Category: Blog Posts General

I’m writing another post about fakes because this forgery has recently been the cause of some considerable irritation for me:

As mentioned in my last post, it was sold at auction by Eastbourne Auctions on 7 September 2022, and now it is evident that the “successful bidder” is an art market professional who apparently thought it was a genuine work by Clifford Hall, despite the fact that the auctioneers described it as “in the manner of Clifford Hall” – a term which indicates that the auction house believes that the work is done in the manner of the named artist but after their lifetime. Or perhaps just simply that they know full well it isn’t by him. Nothing about it looks in the manner of my father’s work to me except for the signature, and that signature makes the painting a forgery, not just an “innocent pastiche” or anything of a similar ilk. Some people in the business just don’t seem to really appreciate this fact anymore – or is it that they just don’t care?

Another possibility is that they just don’t have a clue what they’re doing, I suppose. I mean, let’s look at this description they have now given this painting since I alerted them to the fact that it’s a fake:

Manner of Clifford Hall ROI (1904-1973) – Framed 1967 Oil, London Docklands

“A delightful impressionistic oil in the manner of British artist Clifford Hall (1904-1973), depicting an industrial view of London Docklands, captured in tinted swaths of red, blue, and green. While we do not believe this work is by the artist’s hand, it is a close match and pays tribute to the many dockland scenes in his inimitable Modern British style. Immaculately presented in a stained oak frame with a decorative carved border, enhanced with gilt. Bears signature lower right. On board.” – Source

I told them I could tell straightaway that it was a fake because the sense of colour and drawing are all wrong. But they had the temerity to disagree.

OK, so let’s just disregard the aesthetics for a moment then and just deal with some actual facts rather than opinions:

1. While it is true that Clifford Hall painted numerous views of the River Thames, very few of these actually depict views of London’s Docklands. Indeed, the only one I am currently aware of is of Smiths Wharf in the Queenhithe Dock, which is not that far from St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London – so at the very western edge of the London Docklands area.
2. As far as the Thames is concerned, Clifford Hall’s stamping grounds were all in West London and in the suburbs to the west of London. He grew up in Richmond and spent many years living in Chelsea: he was often referred to as: “Clifford Hall, the Chelsea artist” in the press. When he went to the banks of the Thames to paint, he generally went on foot or by bicycle. Consequently, the views of the Thames he gave us depict scenes in Battersea, Fulham, Putney, Wandsworth and, of course, Chelsea. Occasionally, they are of Twickenham, Richmond, Hampton Court or Isleworth. These were convenient places for him to get to.
3. After we (I was 4 years old at the time) moved from Chelsea to Bayswater in January 1961, my father painted hardly anything of the Thames again: just 2 or 3 paintings at most.
4. Clifford Hall’s painting of Smith’s Wharf is easily identifiable as a painting of Smith’s Wharf. What does this forgery depict? Are those brownish-red buildings in the distance identifiable as any buildings that are, or have ever been, in London’s Docklands? Are they even identifiable with any buildings anywhere close to the banks of the River Thames? I would be fascinated to hear from any London Historians who believe they can identify the spot where this painting was created.
5. Identifying the spot where this painting was created is very important, because almost all of Clifford Hall’s paintings of the Thames were done en plein air. That’s right, he actually went and sat by the river with his easel, paints and a panel or canvas and painted what he saw. This fake doesn’t look like it was done like that: it looks like a work of pure imagination to me; painted indoors. Not a particularly vivid imagination either, I feel, which would explain why it doesn’t really look like anywhere in particular to me.
6. Although he hardly ever ventured to East London to paint en plein air, he certainly wasn’t confined to the environs of West London when engaging in this noble activity. A Clifford Hall en plein air of industrial looking docklands is more likely to have been painted in Antwerp, Belgium, or Littlehampton Harbour in Sussex, than in London.
7. One thing the forger managed to get right, probably more by luck than good judgement, is the size of their fake painting. It is 9.5″ x 7.5″ or thereabouts. This is a size my father used frequently for his little paintings done en plein air, and also for preliminary sketches for larger studio paintings.
8. The fake is not only “signed” lower right, it is also dated 67. So it cannot possibly be a view of the Thames at any point. How do I know? I have a list of everything Clifford Hall painted in 1967, written in his own hand.
9. If this fake was a genuine Clifford Hall, 9.5″ x 7.5″, en plein air panel painted in 1967 the only places it could possibly depict are in Brixham, Devon, or somewhere close to that coastal town in South Devon. Does it look like Brixham or anywhere else in Torbay? No it doesn’t, unless I am very much mistaken.

So, you see, I don’t have to rely only on my aesthetic instincts in order to know this painting is a fake. I can just say: “Sorry, it doesn’t appear to be on the artist’s own list of his works for the year of 1967.”

But obviously, I don’t think it is a “close match“, let alone a “tribute” to Clifford Hall’s “inimitable Modern British style“. On the contrary, it is an insult. And what an absurdly loaded word “”inimitable” seems in this context. Couldn’t they have said:”classic Modern British style” instead?

Anyway, let us now move on to some other miserably poor attempts at forging the works of Clifford Hall which I know are kicking around somewhere.

Are any of them hanging on your wall, or the wall of someone you know?

