Talk:E. M. Washington/Archive 1

Categorization

I'm trying to decide whether I should add this to the category Category:African American artists. E.M. Washington (the grandfather) has been referred to as an African American often, so people looking for information might look to find him there. cbustapeck 17:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

• Update - I decided that at the very least, since E.M. Washington cut the blocks and made some of the prints, and that he represents himself as an artist, he has been added.cbustapeck 20:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Is the goal of this listing to help the forger? It would seem that to call this person an artist is very questionable -- perhaps a technician or entrepreneur, but not necessarily an artist. To refer to him as an African American artist is demeaning to those who are/were. According to the Forbes article, Washington has admitted to signing modern re-strikes of exact copies of the work of Eric Gill, these restrikes were not made from the legit plates which Washington had no hand in. The copyright holder of the works of MC Escher has prosecuted him for doing the same to a stack of modern copies of Escher also, see: www.mcescher.com under "News". Printguy 21:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The policy of NPOV means such things as that Wikipedia doesn't judge whether an artist is a good artist or a bad artist, and doesn't hide someone's ethnicity to elevate or diminish the reputation of the group as a whole.

The article plainly notes that Washington is a counterfeiter; I think that it would be good if it plainly noted that some of his work is in violation of copyright.

I am taking the liberty of directly linking your comment to the Escher page that you cite. My apologies if this offends you.

I have responded to some of your comments in the next section. The pattern of reply that you used — inserted commentary without following conventions of indentation — could make it hard for you or others to follow the exchange, so I have liberally reformatted the section. —SlamDiego 18:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Potentially libellous statements by 68.61.16.47

I just reverted a bunch of edits by 68.61.16.47 that seemed potentially libellous. At the very least, I was unable to verify them. They included statements about Washington being investigated by various authorities, which I have not been able to find any source for. I would welcome seeing these edits returned, if a source can be found. Christopher Busta-Peck | Talk 14:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's look at the net of those diffs:

• Erasure of the facts that Washington is an entrepreneur and engraver — POV-pushing.

OK, what about the reverse? Where is there proof that this man engraved anything? He more likely merely made photocopies of original works onto thin paper, and then traced the copies on wood blocks IF these blocks even exist. Not exactly an artist!! Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Listing of artists whom Washington has copied — verifiable. See Washington Unmasked for examples, or just prowl through scans of his images and then of the works of these artists.

Washington admitted in the Forbes article that he forged the name of Earl Gill on a stack of copies. The Escher estate specifically discusses Washington's fakes on their website (excerpted below)Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Inserting of the word “sometimes”, as if to suggest that Washington has at other times offered images without any modification — technically impossible, though an editor might find a duplicate so precisely accurate that we would accept it as an unmodified copy.

The Escher copies were indeed merely modern photocopies from the Escher catalogue raisonne, this can and has been verified with the owner of the Escher copyrights. (see below) Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• “Washington is often portrayed as having been the woodcut master in the US for these artists,” — potentially verifiable.

Easily verified with the Escher estate at www.mcescher.com, under "news" and then "Warning False Prints". This is from this official Escher websitePrintguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC):

Warning! False M.C. Escher prints are being offered for sale!

In California, in the Sacramento area, so-called M.C. Escher woodblock prints/proofs are being offered for sale. These prints are also being offered for sale at eBay by various individuals/dealers. The prints are NOT printed from the original blocks. It concerns the following prints (numbers relate to the prints as depicted in the book: M.C. Escher, His Life and Complete Graphic Work [ published by Abrahams, New York])163; 164; 172; 175; 178; 179; 183; 184; 187; 195; 196; 293; 361; 364; 368; 370; 393; 398 and 430.

Auction in Switzerland ?

These prints were first offered at eBay in May 1999 by a company called Every Era, Sacramento. The story behind them was that "in about 1958 an auction was held in Switzerland. The purpose was to liquidate the business of a printer who specialized in private press editions. During the course of that auction a single lot consisting of hundreds of reams of blank paper was sold. It was later discovered that buried deep within the masses of blank paper these were these prints we are now offering on Ebay" (end quote). They were selling 325 sets of 19 prints each. We received a set and checked them with the original woodcuts in our possession and found them to be fakes. Their measurements do not match the originals (you can look these up in the book M.C. Escher His Life and Complete Graphic Work and compare them yourself) and they had all been tampered with. They were withdrawn from eBay.

