From a press release:

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum Presents “Art Authenticity, Theft and Fraud: 40 Years at IFAR,” �a Lecture with Dr. Sharon Flescher

Norwalk, Conn., June 15, 2009 �“Art Authenticity, Theft and Fraud: 40 Years at IFAR,” a lecture with Dr. Sharon Flescher, Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 11:00 a.m. at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Avenue, Norwalk, CT.

“Theft, authenticity and fraud are among the �sexiest’ and thorniest issues plaguing the art world,” said Dr. Sharon Flescher, Executive Director of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) and Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly IFAR Journal.

The subject of Hollywood movies and best-selling books, theft and fraud in the art world have been, for almost 40 years, the focus of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), a small, but influential nonprofit organization headquartered in New York City.

Dr. Flescher’s lecture at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion will place these issues in a legal, historical and scholarly context and highlight a few cases that IFAR has been involved with over the years.

Dr. Flescher, a graduate of Barnard College, holds Masters Degrees in both English literature and art history, and has a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University with a specialization in 19^th and 20^th century European art. She also attended the Wharton School of Business.

Her professional career has straddled the academic, business and nonprofit worlds. In addition to her work at IFAR, she is an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University (NYU).

Prior to joining IFAR in 1998, Dr. Flescher was Director of Grants and Programs at The Equitable (now AXA) Foundation; a Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities and Director of Institutional Relations at the Central Park Conservancy. She also taught at Brooklyn College and worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dr. Flescher has published articles in the Grove Dictionary of Art, the Art Journal, and the IFAR Journal, among many other publications. Her book, Zacharie Astruc, Critic, Artist, and Japoniste, was published in the Garland Press series “Outstanding Dissertations in the Fine Arts.”

She has lectured extensively for organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, the College Art Association, the Appraisers Association of America, the American Society of Appraisers and Cambridge University. Her many media appearances include ABC Nightline, WCBS-News, Court-TV, NPR, BBC and documentaries on A&E and the Learning Channel.

Dr. Flescher has served on advisory roundtables for the U.S. State Department, the CIA, and the National Archives and Records Administration on issues relating to WWII-era art looting as well as the International Antiquities Market. She represented IFAR in Lyon, France, at the Emergency Interpol Conference on Iraq, organized in the aftermath of the looting of the Iraq Museum in 2003.

The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) is a not-for-profit educational and research organization dedicated to integrity in the visual arts. IFAR offers impartial and authoritative information on authenticity, ownership, theft, and other artistic, legal, and ethical issues concerning art objects.

Admission: $25.00 non-members $20.00 members. The admission includes the lecture, a light lunch and a tour of the first floor of the mansion.

Lunch courtesy of Bulls Head Market