Wladyslaw Chmielinski often sold at eBay

Falsifications of Wladyslaw Chmielinski
often sold at eBay.com

In the end of the 1950 a Polish painter showed up at the international market. His motives were architecture and landscapes from the old war-destroyed but rebuild Warszawa together with troika vehicles, often winter motives. Wladyslaw Chmielinski (1911-79), which was his name, became fast a popular painter in Europe and in the United States, so popular that his pictures got in short supply. Art dealers could only buy them through the polish department of state, DESA in Warszawa, and only if one were willing to accept a large number of pictures from other painters, which were more difficult to sell.

That particular circumstance lead to the fact that the Danish art dealer Knud Mikkelsen at a time got the smart idea to invite Chmielinski to come to Denmark and thereafter put him in his sommer residence with a bunch of pieces of canvas. This residence stood between the little island Tunø between Århus and Samsø. This traffic repeated itself as long as the polish authorities accepted it, one or two times pr year, but each time with this clausal that the artists wife and children were left behind in Poland, holding them hostages as interpreted in the western part of the world. This happened in those days when east was east and west was west. In Denmark Chmielinski also overcome to paint motives from the Danish capital Copenhagen, done after black and white photography, whereby the colours seamed a little bit wrong.

An original painting by Wladyslaw Chmielinski: A Copenhagen scene,
in the background the Fish market, Gammel Strand (Old Beach)

A fake, not an original painting by Chmielinski. Sold at eBay.com by a Danish artdealer

An original painting by Chmielinski from Warszawa. Look at this one and the one
above and the one below. It is very easy to see the difference.
Go to eBay.com and watch the sale of this picture

A fake. Not an original painting by Chmielinski.
Sold at www.lauritz.com
June 2004 for 6.800 DKR, about $ 1100.

An original painting by Wladyslaw Chmielinski.

While Chmielinski painted in Denmark he got between $10 to $15 for his works. Today they are sold for a thousand times more.

In the old happy sixty’s and seventy’s the sale of the so-called trommesalsmalerier or a more suitable word would be swindle art if you like. Chmielinski’s pictures are though of great technical value that the need for his pictures could not be satisfied. Suddenly a swarm of false Chmielinskis are direct imitations of his paintings (which he himself had ‘stolen’). His signature was also exposed to fraud, and the pictures were traced fast to the known wholesale-dealer firm in Wien, Haus der Bild. This company had obtained the title as ‘sole agent’ in selling Chmielinski’s paintings and could deliver both the real thing and fakes. Art dealers totally closed their eyes confronted with this traffic and have done so ever since. Thousand of false Chmielinski pictures are spread all over the world today and taken as a whole, it is one of the largest swindle affaires ever.

But probably it will newer come to trial about false Chmielinskis, because almost all art dealer will claime no knowledge between fakes and the genuine works of the artist Wladyslaw Chmielinski. And furthermore his name isn’t big enough for those within the history of art. They don’t even know about him.