Meadows' Luck

There they were, scattered through the 15-room mansion of Texas Oil Millionaire Algur Hurtle Meadows, elegantly framed paintings by nearly every leading painter of Paris. You name them, Meadows had them--Picasso, Matisse, Dufy, Derain, Modigliani, Bonnard, Degas, and on and on. For insurance purposes, they had been appraised by New York Art Expert Carroll Hogan at $1,362,750. On the market, works by such artists might fetch $3,000,000. But, confided Oilman Meadows to his admiring guests, they had cost him "closer to $400,000 than a million," and maybe as little as $250,000.

In 30 years, Al Meadows, 68, built General American Oil Co. into one of the nation's leading crude-oil producers, with affiliates in Europe and Canada, controls it with stock worth $68 million. "In oil and real estate, sometimes I've made $500,000 in a day--never made a really bad deal," he boasted. "Al operated on the same code in buying art that he did in oil," says one of Meadows' closest friends. "A man's word and handshake were good enough."

Disintegrating Canvas. But in shifting from oil to oils, Meadows' luck and his eye for a bargain failed him. Last December he invited in Dallas Art Dealer Donald Vogel to discuss putting some of his French masterpieces up for sale. "It was a crushing experience," Vogel recalls. "When I examined a Bonnard closely, it just disintegrated before my eyes. The colors were not right, the texture was not right, and I knew that the picture was elsewhere, in a rather noted collection."

So shaken was Vogel that when fellow members of the Art Dealers Association of America came to Dallas in

February he had them invited round to Meadows' house. "As we entered," says New York Dealer Klaus Perls, "we saw a huge fake Vlaminck, and on the opposite side was a fake Picasso." Nor did the count end there. By the end of the tour, A.D.A.A. members politely informed Meadows that of the 58 paintings he had purchased over the past four years, he was the proud possessor of 44 fakes, including 15 Dufys, nine Derains, seven Modiglianis, five Vlamincks and two Bonnards.

"Best Con Men Ever." "But this is fully documented," a baffled Meadows would occasionally interject. The A.D.A.A. members were not surprised; documents are even easier to forge than paintings. Last January French police raided the apartment of one Raoul Lessard as he was leaving for New York, found a suitcase with four fake paintings, forged custom stamps and certificates by experts, all addressed to Dallas. Lessard has been acting as "private secretary" to a dandy named Fernand Legros, who last March in Paris sent a photo of a painting supposedly by Andre Derain to an auction house, only to have the painter's widow question its authenticity. Two Dufys and a Vlaminck offered by Legros to the house were handed over to police.

Legros, who spends his time between a Paris apartment, a New York hotel suite (he briefly operated a Manhattan gallery), and various hideaways, has so far insisted that he made innocent mis takes. But Lessard is a French Canadian, and Legros is a naturalized U.S. citizen of French extraction; this description tallies with the two men from whom Meadows bought most of his paintings. "They were charming--real artists, the biggest con men ever," says Meadows wryly. But he is not taking the A.D.A.A.'s judgment as final. While another French dealer, who sold Meadows seven fakes for $100,000, has already agreed to refund the Texan's money, Meadows is insisting that French experts render a verdict on the remainder.

Room for Experience. Meadows' problems with art experts may not be ended. In 1962, he offered Southern Methodist University a new museum, to be stocked with his collection of Spanish old masters, and endowed it with $1,000,000. But art scholars are now taking a closer look at Meadows' Spanish collection mostly bought from one Madrid art dealer and valued at $3,000,000. Already one expert has flatly declared the El Greco Annunciation a fake, and others are being questioned.

If Meadows proves to have been duped again, he will not be alone. "There is hardly a new collection in the U.S. that does not have at least one fake," says Joseph Chapman, former FBI agent on art frauds. The problem in routing out the fakers is that the gulled buyer will rarely swear out a complaint, often chooses to auction off his mistakes or donate them to charitable organizations as a tax write-off. Says one Los Angeles investigator: "How many con games are there that have the power to convert the victims into accomplices after they have found out that they have been had?"

As for Meadows' lark, he confesses to have learned his lesson. "One thing I know," he said last week, "I'm no damn expert. You won't find me buying paintings ever again without the advice of a museum director." What will he do with those fakes that he is stuck with? "I might build me a room on the side of the house in Dallas," mused Meadows. "It will be the 'My Experience with Fake Paintings' room. I'd add just one more picture--one of myself, and call it Mr. Sap."

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