The Mysterious Origins of a Flea-Market Painting

[soft music]

[roller door opening]

[Man] Oh, it's like an Agathie Christie novel.

It's like a super sleuth detective story.

Like, whodunit.

My name is Peter and my last name is Guppy

and we're in my business.

This is Prosperity Hardware.

And welcome.

[light switches]

[latch closing]

[Peter] Prosperity Hardware.

My mother came up with that name because it meant

all the things that she desired:

prosperity, wealth, a good life.

We are immigrants that came to the United States

in the 70's

and my mom, she believed in me.

She invested her savings in me.

[machine whirring]

Coming from a poor situation,

growing up poor,

the American dream gives you the opportunity

to achieve things.

[soft music]

Collecting art is,

it's another business.

Maybe about eight, nine years ago

a friend of mine, he was an art collector

and he hit on some hard times.

My name is Valety Vuatieto.

And I have a lot of paint.

I collect.

(upbeat music]

I spoke Peter, because I was need pay for rent.

I need some money. I need some money

because I'm about to lose my condo.

And I said, Well, huh. I don't really loan money.

What do you have to sell me?

And he said, Look, I'll sell you these pieces.

He promised me something percentage

of if he selling a good.

Then I hung the art on the wall

At the time, I didn't have anything in my house,

like art in my house.

And I saw how it just lit up the room.

How it looked, so it just piqued my interest

and I started to do the research

on the art that I collect and realized

there's money to be gained in art collection.

It became my second hobby.

Well, I don't really do the research,

she does the research.

I'm Nandy.

I'm Peter's cousin.

Basically, I do research for pretty much

anything he buys.

I sort of didn't have a choice.

[Nandy] When Peter came and he showed me the painting

he's like This is what I got.

I think it's by a Russian artist.

I'm like, Okay.

So help me figure it out.

There was just two initials: K M.

Not full name.

I went to the Met Museum

and I spoke to a lot of people in there

and they basically pointed me in the right direction

that it could possibly be an authentic Malevich.

I thought, Wow! If I can authenticate this,

it's going to be a good windfall.

That's what I thought.

My name's James Butterwick.

I am a dealer in Russian art.

[powerful music]

Well, a Malevich original will sell for,

the last auction price was $32 million.

Malevich had a very large following.

He was a master.

He wanted to do away with

traditional types of painting.

He really was basically the godfather

of this avant garde type of schematism art.

The country had been shut off from the world,

I think you'd argue,

since about 1920 when he was indeed imprisoned.

Individualist art would have been hidden, destroyed.

We don't know what happened to a lot of it.

[Peter] That's the thing about the art.

It tells a story of these people's struggle.

I feel he's trying to reach out through me

and get this painting reestablished.

We found that the artist did

something for Lenin.

[powerful music]

He had commissioned a contest

to see which artist would be doing the artwork

for the Winter Palace.

[Peter] He hired Malevich to do the design.

I saw some of the works and a lot were similar

to our piece

than what was previously thought.

[powerful music]

[Peter] The closer you get to

actually authenticating a piece

that might be valuable,

it gives you such a rush.

The difficulty is with Russian art,

is because Russia was this closed

entity for so long.

Suddenly it opens up

and sort of rather conveniently,

suddenly, tens of hundreds of pictures appear

by avant garde artists.

One of the anomalies is they're

very often signed.

They almost always have no provenance whatsoever.

Does it have a provenance?

Provenance is extremely important,

especially with the Russian avant garde.

It's absolutely vital.

So provenance is really the history

of the picture from almost from the day it's painted.

Around 1994, in Moscow, there was

a very big flea market.

Different stuff: antiques, paints, books,

vinyl records.

I always check vinyls and behind that

I was to see one man and the box was something painted.

Five, six piece.

I think, Maybe it's real. Maybe it's not real.

He don't know about that because

seller was very old man.

And he was asking those time not expensive.

Around maybe $400.

[cash register chime]

Okay.

I buy.

It's bought in an open air market in Moscow,

this is a very common occurrence.

It was a vast jumble sale

every Saturday and Sunday

where people would bring all kinds of things.

If that's the only available provenance,

that would instantly make me nervous.

I would always advise everybody

who ever comes to me

to always seek a second opinion.

In economics you buy low and you sell high.

I need to sell the piece but

I need to authenticate it because you can't

sell a piece of art unless you authenticate it.

[Woman] I'm Nica Gutman Rieppi, principal investigator

at Art Analysis and Research.

There's sort of three strands

involved in authentication.

It involves connoisseurship,

so the expert's eye.

Looking at provenance.

And then the third is scientific analysis of art.

[soft music]

[Nica] So, I'm looking at the brush strokes,

the consistency of the paint.

I'm looking to see how he handled his edges.

Edges of forms.

He's known to have used in many cases

a cardboard, or a paperboard,

and used to work against that,

used that to guide him

and provide a straight line for things.

[James] Original pictures by Malevich,

the lines tend to be barrel straight.

Now why would there be an imperfection here?

Forgive me, but that strikes me as very odd.

[Nica] There was a level of sharp edges.

In many cases, levels of exactitude

even though he often used loose brush strokes,

texture. But what I'm seeing here is

these loose wavy edges, which suggest

that it was applied freestyle with a hand

without an aid such as a cardboard.

As a dealer, if I was offered this picture

with this provenance,

and taking into account the style

in which it's painted,

I wouldn't take it.

I wouldn't touch it.

[Soft Music]

[Peter] I believe it's real.

100 percent.

I would say 80 percent,

that's as much as I'm gonna give it.

80 percent.

I wish believe but God tells for everybody.

Let me just say, it's a tiny, tiny,

tiny percentage.

[Peter] Malevich, he left a fingerprint

within the red part, smack in the middle.

The next step for me would be to compare

the fingerprint on the art work to tell for sure

whether or not it is a Malevich.

I think he's very passionate

about what he likes to do.

If it's hardware, if it's art, or whatever it is

he gets into it and he's 100 percent.

There is no going back with him.

It's very exciting to see that somebody

could go out, buy a canvas for 100 bucks

and it turns out that it's actually worth

ten million bucks.

It's the notion of the nice guy

finishing first.

It's romantic. It's thrilling

but unfortunately, in my experience,

it is almost unheard of.

The chances are probably on a par

with winning the lottery.

[machine whirring]

[soft music]

[Peter] You have to have a determination

in life and that's one thing

I've always had through what

my family experienced.

We were always determined so

I'm still determined to

authenticate this painting.

For me, it's an adventure.

I'm gonna keep collecting and trying to find

that.

I have one more item that I'm interested in

getting authenticated.

It's not art.

It's a $20 Andrew Jackson

with the image of Josephine Baker.

It's the only one of its kind

that I know of.

It's a misprint from the United States Mint.

[soft music]

It's possible.

Follow your dreams.

Follow your dreams because it's an adventure

and you will be well rewarded for you adventures.

[soft music]