Inspired by her aunt’s battle with cancer, Canan Dağdeviren developed a wearable ultrasound monitor that can screen women between regular checkups. She says it could save 12 million lives a year.

In 2015, Canan Dağdeviren was working as a postdoc at MIT when she learned that her aunt, Fatma, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Dağdeviren, whose work focused on building flexible devices that could capture biometric data, flew to the Netherlands to be with her relative in those last moments.

At her aunt’s bedside, Dağdeviren sketched an idea for an electronic bra with an embedded ultrasound that would be able to scan breasts much more frequently and catch cancers before they got the chance to spread.

It was just a way of offering her aunt a slice of solace at an unimaginably difficult time. But when Dağdeviren became a faculty member at MIT the following year, the bra stayed on her mind. Today, she’s an assistant professor of media and arts at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Conformable Decoders research group. Her lab’s mission is to harness and decode the world’s physical patterns—one thing that means is creating electronic devices that conform to the body and capture data.

Six and a half years later—delayed by funding struggles and technical hurdles—Dağdeviren has finally succeeded in bringing that off-the-cuff sketch to life. Her team’s latest invention is a wearable, flexible ultrasound patch that sits in the cup of a bra, held in place by magnets. “Now the technology is not a dream on a piece of paper, it’s real, that I can hold and touch and I can put on people’s breasts and see their anomalies.”

Breast cancer screening is an imperfect science. The best method doctors have is a mammogram, typically performed every two to three years for women once they turn 40 or 50. A mammogram involves an X-ray, meaning the radiation limits how frequently the test can be done. And boobs are, well, boob-y. The procedure involves squishing the breast tissue between two plates, which is not only uncomfortable, but can deform a tumor if it’s there, making it harder to image. Mammograms also don’t spot cancer as well for women with dense breast tissue.

But the ultrasound patch Dağdeviren and her team created—a palm-sized, honeycomb design, made with a 3D printer—conforms to the shape of the breast, and captures real-time data that could be sent directly to an app on a woman’s phone. (That’s the plan: Currently, the device has to be hooked up to an ultrasound machine to view the images.) “You can capture the data while you’re sipping your coffee,” Dağdeviren says. Making the patch involved miniaturizing the ultrasound technology, which her team did by incorporating a novel piezoelectric material, which can turn physical pressure into electrical energy.

The problem Dağdeviren and her team are tackling—catching breast cancer quicker—is mammoth. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime; in 2020, 685,000 people (men and women) died due to breast cancer. Instead of having one data point about your breasts every two years, if you scanned every day with a device like Dağdeviren’s, you could have 730 data points to work from, with the potential to catch malignant lumps much sooner. Dağdeviren says the device has the potential to save 12 million lives a year. 

In July 2023, her team published their first proof-of-concept paper about the technology in the journal Science Advances, where they demonstrated that the scanner could spot cysts as small as 0.3 centimeters in diameter in the breasts of a 71-year-old woman. Now they’re gearing up to carry out a larger trial with more participants, and Dağdeviren is planning to enlist the help of female faculty across MIT to test out the technology.

Dağdeviren doesn’t see the technology limited to catching breast cancer. The rest of the human body is up for inspection, too: She even placed it on her belly when she was pregnant to watch her baby kicking inside. She plans to start her own company to license it to health care systems once it gets approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.

To begin with, Dağdeviren wants the technology to be made available to high-risk women like her, who have a family history of breast cancer. She also wants it to reach underserved female populations, like Black and brown women, and women in poorer countries who may not have access to screening programs.

Ultimately, Dağdeviren wants to give people the opportunity to know what’s happening inside their bodies every day, the same way we check the weather forecast. “Isn’t it funny, you know everything about the outside—how come you don’t know about your own tissues in this century?”

This article first appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of WIRED UK

 

By: Marcha Isabelle Chaudry, Esq.,

Founder, The Equity and Wellness Collaborative

 

Miami, FL — It’s vital for both men and women to be aware of the potentially harmful ingredients in cosmetics. With the recent passage of the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA), it’s time to take a closer look at what’s in our products and understand the importance of making informed choices.

