An art dealer accused of peddling phony modern-art masterpieces painted herself into a corner when she hid at least $12.5 million she made from the sales, the feds charged yesterday.
Glafira Rosales was busted by the IRS for allegedly filing false tax returns and failing to disclose an overseas account where she stashed most of the dough.
“The sale of a piece of art for profit is a taxable event . . . even if the art is counterfeit,” said IRS Special Agent-in-Charge Toni Weirauch.
Rosales, 56, of Sands Point, LI, is at the center of a burgeoning scandal involving the once-esteemed Knoedler Gallery, which closed its Upper East Side doors amid allegations that its former president, Ann Freedman, sold fake paintings.
The gallery has been sued a half-dozen times — most recently this month — by well-heeled collectors who say they were duped into paying big bucks for canvases purportedly painted by celebrated abstract artists, but which later turned out to be fakes.
Rosales has also been linked to art dealer Julian Weissman, a former Knoedler salesman who now runs his own gallery, Julian Weissman Fine Arts.
According to a Manhattan federal-court complaint, Rosales sold dozens of “never before exhibited and previously unknown paintings” that she claimed were the works of famed artists including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, reaping more than $14 million including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooningbetween 2006 and 2008 alone.
“In selling most of the paintings to the two galleries, Rosales purported to represent a particular client who inherited them, but wanted to remain anonymous,” court papers say.
“For the remainder of the paintings, Rosales purported to represent a Spanish collector.”
But the feds say the anonymous client, who supposedly had ties to Switzerland, never existed, while the Spanish collector never owned the paintings that Rosales sold.
The complaint also notes that a letter addressed to Rosales and purportedly signed by the “Swiss client” — which was used to help sell one of the paintings — mistakenly referred to the artist who painted it as “William de Kooning.”
In addition, the complaint says that several of the works “have been conclusively determined by authorities experienced in the field of art, art history and materials science not to be by the hand of the artists that Rosales represented.”
While Rosales allegedly claimed that she would keep only a portion of the sales prices as her “commission — with the remainder going to her “clients” —,” the feds say she kept “all or almost all of the proceeds.”
Rosales was ordered held without bail.