Mr. Kemper was notified by letter of the decision of the catalogue committee to exclude the twenty-eight watercolors comprising the Canyon Suite. When the catalogue raisonné was published and the status of the watercolors became public, Mr. Kemper had had reasonable questions as to how the watercolors once deemed authentic by the National Gallery were now thought to be questionable. This is where the phone call to me was made. Ever the prudent business man, Mr. Kemper wanted answers of his own before hearing from others. The task I agreed to was to examine the works and gather information to form a second opinion before meeting with representatives from the catalogue committee.

To this end I read the many biographies of O’Keeffe and examined the artworks at great length. The literary sources consistently indicated that O’Keeffe rarely gave works of art away and when she did she was known to ask for them back or seek their return after the recipient had died. This well-documented trait conflicted with the story that the works were gifts to an undergraduate lover who had left to fight in a war, a war to which O’Keeffe was adamantly and vocally opposed.

More important than the stories associated with the artworks were the watercolors themselves. Over a period of several weeks, each piece was individually examined. The periods of examination were closely limited in order to keep the eye “fresh”. Once the individual examinations were complete, the artworks were grouped according to paper type. One major group was executed on low grade construction paper. On the verso of these pieces were scars and breaks in the paper where another sheet had once been attached. Some edges of these papers had been relatively recently trimmed. There were also unusual patterns of fading on the verso of the sheets from exposure to light. It became apparent that these sheets had once served as mounts for other artworks. The original artworks had been removed, hence the areas indicating detachment, and the paper, trimmed to the proper dimension, then flipped over to present a clean surface for the execution of the watercolor. Not only was salvaging paper was not a characteristic of the artist’s working method, but it was very cheap paper that didn’t warrant salvaging in the first place.

Other papers were also problematic. Some watercolors were on bond paper, a light weight highly processed paper manufactured and used largely as document paper. Again, not a typical artist paper and due to its extreme sensitivity to moisture and general inability to absorb water, wholly inappropriate as a support for a watercolor.

Judith Walsh, then paper conservator in the lab at the National Gallery of Art, was instrumental in establishing the Canyon Suite as fraudulent. She is an internationally recognized expert on papers and has published widely on paper and artist’s working methods. Her investigation centered on the types of papers used in the group, O’Keeffe’s working methods and comparing the Canyon Suite with examples of watercolors whose authorship is unquestioned. It was Judy who traced the history of the modern watercolor paper used in the Suite and discovered that it had been manufactured by the Fabriano paper mill in Italy and wasn’t available in the United States until the 1950's.

My approach was more forensic, drawing upon my research into the history of the physical handling of works of art on paper. I wanted to see how the physical evidence left on the artworks jived with the story of their discovery. As the works were examined, it grew increasingly clear that the pieces had not lain undiscovered for nearly seventy years in a bundle. Furthermore, the placement of damages on the verso, the idiosyncratic edge trimmings and the odd placement of thumbtack holes strongly suggested a previous life for many of the papers and indicated a purposeful intent to hide their source. In the course of the research I saw only reproductions of genuine O’Keeffe watercolors but it was apparent that the papers used in the Canyon Suite were not typical of those used by traditionally trained artists. If Georgia O’Keeffe had worked in collage or employed found items in her work the reused papers might have made sense. But O’Keeffe didn’t work in that manner.

One of the most interesting aspects of dealing with forgeries is the emotional. We love art and when art proves to be false its like being cheated on by a lover. Walking the client through the emotional loss becomes a significant factor in the process.

Representatives from the Kemper, including myself and the four principles on the Georgia O’Keeffe catalogue raisonné project met at the Kemper Museum on 16 December 2000 and information was exchanged. The report produced as a result of my research was eventually presented to the dealer, who accepted it's findings. The watercolors were returned and the dealer reimbursed the museum and made additional gifts to the collection.