 

Chaudry added, “We must scrutinize what we apply to our bodies. By staying informed and cautious, we can protect our health and advocate for safer beauty and personal care products.”

 

The Equity and Wellness Collaborative is a public policy consultancy providing strategic solutions to businesses for FDA compliance, program development, and planning across critical sectors encompassing cosmetics, clinical trials, dietary supplements, and women’s health.

 

The Risks Hidden in Your Cosmetics

Despite regulatory advancements, not all cosmetics are created equal. Some products on the shelves may contain ingredients that pose risks to your health. Knowing what to look out for is key to safeguarding your wellbeing.

 

Unhealthy Ingredients to Watch Out For:

 

1. Mercury in Anti-Aging Creams: Recent studies have discovered dangerous levels of mercury in some anti-aging creams. Mercury, a toxic element, can have severe health implications, including skin and neurological damage.

 

2. Chemicals in Hair Dyes and Straighteners: There is a growing body of evidence linking certain chemicals in hair dyes and straighteners to serious health concerns, such as breast and uterine cancer. These findings underscore the need for careful consideration when choosing hair care products.

 

3. Parabens and Phthalates: Commonly used as preservatives in various cosmetics, these chemicals are known to disrupt hormonal balance and have been associated with reproductive issues and certain types of cancer.

 

4. Formaldehyde Releasers: Used in hair straightening products and nail polishes, these compounds can release formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, into the air, posing risks to both users and salon professionals.

 

5. Synthetic Fragrances: Often a blend of undisclosed chemicals, synthetic fragrances can trigger allergies and have been linked to reproductive and developmental toxicity.

 

The Importance of Reading Labels

Understanding ingredient lists is crucial. Look for products with fewer and more natural ingredients. Be skeptical of claims like “organic” or “natural,” as they are not always regulated.

 

The Role of Consumers in Product Safety

While MoCRA has enhanced regulatory oversight, it’s essential to remember that not all products undergo stringent safety testing. Consumers must stay informed about product recalls and research their cosmetics. It’s important to note that cosmetic manufacturers are still not required to obtain FDA approval before market release. This means consumers continue to shoulder some responsibility in ensuring product safety. Vigilance in product selection, understanding ingredient lists, and staying informed about product recalls remain crucial.

 

Alternatives and Safe Practices

1. Prioritize Transparency: Choose brands that disclose full ingredient lists.

2. Patch Testing: Test new products on a small skin area before full use. 

3. Stay Informed: Follow updates on cosmetic safety and recalls.

4. Seek Certified Products: Look for certifications like “EWG Verified” for safer choices.

 

Lois Whitman-Hess

HWH PR

(917) 822-2591

loisw@hwhpr.com

He Was One of the Central Park Five. Now He’s Councilman Yusef Salaam.

Mr. Salaam will take office 34 years after a wrongful prosecution for rape led to his spending nearly seven years in prison.

By Katherine Rosman

Yusef Salaam stood at the front of the City Council Chamber in Lower Manhattan with his right hand raised and his left hand on the Quran held by his wife. It was the one that his mother gave him when he was 15 years old and standing trial for a crime he did not commit. Its pages, filled with notes and bookmarks, were kept intact by a cloth cover that Mr. Salaam made during nearly seven years in prison.

Surrounded by relatives including his mother, sister and some of his children, Mr. Salaam was asked by Michael McSweeney, the city clerk, to repeat an oath.

With each passage that Mr. McSweeney recited and Mr. Salaam repeated, their voices took on volume and urgency: “I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York,” Mr. Salaam said. “I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of council member of the ninth district, in the borough and county of New York, in the City of New York, according to the best of my ability.”

“Council Member Salaam,” Mr. McSweeney said, “Congratulations.”

Mr. Salaam’s family broke into cheers. He placed his hand over his heart.

