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On Monday, the Harvard University Art Museums released a long-anticipated scientific study, performed with the cooperation of Alex Matter, of the chemical properties of three of the paintings, finding that some paints and pigments used in the works were not patented and probably not available until long after Pollock died in 1956. Alex Matter and Dr. Landau, who has conducted extensive research into the connections between Herbert Matter and Pollock, have questioned some of the findings, and Mr. Matter stressed in a statement that he believes “the authentication of works of art is still more art than science.”
The team at Harvard responded the way that scientists generally do: by saying that there is no arguing with science. Drawing an analogy to what he said were Bush administration efforts to suppress NASA information about global warming because it was politically unpalatable, Narayan Khandekar, a conservation scientist at Harvard, said in an interview that he and others who conducted the study were “absolutely sure” of their results and that quibbles about what they found struck him as disingenuous.
“I think it’s very much dismissing information because it’s inconvenient for their arguments,” he said, adding that such an approach to scholarly debate is “a little like Stephen Colbert’s concept of truthiness, where you’re almost there but you don’t have the whole thing.”
Dr. Landau said she did not reject science reflexively over her own experience, but added that she simply cannot reconcile the study’s findings with the other information she has collected, like a handwriting study that confirms the notes on the package were in Herbert Matter’s hands and evidence that the paintings had been corrected and retouched in a method that Pollock employed.