$50 Van Gogh? Experts say no, offering alternative attribution in dramatic art dispute – Artnet News

The claim that New York-based LMI Group had discovered a long lost portrait by Van Gogh made a huge splash when it was announced last week. The company said the attribution was made by a team of experts according to a multi-pronged “data-based” approach costing over $30,000. Some commentators pored over the company’s 456-page report while others felt confident making their judgement from just a cursory glance at the composition. […]

“I thought it was odd that a claimed title was in the area where usually the signature sits,” said Dr. Martin Pracher, who offers appraisal and authentication services in Würzburg, Germany. After conducting some research, he found other paintings signed “Elimar” by a little known Danish artist Henning Elimar, who was born in Aarhus in 1928 and died in 1989. In one case, a painting attributed to an “unknown artist” that sold for €25 ($25) at Auktionshaus Dannenberg in Germany in September 2024 also bore the signature “Elimar” written in black bold caps, just like the text on Elimar (1889). […]

Edward Rosser, an art collector who was among those taken aback by LMI’s claim, said he was able to connect the painting to Henning Elimar thanks to “a simple Google search with the words ‘painting’ and ‘Elimar.’” This artist’s works, he found, bore signatures “as close as one could wish to the inscription on the yard sale ‘van Gogh,’” he said. “Much of what we respond to in Van Gogh’s art is the rhythm and proportion of his brushstrokes,” he continued. “They somehow, magically, create paintings that are ‘alive’; they even seem to vibrate.” Could the author of Elimar (1889)’s efforts ever compare? “I think it is a dreadful painting, and is about as far from a true Van Gogh as a painting could possibly be.”