It was one day and 21 years after his exoneration from a first-degree rape conviction in a case so brutal that it had stunned a crime-weary city and aligned New York’s political, law enforcement and media establishment squarely against him and his co-defendants.

In 1990, Mr. Salaam was sent to prison as one of the “Central Park Five.” This summer, he beat two incumbent State Assembly members in a Democratic primary and officially won the Council seat in an uncontested election in November. He will take office on New Year’s Day.

Mr. Salaam is a political neophyte whose skill as an operator within the byzantine universe of the city’s municipal government is completely untested. “I’m not a part of that world,” he acknowledged. “It takes time.”

His value to his constituents in Harlem is not measured, at least not yet, by a talent for weighing policy matters or solving neighborhood problems.

He brings to his community the power and the symbolism of his own life story. “Everything — every single thing — that I experienced has prepared me for this,” Mr. Salaam said before being sworn in on Dec. 20. “I needed to be in the belly of the beast, because now I can see that those who are closest to the pain need to have a seat at the table.”

Those who have followed the story closely, watching Mr. Salaam’s rise from a powerless member of the Central Park Five to an elected official in the very city that wronged him so terribly, appreciate the astonishing arc of his life.

“This is what justice looks like,” said Ken Burns, one of the directors of the 2012 “Central Park Five” documentary that told the hard-to-stomach story of the arrest, conviction and exoneration, weaving together interviews with the five men and details about the conduct of the police and the press.

“It is a testament to the resilience of the man who is about to take this position, and I think we can only just stand in awe,” Mr. Burns said.

For the other men who made up the Central Park Five — “my brothers,” as Mr. Salaam refers to Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Antron McCray — it is “a full-circle moment,” said Mr. Santana.

“There is a lot of emotion in knowing that we are all these years later still trying to make a difference, still trying to give back,” he said.

Does New York deserve the effort?

“Not at all,” Mr. Santana said. Then he added, “But the people do.”

When Mr. Salaam, now 49, walks the streets of Harlem, even on a blustery cold day when few are outdoors, he is recognized. “I’ve really been a public citizen since I’ve been 15,” he said.

One day in December, he left the campaign office on West 135th Street and headed east. He shook his head at a man on a bicycle who whizzed by on the walkway. “I really want to get these bikes and scooters off the sidewalk,” he said. “I want there to be quality of life in Harlem.”

Darryl T. Downing, a marketing consultant, stopped to say hello. “Let me shake your hand,” Mr. Downing said. He had met Mr. Salaam during the campaign and thought his experience would benefit Harlem. “He knows about renaissance,” Mr. Downing said. “He knows about rebirth.”

Mr. Salaam ambled on, chatting easily with other constituents as he strode the neighborhood that has defined the most important events in his life.

In April 1989, along with other Black and Latino teenagers, he was accused of the rape and assault of a white woman who had gone for a nighttime jog in Central Park. Mr. Salaam had been near the park with a friend and happened upon a larger group of teenagers whom the police and the press later accused of “wilding” — a term which, from that moment, entered the lexicon of New York, creating a fear that large groups of young men of color were suddenly marauding through the city.

New York in the 1980s was already on edge because of crime and violence, and the report of “wilding” and a rape in Central Park amplified the panic. Mayor Edward I. Koch called the teenagers “monsters.” A Daily News front page headline said, “Wolf Pack’s Prey: Female jogger near death after savage attack by roving gang.” Donald Trump, then a prominent developer, took out full-page advertisements in newspapers including The New York Times about the case. “Bring Back the Death Penalty,” the headline said.

In two trials, juries convicted the five teenagers based on false confessions, inconclusive physical evidence and no eyewitness testimony. (Mr. Salaam never signed a confession, nor was he videotaped providing one.)

The five unsuccessfully appealed their convictions and maintained their innocence.

