How a Street Peddler Fooled New York’s Elite and Toppled the Knoedler Gallery

23 June 2025

In the rarefied air of New York’s elite art circles, where money flows through hushed conversations and gallery walls are draped with history, a stunning deception quietly unraveled over the course of nearly two decades. At the center of this astonishing saga was a trio of unlikely players: a former street peddler, a little-known art dealer, and a Chinese immigrant with a brush and a gifted hand. Together, they wove a web of forged masterpieces so convincing it not only fooled top collectors and experts but ultimately brought down Knoedler, the city’s oldest and once most respected gallery.

Filmmaker Barry Avrich’s latest exposé, The Devil Wears Rothko, dives headfirst into the scandal that shook the foundations of the global art market. The book revisits how Glafira Rosales, a little-known art broker from Long Island, partnered with Jose Carlos Bergantiños Diaz, a street vendor from Spain, and Pei-Shen Qian, a struggling painter from Queens, to create and sell forged paintings attributed to twentieth-century masters like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell. The scheme began as early as the 1990s and escalated until its eventual unraveling in 2011 when Knoedler Gallery abruptly closed its doors after 165 years in operation.

At the heart of the controversy is Ann Freedman, the gallery’s former president, who sold nearly $80 million worth of fake art through the dealership. Freedman claims she believed in the works’ authenticity and points to the experts who initially supported the attributions. However, as time wore on and cracks in the provenance stories deepened, critics questioned whether she had turned a blind eye to the mounting red flags in favor of profit and prestige. Avrich’s book portrays her as both a victim and an enabler, walking the tightrope between innocence and complicity.

One particularly damning moment came when a wealthy collector, after learning his Pollock painting was a fake, confronted Freedman with the explosive words, “I will set your hair on fire.” The fury of betrayed collectors echoed through boardrooms and courtrooms alike, as legal actions mounted and confidence in the gallery collapsed. Many of these fakes were painted with modern materials unavailable during the lifetimes of the artists they purportedly came from. Still, they had been sold to some of the most sophisticated buyers in the world, including museum donors and Wall Street elites.

The real painter behind the fakes, Pei-Shen Qian, had immigrated from China with dreams of artistic recognition. Instead, he found himself painting in a garage in Queens, mimicking the styles of abstract expressionists and quietly earning a few thousand dollars per piece. The middlemen would then turn around and sell these canvases for millions. As authorities closed in, Qian fled to China and has remained there, out of reach from U.S. law enforcement. Rosales eventually confessed and received only a brief sentence of house arrest. Bergantiños Diaz managed to avoid extradition altogether.

What makes this story so compelling, and ultimately so troubling, is how it exposed the vulnerabilities of an industry built on reputation, intuition, and mystique. The blue-chip art world often operates without the formal scrutiny seen in other luxury markets. Authentication is more art than science, and provenance documents can be both persuasive and misleading. Collectors rely heavily on gallery reputations, personal relationships, and the allure of the masterpiece. In that environment, the trio’s scheme flourished.

Avrich’s book does more than just recount a spectacular fraud. It asks harder questions about the structure of the art market itself. How many forgeries hang undetected on the walls of collectors? How much of the value of a painting lies in the artist’s signature rather than the work itself? And how willing are powerful institutions to acknowledge mistakes when millions are on the line?

The ripple effects of the Knoedler scandal continue to influence the way art is bought, sold, and authenticated. Museums and private buyers alike have increased their reliance on forensic testing and independent verification. Meanwhile, new platforms and technologies, including blockchain registries and digital certificates, have emerged as possible tools for restoring trust.

Still, the human element of the con, the desire to believe, the thrill of the find, and the trust placed in a respected name remains a potent reminder of how easily even the most cultured buyers can be deceived. In peeling back the layers of the Knoedler affair, The Devil Wears Rothko captures not only the intricacies of one of the art world’s greatest scandals but also the fragile nature of credibility in a market fueled by faith and fortune.