Woman Arrested for Selling Forged Milton Avery Painting
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A Massachusetts woman has been arrested on charges that she sold a forged Milton Avery painting that ended up in a New York gallery.
Angela Hamblin of Revere, Mass. was arrested yesterday morning on a charge of mail fraud related to the forged Avery, a painter known for his vivid color and his scenes of Coney Island. The case will be prosecuted in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Prosecutors say that in April, a New York gallery purchased the painting for $200,000. The purported Avery was titled “Summer Table, Gloucester,” according to a criminal complaint filed by a veteran theft investigator at the FBI, James Wynne. A later inspection by the gallery, which is not identified in legal papers, disclosed that the painting was not authentic.
The complaint said the painting had come from a North Carolina dealer who had purchased it on eBay from Ms. Hamblin, 58. Ms. Hamblin is additionally accused of trying to palm off other forgeries as the works of famous artists, including Franz Kline, J.M.W. Turner, and Juan Gris, the complaint said.
Ms.Hamblin allegedly possessed fraudulent documents detailing a lengthy provenance of the Gris forgery. She claimed that her great-grandfather had purchased it in 1932 from the ballet impresario George Balanchine, the complaint said.
Ms. Hamblin, who faces up to 20 years in prison, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