Better Not Bitter

In 1997, Mr. Salaam was released from prison. He moved back into the Schomburg Plaza housing development in Harlem with his mother but, as a felon and registered sex offender, struggled to find work. He was ill-equipped at 23 to pick up the life he left at 15. “Coming home was the most exciting time of my life, but it was also the most challenging,” he said. “You don’t know how to live.”

He found relief in books and motivational speakers. He tried to internalize Nelson Mandela’s words, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”

In early 2002, after four of the Central Park Five had finished serving their prison terms, a man named Matias Reyes, a murderer and serial rapist who was already in prison, confessed to the rape, providing a DNA match to evidence found at the scene. By year’s end, a judge voided the convictions of the five men.

In 2007, Mr. Salaam met and then married his wife, Sanovia Salaam, becoming a father to her three children, in addition to the three daughters from his first marriage. (Together they also have four children, ages 7 to 15). He began to work with the Innocence Project, a criminal justice reform group that seeks to overturn wrongful convictions, and is now a member of the board.

But he said he and the others still lived under the shadow of the crime.

That began to change in 2011, when the book “The Central Park Five” by Sarah Burns led to a documentary of the same name, directed by Ms. Burns, her husband, David McMahon, and her father, Ken Burns.

Mr. Burns, Mr. Salaam said, “gave us our voices back.”

The film helped Mr. Salaam build a career as a motivational speaker. The release of the Ava DuVernay Netflix series “When They See Us” and his own memoir, “Better, Not Bitter” heightened his renown.

A few years after the documentary aired, bringing widespread attention to the injustices suffered by the young men, the city agreed to a settlement, paying each about $1 million for each year they served in prison.

“The compensation is a Band-Aid,” Mr. Salaam said. “It’s not complete justice, but it gives you the opportunity to finally take a break from the rigors of what life had become for us.”

Mr. Salaam and his wife decided to raise their family in Stockbridge, Ga., near Atlanta. They lived in a nice house, surrounded by deer, rabbits and humming birds. But it was almost too peaceful. When he looked up at the sky, it reminded him of “The Simpsons.”

“It felt like I retired,” he said.

Mr. Salaam had been traveling the country and speaking to audiences about racial justice, and he began to think about running for public office.

“You could go into politics anywhere,” he said a cousin told him, “but anywhere other than New York is Off Broadway.”

The timing was good. In 2022, Keith Wright, the New York County Democratic leader, flew to Atlanta to ask Mr. Salaam to consider running for City Council. The meeting confirmed his perception of Mr. Salaam as a figure of intellectual heft and righteousness, he said.

“Yusef is Harlem’s version of Nelson Mandela,” he said.

Much of the political establishment, including Mayor Eric Adams, supported Mr. Salaam’s more seasoned primary opponents. And while some in Harlem privately say they are reserving judgment, others say his inexperience is not a concern — and may perhaps provide a breath of fresh air. “Harlem suffers from a tenacious grip that the old guard retains on positions of power,” said Shawn Hill, a founder of the Greater Harlem Coalition, a group of community-based organizations working for systemic justice.

Now that he has won, Mr. Salaam knows there will be a learning curve at City Hall — and that he will have to manage his constituents’ expectations.

He found a four-day orientation session illuminating. A portion of one day was spent learning how a road gets fixed, to show the complications of municipal government.

“The process isn’t like, ‘Oh, I want a road built, let me block the street for a second with no permits and just have my friends help and, oh, shucks, how am I going to get a cement truck?’” he said. “It’s a whole process, and it might not happen tomorrow. It might not even happen during the entire time of your elective office.”

Mr. Salaam shared with voters his vision for a “new Harlem renaissance” and said he hopes to focus on the quality of public schools, availability of affordable housing and keeping young people engaged in their community.

He said his background leads many to miscast him as a far-left progressive. “People think I am ‘Defund the Police’ and ‘Abolish Prisons,’ but we need prisons for real criminals,” he said.

“I mean, if we abolished prisons, where would Donald Trump go,” he said, allowing himself the quickest smile. Mr. Trump declined to comment.

