed it and faxed it back to him that same day. I have kept that fax all this time and also kept the original handwritten version where his handwriting can be seen.
What is there in all of this that is interesting and sinister? It's the fact that this extension to the contract was curiously written and drawn up long after I had discovered that they had already used my signature several times in the printing process with the logo of my signature printed on them, since 1999. That is to say, they had been using this possibility of a "facsimile signature" or what they called "signed in the plate" before I died or lost the ability to sign prints in my own hand. This additional contract was to justify the unauthorized and criminal use of my signature before my death. Thus it can be proved that they first committed the crime and then fabricated this document to justify their thefts and criminal acts.
This is demonstrated in the fax from the Big Boss of 13 July 2000 by the explanation by the Big Boss to my agent as to why they used my signature "in the plate". That was when I demanded an explanation from my agent the moment I discovered those block signatures around the beginning of 2000.
This pair of criminals and probably others as well, had joined together to conspire and commit one of the biggest crimes that can be perpetrated on a living artist.
However, the most hair-raising and horrific is yet to come in the last chapters of this sad story.
I, for my part, continued daily to check into these Internet sales which to date, early 2010, have not ceased to appear.
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