Police seize prints in suspected Nunavut art scam

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

An Iqaluit businessman is out about $20,000 worth of artwork and framing materials, after police seized more than 200 prints he bought from a local artist.

During his seven years in Iqaluit, Ray Lovell, owner of Ray Lovell Art Studio, amassed a vast collection of prints, paintings and drawings from a variety of northern artists. A part-time artist himself, Lovell opened his studio as a way to inexpensively frame his collection and his own work.

But earlier this month, police confiscated a variety of works Lovell bought from a well-known artist. The works are alleged to be either stolen or faked.

“The art business is cash-and-carry,” Lovell said in an interview this week. “I did the best I could by only purchasing from a licenced artist. It’s not like I sat at the Navigator sucking back beers and buying from every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes by.”

Police were tipped off when an Arctic College instructor recognized a small etching hanging in a local coffee shop. Lovell’s framed prints hang in a variety of locations around town. The prints bear his business card on the back as a form of advertising.

Police first suspected that Lovell, who makes his living as a chef at Baffin Correctional Centre, was behind the scam. But Lovell keeps impeccable records, and was able to tell police exactly where- and who- the artwork came from.

“If I were stealing this stuff, I wouldn’t have been putting it in a coffee shop and I certainly wouldn’t be putting my name on it.”

Though he admits he’s not an expert, Lovell says the scam took several forms. In some cases, the signature of the original artist was erased using a professional artist’s eraser and replaced with another name. In other cases, Lovell bought prints from an artist who claimed to be selling them on behalf of another artist.

In yet another instance, Lovell points to a piece he bought last month during a local art sale at Iqaluit’s parish hall. It bears a striking resemblance to one seized by police that bears the name of a different artist.

“This is a rubbing,” he explains. “The other has been pressed.”

Lovell is in the process of calling former customers — some of whom no longer live in the North, and some who live as far away as Japan — to retrieve works required for the police investigation.

The $20,000 he estimates he’s lost takes into account the money he paid for the artwork, as well as the framing he provided to customers who bought prints from him. “It means I’ve worked a year for nothing,” he says.

“The bad publicity alone is worth that much.”

Police are flying in experts from Pangnirtung and Baker Lake to examine the works and identify the artists. Police have not yet laid charges.

Const. Alex Lyon of Iqaluit RCMP said the investigation is ongoing and police hope to make an arrest this week. The first-issue prints are suspected to have been stolen about one and a half or two years ago.