Many people at a fund-raising celebration held at Melba’sRestaurant in Harlem after Mr. Salaam’s swearing-in mentioned Mr. Trump — mostly to note Mr. Salaam’s transcendence amid Mr. Trump’s legal woes.

“A movie script writer could not make this up,” said Hisham Tawfiq, who grew up in the neighborhood. He recalled the way that the police seized on the term “wilding” amid the Central Park Five case. “You all going wilding?” he said a police officer once asked him, pointing a gun at him and a group of friends on the subway just after Mr. Salaam’s arrest in 1989.

“Imagine how many brothers and sisters were harassed like that because of that incident,” he said.

Mr. Salaam’s supporters talked local politics, as waiters passed trays of macaroni-and-cheese bites and fried chicken and waffles. For many, it was also a night of personal reflection.

“It’s incredible that our last name is now a part of a legacy,” said one of his daughters, Poetry Salaam, 20.

Kevin Richardson came from New Jersey to toast Mr. Salaam.

During their incarceration, the two men were for a time housed in the same prison. When they saw each other at meals, they would link eyes, lift a milk carton and call out, “To the good life.”

Mr. Richardson remembered it as an act of hope. “We had to change the dynamic,” even for a moment, he said.

Now, he said, “I’m a girl-dad.” He took a look around the room. “Life is good.”

Soon Mr. Salaam addressed the crowd. “You all stood by me, you all stood with me, you carried me up,” he said.

As he campaigned through the district, “You all were telling me that I was what you had hoped for,” Mr. Salaam said.

He added, “What people see in me, I see in you.”

Katie Rosman is a reporter for the Metro desk, contributing narratives and profiles about people, events and dynamics in New York City and its outer reaches. More about Katherine Rosman

Jack Carr draws in unlikely readers with his personal details from battle and Amazon turns his work into a TV show

‘I’m bringing the feeling and emotions of somebody who fought,’ says author Jack Carr of his writing. PHOTO: SIMON & SCHUSTER

By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

Some writers sell fantasy, romance or mystery. Former Navy SEAL Jack Carr trades in his precise knowledge of guns and battlefield tactics. 

In Carr’s latest novel, “Only the Dead,” battle-scarred James Reece opens a family trunk full of deadly weaponry.

He “reached inside and removed the 9mm Smith & Wesson M39 from the chest. Better known in the SEAL Teams as the Mk 22 ‘Hush Puppy,’ it had earned a legendary reputation in the jungles of Vietnam for silently eliminating sentries and guard dogs.” Soon, Reece is grabbing a box of “9mm Super Vel subsonic ammunition.”

That ultrarealistic detail is Carr’s signature. It’s part of the formula propelling him to success in a competitive genre, military and political thrillers, where few newcomers break out. Drawing on his experience, Carr spins tales about a SEAL who begins on a mission to avenge the deaths of his family and winds up unraveling terrorist plots and global conspiracies. 

Combined, his six books have sold about 3.3 million copies in all formats, according to publisher Simon & Schuster, with “Only the Dead” so far accounting for 300,000. His seventh, “Red Sky Mourning,” is expected to publish next spring.

His cumulative sales put him in a league reached by less than 1% of all authors, according to an estimate from publishing executives. Carr’s last two novels each made its debut at No. 1 on the New York Timeshardcover bestseller fiction list.

Tom Clancy was the father of military fiction, but he never served. Carr enlisted as a Navy SEAL in 1996 and saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan before leaving Naval Special Warfare in 2016.  

“I’m bringing the feeling and emotions of somebody who fought,” Carr said in an interview. “You can’t fake that, or if you did you couldn’t do it for long.” 

Carr’s books are laced with themes of patriotism and loyalty. That authenticity is attracting infrequent readers who are normally hard for publishers to reach. 

Amazon Prime Video has ordered a second season and a prequel to ‘The Terminal List’ starring Chris Pratt. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Literary agent Shane Salerno, who represents several successful thriller writers, said Carr has “managed in a very unique way to capture young men who are often difficult to market to and even harder to get to convert to purchase a $25 book.” Carr says some fans tell him they haven’t read a book since high school.