Disclaimer: I don’t know for sure whether these pictures started life as deliberate attempts at forgery or if they were anonymous works by other painters that some felonious rogue has obtained at some later date and added a forged signature to.

This picture has some character to it at least. It just isn’t Clifford Hall’s character.

I rather like this one as a picture. I would describe it as an attractive piece of reasonably competent primitive art. But how anyone could think that such an unsophisticated little painting could be by Clifford Hall is quite beyond me.

Again, just not the sort of decorative but naive picture that Clifford Hall ever went in for painting. NB, the forged signature isn’t visible in this photo because the bottom has been cropped.

Boy, does she look grumpy. And is she even a real person, or just a face conjured up by the imagination of whoever painted her? I suspect the latter.

Another painting of a girl who appears to be pulling a funny face. I fancy that these last two are by the same artist – and that he (almost certainly a he) is slyly signaling his contempt for anyone who is taken in by these daubs.

Possibly by the same perpetrator as the previous two. An earlier attempt perhaps? – hence the more serious expression on her face, perhaps?

I own this one. It is one of two forgeries which I currently own. There is some writing verso to the effect that it is believed to be of the artist’s mother. It certainly isn’t. It really doesn’t look like her. However, he did paint at least one portrait of his mother and it was exhibited at his 2nd Leger Gallery show in 1932. It was one of five pictures in that show which weren’t for sale. Nevertheless, I have not inherited it: I have never seen it and don’t even have a photograph of it. She was born in 1870, and so was most likely around 60 years of age when the portrait was painted. But this is not that painting and I am sure it is not a work by my father of anyone else either. I don’t believe he ever tried painting a picture on the rough backside of a piece of hardboard (that’s what this painting is on) and even if he did I cannot conceive of any reason why he would do anything so unconventional when painting a portrait of any old lady, let alone his mother. It makes no sense. With his mother as a sitter, he would undoubtedly have painted her in a more conventional manner in order to produce something she would have been able to appreciate and understand. So, the style he would have used would be more like this portrait of his first wife, Marion, in the early to mid 30s, HERE

I do quite like the painting however, despite it being such a personally disappointing find. I would never destroy it for being a forgery and would certainly never consider destroying any painting at all for any other reason than it being a fake. But I certainly don’d consider it to be any kind of tribute to my father.

The forged signature, bottom left, is not visible in this photo but I have another  angled photo of it which shows that it is clearly there. Again, I quite like this picture; I just don’t believe it is by my father. Certainly not from this photo. I would be willing to undertake a physical examination of it in order to deliver a final decision though.  I think whoever painted this is quite a good artist, but if they are one and the same person who signed it, I wish they would just put their own name on their work and stop being such an oaf.. 

Nothing about this picture convinces me at all that it could be by my father. The treatment is all wrong. And again, is it actually a view of a real place or just a sort of figment of the painter’s imagination? I would be very interested to hear from anyone who thinks they can identify where this was painted.

Looks nothing like my father’s work to me, and it has a sort of illustrative quality which he generally eschewed. It could possibly be by his first wife, Marion Hall née Zass, though I can’t imagine that she would ever have tried to pass her work off as his. She had a great deal of respect for him as an artist.

This one is unsigned recto:

It is possibly by Marion. She often drew and painted pictures with children in them and wrote short stories for children as well. Some of these are extremely sentimental in tone and therefore quite unlike her husband’s work. She was essentially a commercial artist who produced ephemeral pictures for long defunct children’s and women’s magazines.

This one is a fake “Clifford Hall” in so far as there is an entirely spurious stamp verso reading “Studio of Clifford Hall” – well, at least it did. I hope it’s been removed now, but it probably hasn’t.

Finally, for now, we have one of the most absurd examples of amateurish fine art fakery I have ever seen:

This is one of several scribbles I have come across with a spurious stamp recto which states: “STUDIO CLIFFORD HALL 1904 – 1973“. I mean, seriously – what is this meant to imply?

That the artist knew what year he was going to die?

Or maybe that his family was so foolish as to create a studio stamp like this to put on the face of his unsigned drawings after he died?

I really don’t know, but I am certain this little drawing is not by Clifford Hall – or anyone who ever worked in his studio.

At this time of writing, there is what I believe to be a genuine sketch of a cat by Clifford Hall for sale on eBay. Here – which some dolt has stamped: CLIFFORD HALL -STUDIO-. Thus reducing its potential value because many collectors will now think it is a fake. This is not, she assures me, the current owners doing. She bought it like this some 30 years ago.

I would be lying if I were to claim an infallible ability to spot every forgery of my father’s work. It bothers me to think that some rascal will put one past me eventually. But I sincerely believe that this has not happened yet. I don’t believe I have ever rejected a genuine work as a fake. There are a couple of unsigned pictures which I have seen where I haven’t been able to say for certain either way. They might possibly be early works by my father. If they are, I wish he had signed them, and written something about them on the back, as he often did.

The “Framed 1967 Oil, London Docklands” painting has now been considerably reduced in price. When the dealer originally put it up for sale they were asking a 4 figure um for it: a price that means ARR is likely to apply. For the record, as a matter of principle, I have never, and will never, accept any Artist’s Resale Right royalties for works which I know to be forgeries. 

Caveat Emptor