Earl M. Washington

Then the story changed. They are now being offered for sale by a Mr. Earl M. Washington, http://www.earlmwashington.com who says he is the great-grandson of another Earl M. Washington, who apparently died in 1952. He was either an artist/printmaker/block maker/collector (the story varies). These prints have nothing to do with the original prints made by M.C. Escher during his lifetime. The dimensions are wrong, some prints come from the Emblemata series, three from Scholastica and the rest are odd prints. Some of the Emblemata ones have their top and bottom text missing. Why would M.C. Escher grant permission for anyone to make a private press printing of prints that already appeared in two printings? Why would he leave out essential texts which were cut into the same block as the picture? Why include an invitation to an exhibition in it when this invitation only has text? We have access to Mr. Escher's private administration and his diaries. Nowhere can be found that an additional printing was scheduled, not in Switzerland and not in the USA. Mr. Escher was very meticulous and wrote everything down. Mr. Washington's name appears nowhere and neither do these fake prints. Most importantly, the dimensions are wrong!

Washington used the above story as part of his created past Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• “but this is not true” — trivially true (once a period were added).
• “Other examples are merely worthless photocopies or book plates cut from old books.” — potentially verifiable, though I've never seen evidence to this effect.

See the evidence above from the Escher copyright holders Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• “This is all in violation of US and international copyright laws.” — hyperbolic. Some of the source images are in the public domain.

This would also seem fairly obvious, as this work by Escher is NOT in the public domain! Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Insertion of “living” before “African American” — trashes the sentence to no good effect. E. Marshawn Washington did not and does not claim that his grandfather is living — with birthdate of 1860 the alleged E. Mack Washington would be 145 or 146! — and, meanwhile, is implicit through the article that, when it was written, E. Marshawn Washington was believed to be alive.

According to the Forbes article he also sometimes admits that this grandfather never existed.Printguy 22:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Insertion of “forged” — superfluous at best (no need to beat the reader over the head), and creäting a context in which the next change is misleading.
• “which he sells on Ebay” — misleading in the context. When last I saw Washington selling his own work on eBay, and identifying himself, he acknowledged that the block were made by him, &c. Most or all others now selling his work on eBay avoid making false claims about them, though some are more forthcoming than are others.

The Escher estate still claims that Washington continues to sell the fakes on eBay (above) Plus the Forbes article quotes Washington who said he planned to return to Ebay in the future. Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• “He lives in Monroe, Michigan” — potentially verifiable, though rumor has him moved to Michigan.

Where he resides is verified in the Forbe article.Printguy 22:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• “is being investigated by various authorities” — potentially verifiable.

Also verified in the Forbes articlePrintguy 22:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

So we may want to restore five or six of these changes, but about half were simply inappropriate. —12.72.68.243 02:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here are my replies:

OK, what about the reverse? Where is there proof that this man engraved anything? He more likely merely made photocopies of original works onto thin paper, and then traced the copies on wood blocks IF these blocks even exist. Not exactly an artist!! Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

That wouldn't make him not an engraver. The article doesn't claim him to be creatively talented.

See the evidence above from the Escher copyright holders Printguy 21:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's be careful here. I have little doubt that something like photocopying has been one stage in the creation of the blocks, but the edit in question asserts that the images sold are photocopies &c, which is not the same thing as their being printed with blocks derived from photocopies &c. —SlamDiego 08:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

According to the Forbes article he also sometimes admits that this grandfather never existed.Printguy 22:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

No no no! Hahaha! He had to have a grandfather! What he admits is that he has made-up what he claimed about his grandfather, including the man's name.

True, :) while he must have had a grandfather, it is very likely that he was not an artist and never passed down any woodblocks or woodcuts since no evidence of this artist exists, and also since the many if the artists whose copyrights have been violated never had their works printed in the US.

Certainly I have or have seen some “ex libris” bookplates from which E. Marshawn Washington swiped (eg by Italo Zetti), and such that I've not seen them reproduced in America, except in the form of web-content. —SlamDiego 00:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Where he resides is verified in the Forbe article.Printguy 22:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

That may be out-of-date. —SlamDiego 08:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, you've got a plain verification of some of the claims, so I think that you should edit the article to incorporate them. If you'd rather that someone else did the edit, then I'll take a shot at it. —SlamDiego 18:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that sounds like a great idea! Thank you for the offer. Printguy 22:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'll try to do that later, then. Afterwards, you can edit those bits, or we can discuss the changes here, or both. —SlamDiego 00:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The deletion discussion

In the discussion about deletion of this article, Tewfik^Talk asserted “both links to the same Forbes article”. In fact, Tewfik must have made a very cursory examination of Washington Unmasked. While it does link to the Forbes article, it also contains extensive material not in that Forbes article. —75.42.174.181 04:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)