Cole Maund, a 31-year-old aircraft mechanic from Dothan, Ala., first heard about Carr from a friend and got hooked after reading his debut, “The Terminal List.” “I barely ever read at all but this was one book I couldn’t put down,” he said. “He grabs you.” Maund has now read all six books and has already preordered the seventh.    

Carr has taken his place among the big names of the category, from Clancy to Vince Flynn to Brad Thor. But while he’s a commercial success, he’s been overlooked by the literary establishment—with few if any newspaper book reviews. “My guess is that English majors don’t groove on guns,” said literary agent Richard Pine. 

Jack Carr is a pseudonym that the author says he uses out of concerns for his security. 

Carr grew up in Northern California and says he knew he wanted to be a Navy SEAL after seeing the 1951 World War II movie, “The Frogmen,” as a seven-year-old. His mother, a librarian, encouraged him to read, and he embraced such thriller writers as Clancy, David Morrell and A.J. Quinnell.  

As a child of the 1980s, he says, he always believed he would be a Navy SEAL—and would one day top the New York Times bestseller list. 

“That was a natural part of my foundation,” he says. “I knew that was the path and never worried about it.” 

Carr says neither he nor his wife grew up with money; investing everything in his writing career after leaving the SEALs was a risk for both. A child with special needs who requires round-the-clock care has given Carr even greater focus. 

Amazon Prime Video created a TV show starring Chris Pratt based on “The Terminal List.” It has ordered a second season and a prequel.

Some readers say he injects a right-wing political worldview into his novels. Hugh Carter, a 45-year-old communications consultant based in Toronto, said he’d been a huge Clancy fan as a kid and hoped that Carr’s books would be like those. Instead, he found them “so specifically rooted in modern politics and the culture wars that it was a turnoff.”

In a reference to an Islamic militant attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, he wrote in one book that “a small group of CIA contractors fought for their lives while politicians half a world away, in no danger of being overrun, could hardly be bothered to respond to requests for reinforcements.” 

Carr at the premiere of ‘The Terminal List’ in Los Angeles in 2022. PHOTO: NINA PROMMER/SHUTTERSTOCK

Carr initially worked with a writing partner, Keith Wood, who is a lawyer and freelance contributor to gun magazines. Wood, who lives in Alabama, said the two met through a mutual friend and hit it off. They later had a falling out that focused in part on how much credit Wood would claim publicly.  

“We haven’t spoken in years, although at one time we were really good friends,” said Wood. Carr declined to comment on Wood.

Emily Bestler, an editor at Simon & Schuster, said she acquired Carr’s debut manuscript, “The Terminal List,” after a recommendation from Brad Thor, whom she also publishes. It was a good bet. 

“We have a lot of young military guys who pick up the entire series before they deploy,” said Maria Oytas, who manages Bay Books, an independent bookstore in Coronado, Calif.

Carr has worked to extend his brand beyond books. Carr’s podcast, “Danger Close,” attracts a minimum of approximately 224,000 monthly listeners, according to Podchaser, a podcast data firm, with an audience that skews 91% male. Carr feeds his social-media followers daily content about their shared interests in weapons, hunting and action movies, with references to stars like Sylvester Stallone. 

Carr’s website offers a Jack Carr Operator Hat with crossed tomahawks for $48; a Jack Carr Hunter’s Shirt for $188, and Jack Carr Revenge Blend coffee for $11.90 (“Feel free to add some cream and honey to take it like Navy SEAL Sniper James Reece.”) 

Carr believed from the beginning that readers would embrace his use of military jargon. In “The Terminal List,” he describes a soldier in Afghanistan as looking “like a creature from another world with his AOR1-patterned camouflage, body armor, and Ops Core half-shell helmet with NODs firmly in place.” 

