to us as a culture. this is our historical record. and if we allow this to happen, we re destroying our own past. the minneapolis institute of art owns two paintings from the zaks collection. one is said to be a work by the ukrainian artist alexandra exter. the other is a mysterious work called the clockmaker by the russian artist ivan kliun. for a few months, we have been exchanging emails with the minneapolis institute. they told us they would conduct their own investigation into kliun s painting. they didn t share the result with the bbc. ..but the painting has now been removed from display. and on the institute s website, the painting is now only attributed to ivan kliun.
the description now includes information from the bbc that this painting comes from the zaks collection. and where previously the website said the institute had reviewed the paintings documentation, now it stresses that the data may not have been reviewed and may be inaccurate or incomplete. this is the painting that appeared in the background of two recent hollywood films. we asked the creators of both oppenheimer and the wonderful story of henry sugar if they would like to comment. they haven t responded. another painting from the zaks collection, attributed to the ukrainian artist alexandra exter, is in the cleveland museum of art. its curators expressed interest in the results of our investigation, but declined to comment. we have found out that one more zaks collection painting is in the possession of the albertina museum in vienna.
called genoa, it was also attributed to exter. the museum has told us that they conducted their own analysis. the painting is not on display. this brings us to the last step in proving if a painting is real expert opinion. the bbc has obtained records showing that both museum curators and art experts helped mr zaks promote his collection. we tried to track some of them down.
The Zaks Affair: Anatomy of a Fake Collection: Attempts to prove the authenticity of a massive collection of Russian and Ukrainian modern art. The Zaks Affair: Anatomy of a Fake Collection airs on BBC News at 3:30 AM, Thursday 11 April. Attempts to prove the authenticity of a massive collection of Russian and Ukrainian modern art