5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker'

39;The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

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Peter Paul Biro, Art

Authenticator, Expands His
Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond
'The New Yorker' [UPDATE]
By M.H. Miller • 12/13/11 10:32am

   

Peter Paul Biro. (The New Yorker.)

Peter Paul Biro, the art authenticator who

slapped The New Yorker with a defamation
suit after he was the subject of an article
titled, “The Mark of a Masterpiece: The
man who keeps finding famous fingerprints
on uncelebrated works of art,” is now suing
more people including Gawker, Business
Insider, Louise Blouin (owner of Artinfo)
and Art Fag City. That original story,
written by David Grann, questions Mr.

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5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

Biro’s methods of authenticating work

through forensic analysis of fingerprints.

Here is a sample passage from that article,

which New Yorker editor David Remnick
defended to AdWeek as “painstaking in both
its attention to the facts and tone” (the
piece is long and involved and available in
its entirety online):

“Lawsuits had piled up against Peter

Paul Biro and his family business. In
two instances, there were allegations
that art works had vanished under
mysterious circumstances while in
the care of Peter Paul. In one of the
cases, Serge Joyal, who is now a
senator in Canada, told me that he
left a nineteenth-century drawing
with the Biros to be restored. Before
he could pick it up, Peter Paul
notified him that it had been stolen
from his car and that there was no
insurance. Biro, however, never filed
a police report, and Joyal says that
Biro pleaded with him to wait before
going to the authorities. During their
conversations, Joyal says, Peter Paul
acted evasive and suspicious, and

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5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

Joyal became convinced that Biro was

lying about the theft. As Joyal put it,
‘There was something fishy.’ Though
Peter Paul said that there was
nothing ‘suspect’ about his behavior,
and that he should not be held liable,
the court awarded Joyal seven
thousand dollars, plus interest.

Elizabeth Lipsz, a Montreal

businesswoman who had once been
close to Biro, and who won a lawsuit
against him for unpaid loans,
described him to me as a ‘classic con
man.'”

Mr. Biro is claiming the story was “widely

circulated,” and the media assumed his
work was fraudulent, merely because of The
New Yorker’s celebrated reputation.

Many of the publications that are being

sued for defamation have since amended
the articles in question about Mr. Biro.
Courthouse News Service notes Mr. Biro’s
inclusion in a list published on Business
Insider called “Nine of the Biggest Art
Forgeries of All Time.” His name was
subsequently  removed from that list

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5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

(before the lawsuit); it is still available

online and now contains the headline
“Eight of the Biggest Art Forgeries of All
Time.”

Courthouse News also says that Mr. Biro

alleges that Artinfo reported a story that
read: “Biro was part of a family of art
forgers, and that he had been planting the
forensic evidence into the questionable
works himself.” A Google search for that
phrase yields only one result: the Courthouse
News article. A search for Mr. Biro on
Artinfo did bring up an article about The
New Yorker story in July.

As for Gawker: on its Gizmodo tech blog, an

article read:

“This is Peter Paul Biro. Depending

on who you ask, he’s either using
fingerprinting, forensic science, and
state of the art spectral cameras to
uncover lost art masterpieces, or
using that same technology to
manufacture them… Just like the art
he works with, it’s hard to pin down
the true story behind Peter Paul Biro.
But as shown in the New Yorker piece

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5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

(which you should really read in full),

Biro’s complicated cameras and
forensic techniques have only
introduced a new layer of uncertainty
to the hazier corners of art history.”

That article is a pretty straight case of re-

blogging. It’s opinionated, but mostly about
the article in question and not the subject
of that article (and it does not assume Mr.
Grann is correct, claiming instead that “the
true story” is “hard to pin down”).

We won’t get into the details of New York’s

defamation laws and standards of
negligence, but we will pose a question: are
blogs that sounded off about Mr. Grann’s
article implicated in the alleged defamation
for circulating the information another
reporter reported?

[UPDATE]: Regarding the phrase allegedly

published in Artinfo that we could not find
online, according to court documents,
which are available here, Mr. Biro’s libel
suit against the web site is regarding an
interview conducted back in September:

“On or about September 16, 2011,

defendant Louise Blouin Media
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5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

published on its internet website the

following exchange with one Noah
Charney:

What do you think about DNA

Security where a DNA Security
Marker links art object with
provenance documentation to
provide authentication?

This sounds great in principle, but

the dangers of such technological
authentication systems were
brilliantly exposed in a recent New
Yorker article called ‘Mark of a
Masterpiece’ by David Grann. It was
the story of Peter Paul Biro, who
began as a forensic science hero,
discovering DNA and fingerprints
of famous artists in questionable
works (most famously a purported
Jackson Pollock bought at a tag sale).
But it was later shown that Biro was
part of a family of artforgers, and that
he had been planting the forensic
evidence into the questionable works
himself.”

The court documents claim that “the last

sentence is false and defamatory.” The
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5/24/2021 Peter Paul Biro, Art Authenticator, Expands His Defamation Lawsuit Far Beyond 'The New Yorker' [UPDATE] | Observer

documents also claim a request to remove

the exchange (it does not mention with
whom Mr. Charney was talking with) was
sent to Artinfo on September 21, 2011.
According to the documents, the “exchange
remained on ArtInfo’s website for
approximately one month after plaintiff’s
demand.”

mmiller@observer.com

Filed Under: Arts, Gawker, The New Yorker,

David Remnick, ArtInfo, David Grann, Peter
Paul Biro

SEE ALSO: Radio Free Dylan

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