By Laura Ashbaugh
The granddaughter of artist Vladimir Tretchikoff is questioning the authenticity of the painting sold at the Brett Kebble art auction.
Lost Orchid sold for a record R3,2-million, but it has been revealed that the painting is the not the same as the iconic one replicated in print.
"I've seen the signature and... that is not my grandfather's painting," said Natasha Mercorio, manager of the Tretchikoff Foundation. "He's got a very specific signature on the originals, and the Fs are never crossed."
Graham Britz, who handled the auction of Kebble's art collection, said a forensic analysis completed last week had confirmed that the painting was an original.
Mercorio said she was unaware of the results of the forensic analysis, but she would have preferred it to have been done by someone she had commissioned.
The controversy arose when it was noted that the painting sold at the auction differed from the iconic painting in Howard Timmins's 1969 book of Tretchikoff prints. The Kebble painting didn't have the water drop on the orchid petal or the matchstick on the stairs.
Britz said the matter was simply a cataloguing error, and the gallery should have stated that the painting was similar, and not identical, to the one shown in Timmins's book.
When Mercorio heard last week that there was a controversy surrounding the painting, she called Britz's gallery and asked for photos of it. She said when she saw the signature, she was alarmed.
"It looked like it was written with a shaky hand. In all the other paintings it's very definite, equally spaced, on a straight line. He has a very firm hand. The indentation of each line is definite and straight and meticulous."
Alex Duffey, a professor at the University of Pretoria, is researching the painting's history at the request of Britz.
He said one issue he was investigating was dates: the Kebble painting is dated 1944 and the one in Timmins' book 1948.
"Sometimes artists change their signature, so that's not a real problem," he said. "The problem is the authenticity of the earlier painting. Did he repaint it at a later stage?"
Duffey said he had not found any record of Tretchikoff painting Lost Orchid twice, but he was still looking.
Mercorio said she was unaware of her grandfather ever painting two copies of the same work. She said he would often create many paintings of the same subject, but never nearly identical paintings.
"He did many versions of the chrysanthemums, but he never did the same composition," she said.
Andrew Lamprecht of UCT has been working for six months to create the first full documentation of Tretchikoff's work. He said that although many artists created many copies of the same paintings, that was not part of Tretchikoff's methodology. Based on his research so far, Lamprecht said, he would consider it strange if Tretchikoff did paint two copies of Lost Orchid.
Mercorio said she was surprised that the discrepancy wasn't revealed until after the auction, as the painting was one of Tretchikoff's most famous works.
She had always thought that the original Lost Orchid was in Kebble's collection. "I'd like to know where it is; we'll have to do research."
Lamprecht said the root of the controversy was that there was little academic research on Tretchikoff.
"Academics and scholars have neglected Tretchikoff," he said.
"For many years he was denigrated by critics and as a result there was a lack of academic research on him."