A former British army captain who claims to have worked with Winston Churchill on secret wartime operations has been found guilty of reworking a painting by another former employer, the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador DalÃ.
John Peter Moore, a former private secretary to the artist, cut up a stolen 1969 Dalà painting, The Double Image of Gala, and used it to create what he claimed was a new DalÃ, according to court documents cited by Spanish news agency Efe.
The new picture, called Dalà Painting Gala, was placed on display in Moore’s art gallery in Cadaqués in north-east Spain in 1999, but was taken away by the police, who also found 10 000 fake Dalà lithographs.
Moore, now 85, was convicted together with his wife Catherine Perrot, of ”damaging the moral rights of the author”, the Gala-Salvador Dalà Foundation confirmed.
The foundation, which owns DalÒs estate, said Moore and his wife would have to pay damages estimated at more than €1-million, costs, and an unspecified sum to restore the picture.
”This sets a very important precedent in the recognition and defence of the moral rights of artists,” the foundation’s statement said.
How restoration will be achieved is impossible to say.
A spokesperson for the foundation said it had no photograph or technical details of the original work, which was stolen from the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1974.
Valued at about $125 000 in 1975, the picture was sought worldwide for many years by the FBI and Interpol.
The conviction is a further bizarre twist in the story of Moore and the man who appointed him not only as his private secretary but also his personal ”defence minister”.
Moore, who liked to be photographed petting his tame ocelot — an American wildcat — was a key member of DalÃ’s colourful entourage for 20 years.
He was involved in many of the money-making schemes the artist was so fond off, including the mass-production of Dalà lithographs.
DalÃ’s voracious appetite for money once led the French surrealist André Breton to rework his name into the anagram ”avida dollars”.
The painter added his signature to an estimated hundreds of thousands of lithographs churned out over the years.
”Each morning after breakfast I like to start the day by earning 20 000 dollars,” he once said.
The existence of several hundred thousand lithographs signed by Dalà has encouraged a flourishing, parallel global trade in fakes.
Dalà died in 1989 of heart failure, leaving an estate estimated at $87,7-million.
Dalà and Moore first met in Rome, where the latter arranged payment for a portrait of the British actor Lord Olivier which Dalà had painted in 1955.
A Spanish court dropped a prosecution for dealing in fakes because of Moore’s advanced age. He has denied the accusation.
”I have no need to make fakes,” he told a Spanish radio station after the police raided his gallery and warehouses five years ago.
”I have all the original DalÃs I could possibly want. This is all the result of envy,” he said.
Moore’s wife, Catherine Perrot, told the Guardian on Thursday that he would appeal. – Guardian Unlimited