Peter Paul Biro's techniques as an art authenticator has been under the microscope via numerous articles that have questioned his findings and even unexplained disappearances of certain artworks. One article that dug even deeper into Mr. Biro is a recent New Yorker article titled “The Mark of a Masterpiece: The man who keeps finding famous fingerprints on uncelebrated works of art." Needless to say Mr. Biro was not pleased with how he was portrayed in the article as a fabricator and ended up suing the magazine for defamation. But he didn't stop there. He has expanded his jericho like lawsuit to include other publications who may have jumped on the New Yorker article wagon. Are these lawsuits about protecting his character or are they more about preventing more scrutiny hence exposing what could amount to be one of the biggest art scams ever?
Here is a snippet from the New Yorker article which can be read here in its entirety. This is perhaps the most damning portion of the whole piece:
“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 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.
