Spotlight on: Gabriella Coslovich
The 2018 Walkley Arts Journalism Award-winner takes us behind her winning work.
Arts Journalism Award
Gabriella Coslovich, Whiteley on Trial (Melbourne University Publishing)
It was a story she had followed for years, first as a newspaper’s arts writer and then as a freelancer. A story Gabriella Coslovich just couldn’t let go of — a story about fraud, art and the law, with a cast of colourful characters. It was a story the judges described as “an exceptional piece for journalism for its dogged determination to explore a complex legal, business and arts story through to its conclusion.”
Here, Gabriella shares her thoughts on the importance of arts journalism, as well as how she told the story the judges said “has the capacity to change the culture that led to such a fraud.”
How did you find/get started on this story, and what did it take to get this story up?
Whiteley on Trial grew out of a series of articles I wrote for The Age in 2010. As the newspaper’s then senior arts writer, I broke the news of an alleged art fraud of extraordinary magnitude drawing in the enfant terrible of the Australian art world — the late Brett Whiteley.
Three vast paintings in the style of Whiteley were sold or attempted to be sold for a total of $4.5 million. Whiteley’s former wife Wendy had grave concerns about the authenticity of the paintings, as did others in the art world.
It would take another six years after I first wrote about the case before the alleged art fraud was heard in the Supreme Court of Victoria — by this time I was working as a freelance journalist, but I remained intrigued by the case and driven to see how the story would end. After viewing the committal hearing in 2015, I pitched the idea of a book about the case to Melbourne University Publishing. I just knew there was a book in it — the characters alone, a colourful, eccentric bunch, were enough to sustain a great narrative. I was thrilled when MUP accepted my pitch, although had I known then how complex the case would become and how many twists and turns the trial would take, I doubt I would have entered the proposition with such boldness. Whiteley on Trial is my first book and I couldn’t have chosen a more legally tricky subject.
What followed were two intense years of obsessively tracking the case through a five-week trial and an appeal. Beyond the courts I conducted my own investigations, trawling through public documents, as well as arranging numerous interviews with key players, including Wendy Whiteley, and several meetings with one of the accused, art dealer Peter Gant (who, along with his co-accused, conservator Aman Siddique, was found guilty by a jury and later acquitted by the appeals bench). I was able to pursue more leads and shed more light on the case than was possible within the strict boundaries of the courts.
Writing the book was emotionally and intellectually taxing; it put me at risk of litigation (Gant had already attempted to sue The Age in 2011 for stories I’d written about him), and dented my bank balance. One writes books for love, not money!
It was also difficult proceeding on this project alone. As a freelancer I was no longer attached to a newsroom with its buoying camaraderie and resources such as access to financial databases and a library. Having said that, Melbourne University Press was endlessly supportive and continues to be. I am indebted to my editor Sally Heath, with whom I once worked at The Age. At a time of media disruption and the whittling of newsrooms, which has particularly affected the coverage of the arts, I’m heartened by the work of MUP in keeping Australian culture on the agenda.
What impact has your book had?
The simple act of documenting this extraordinary and historic case of alleged art fraud is important, as there are many lessons to be learnt from its ultimately unsuccessful prosecution. It’s also important to have a public record of these three suspect paintings as they are still in circulation since the appeals bench could make no finding on the authenticity of the paintings, despite art experts and Wendy Whiteley asserting that they were not genuine.
We have no art fraud squad in Australia, and successful prosecutions of art fraud are rare. The book will continue to serve as an insight into the difficulties of prosecuting art fraud, and as a warning to potential buyers of art. Johanna Leggatt, writing in Australian Book Review, described the book as “impeccably researched’ and added that at times I seemed “more across the facts than the courtroom barristers”. And last year I was invited to address Cambridge University’s 35th International Symposium on Economic Crime on the case.
On a more personal note, those affected by the alleged art fraud, including Wendy Whiteley, and another of the witnesses, artist Jud Wimhurst, who formerly worked part-time in the conservation workshop of Aman Siddique, have thanked me for documenting the case and safeguarding Brett Whiteley’s legacy. Wimhurst put himself on the line by speaking out against his former boss and felt let-down by the criminal justice system. The book offered him some sort of solace.
What are you most proud of about the stories you’ve told?
I’m proud to be part of the discussion about culture in this country and feel strongly that arts journalism is so much more than that dreadful label it’s sometimes given: “lifestyle” journalism. As I write in Whiteley On Trial, art in all its forms is the deepest expression of a culture’s identity, and is the legacy that is passed on to future generations.
Art is how we make sense of life — or revel in its absurdity. Art reflects on the human condition; it entertains and astonishes; it angers and provokes; it soothes and comforts. It is as diverse as the people making and engaging with it. In an era of “clickbait” and diminishing media resources, I am concerned about the sidelining of arts coverage in the mainstream media.
I could never have written Whiteley On Trial had I not been working at The Age newspaper at a time when the arts section was well resourced and the arts were covered with the seriousness of any newspaper “beat”. The stories about the suspect paintings emerged from tips given to me by art contacts that I had nurtured over years, and were developed with the help of editors who were interested in all aspects of culture, and in breaking arts stories, not merely paying lip-service to the arts.
In May I went to the annual A. N. Smith Lecture in Journalism at the University of Melbourne, which this year was presented by the brilliant Boston Globe editor Walter Robinson, who lead the Spotlight team which exposed the Catholic Church’s cover-up of the clerical sexual abuse of children (dramatised in the film Spotlight in which Michael Keaton plays Robinson). During question time, Robinson was asked whether the Boston Globe would still be able to break such a story today, he said, yes, it probably would. But what he said next strongly resonated with me.
He added (I’m paraphrasing here) that the reality, if he were to be honest, is that if you don’t have the person doing the day-to-day coverage of a beat or round, you don’t have the expertise, experience and contacts that help in breaking such stories.
“When you no longer cover City Hall,” he said, “then the whistleblower has no-one to call.”
The same applies to the arts.
What’s your message to Australians about why quality journalism needs their support?
A strong and diverse media is intrinsic to a country’s democracy and cultural strength. A country with a diminished media is not a “clever country”.
Please subscribe — whether in print or on online — to media outlets that produce quality journalism, not tabloid rants and clickbait. Quality news is not cheap to produce and needs to be supported by readers willing to pay for it.
Gabriella Coslovich is a writer and editor with 25 years’ experience, including 15 years at Melbourne newspaper The Age where she specialised in the arts. She was the first person to unearth and interview David Walsh, the idiosyncratic professional gambler and owner of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art. In 2010 she broke the story of an audacious alleged art fraud involving three huge paintings in the style of Australian artist, the late Brett Whiteley. The alleged fraud would eventually be tried in the Supreme Court of Victoria and become the basis for her book Whiteley on Trial.
Follow her on Twitter: @G_Coslovich
See all the winners of the Walkley Mid-Year Awards here.
The Arts Journalism Award is supported by:
Interview by Gemma Courtney, The Walkley Foundation
