Forgeries, Surrealism, and You.

It is one of the oddest checklists, featuring strong works attributed to three very different artists: Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977); Ralston Crawford (1906-1978); George Ault (1891-1948). There have been some great double- and triple-artist checklists, from MoMA’s 1944 Feininger/Hartley¹ to the Philadelphia Museum’s delightful Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp in 2013, and we have tried to share the thread of the uncanny that wefts through these three painters’ sometimes Surreal work²—but the three didn’t show together, they didn’t paint together, they didn’t know each other, and there’s no evidence they knew of each other.

And yet, here they were, headlining a checklist that included Honus Wagner and Cy Young memorabilia—how’s that for surreal? Because this was no museum show; this was a federal indictment. Play along at home³: filed April 12, 2022, the complaint suggests the contours of a very strange forgery ring.