It's Official: Spain's Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation Blasts Park West Gallery:

Day Divine Comedy Set NOT Signed by Dali

The following is perhaps the greatest and biggest news since Fine Art Registry® announced its huge win at trial against Park West Gallery in April of last year. We are pleased to announce that the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Spain has formally weighed in on the legitimacy of the Divine Comedy Set sold to Sharon Day and Julian Howard by Park West Gallery for the outrageous sum of nearly $500,000. Additionally, it is important to note that tens of thousands of other Dali prints sold by Park West Gallery bearing the same signatures as what appears on the Day/Howard set have also been sold to countless other victims aboard cruise ships and at land auctions (and VIP auctions) across the United States.

On May 16, 2011, Sharon Day received word that the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, who has been working closely with the FBI on Dalí fakes sold and circulating in the art market, has rendered its official, unimpeachable opinion on the bogus set of Divine Comedy woodcuts sold by Park West Gallery. As many of our readers and membership know, Day and Howard have been put through absolute hell in trying to seek restitution from Park West Gallery and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ever since they learned they had been sold a fraudulent and forged set of prints.

The Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation rendered the following opinion regarding the Day/Howard Set of Divine Comedy:

The opinion of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is in complete agreement with all the other recognized Dali experts that have testified at trial for Fine Art Registry, including Nicolas Descharnes and Frank Hunter, in addition to the opinions of the world expert in handwriting (signatures) and questioned documents, William Flynn. All experts now agree that the Park West Gallery Divine Comedy set sold to Sharon Day and Julian Howard is a fraud.

On its web site, the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation references that it is a private cultural institution with the mission, as stated in its bylaws, "to promote, boost, divulge, lend prestige to, protect and defend in Spain and in any other country the artistic, cultural and intellectual oeuvre of the painter, his goods and rights of any nature; his life experience, his thoughts, his projects and ideas and artistic, intellectual and cultural works; his memory and the universal recognition of the genius of his contribution to the Fine Arts, culture and contemporary thought." Visit the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation at: http://www.salvador-dali.org.

This iron-clad opinion by the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation effectively puts Albert Scaglione, Park West Gallery, Royal Caribbean, Bernard Ewell (who authenticated the Day Divine Comedy set), and Caroline Ashleigh (the appraiser for Park West) into an untenable and indefensible position. This revelation also completely slams the credibility of the sources of Park West Gallery's bogus Dali prints, like Daniel David, Marc Ways, Cyril Boisson and others. The opinion by the Dali Foundation is also further proof that Fine Art Registry and its experts were absolutely right from the beginning of its reporting on this story—indeed, from day one when the wooden crate containing the Divine Comedy set was first opened and exposed to the experts Descharnes and Hunter at the storage facility in New Jersey.

Stay tuned for more on this breaking story. We will have much, much more to report in the near very future.

Additionally, we completed an article last week (before we knew of this news) that will be published soon on the trial testimony of the Mad Hatter of the Park West Dali world, Bernie Ewell. This article will prove more relevant than ever, given that Ewell's opinion concerning the authenticity of the Day Divine Comedy set has been decimated by the Dali authority in Spain. With this news, it would seem that Ewell's career as a self-proclaimed "Dali Detective" and "Authenticator" is finished. We are also working on another article concerning some very interesting information we recently unearthed on the shady past of Park West Gallery appraiser, Caroline Ashleigh, that you will not want to miss.

— by Fine Art Registry®  |  May 17, 2011

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