Too much? No, says Carr. “It gives my characters legitimacy to see that the right helmet is described correctly,” he said.

Kenzie Fitzpatrick, a competitive professional shooter, recently spent a day with Carr at a shooting range in Utah. “When I’m reading his books I think, ‘That’s how I would load that ammunition,’ or ‘that’s the tool I would use to gauge my ballistic data at long range,’” she said.

Doug Downs, a professor at Montana State University who studies gun culture from a linguistics perspective, said most people look at any writing that involves guns through a political lens. 

“People who enjoy his work view guns as tools,” Downs said. “That’s not how you hear people outside that culture talk about them.” 

Others are drawn to the themes in Carr’s work, especially an optimism that ideals are worth standing up for. Don Bentley, a former Army Apache helicopter pilot who also became a thriller writer, said of Carr’s work,“The characters may be flawed, but they aspire to be the person we want to be.

Dick Wolf, ‘Law & Order’ Creator, Gives 200 Artworks to the Met Museum

Wolf has promised works by Botticelli, the Gentileschis and van Gogh to the museum, which is also naming two galleries for him thanks to a large financial donation.

By Zachary Small

Dec. 20, 2023

Dick Wolf, the “Law & Order” creator, has made a promised gift of more than 200 works — paintings, sculptures and drawings among them — for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collections of Renaissance and Baroque art. He is also donating a substantial sum of money, the Met announced on Wednesday, adding that it would endow two galleries with his name.

Wolf has been a discreet collector in the art world, focusing his attention on older works at a time when the most well-known collectors invest in modern and contemporary art. Some of his promised gifts to the museum were also recent purchases, including a 15th-century Botticelli painting that sold for $4.6 million in 2012 and a 16th-century Orazio Gentileschi painting that sold for $4.4 million in 2022. The Gentileschi is already on view in the newly reopened European paintings galleries; Wolf is also donating a piece by the artist’s daughter, Artemisia, which sold for $2.1 million that same year.

Max Hollein, the Met’s director and chief executive, said that he and the museum’s curators cultivated a relationship with the television producer over the last three years; however, he stayed away from giving advice on the market.

“I never wanted to be too presumptuous,” Hollein said in an interview. “But I think he was already thinking about the Met.”

The collection also includes a $2.8 million painting by van Gogh sold in 2022, “Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather,” one of his earliest oil landscapes. The painting was made in 1882, at the beach outside of the fishing village of Scheveningen, but the artist later abandoned the picture inside of a crate of some 40 works. His family stored the crate with a carpenter, who later sold the contents for the equivalent of 50 cents to a junk dealer named Johannes Couvreur.

A museum spokeswoman declined to provide a specific number for the endowment, which will ensure Wolf’s name is on two galleries in the department of European sculpture and decorative arts, but said it was in the tens of millions of dollars.

Wolf declined an interview but said in a statement that his appreciation for art started when he was a child visiting the Met on his way home from school. “It was a simpler time, there was no admission, you could walk in off the street,” he said. “I’m sure most collectors would agree that seeing your art displayed in the world’s greatest museum is an honor.”

Hollein characterized Wolf’s donation as one of the most meaningful gifts to the museum in recent memory.

“The collection reflects Dick Wolf’s excellent connoisseurship and enduring dedication to the diverse artistic media of the periods,” he said. “Furthermore, the substantial financial contribution will provide critical support for the Met’s collection displays and scholarly pursuits.”

A correction was made on December 20, 2023:

An earlier version of this article misstated the department in which two galleries will have Dick Wolf’s name. It is the department of European sculpture and decorative arts, not the department of European painting and decorative arts.

---

Zachary Small is a reporter who covers the dynamics of power and privilege in the art world. They have written for The Times since 2019.More about Zachary Small

Hermes billionaire wants to bequeath fortune to his gardener

By Hanna Ziady, CNN

Nicolas Puech, heir of the Hermes family, pictured on his estate in Spain in March 2011 —

A descendant of Europe’s richest family has reportedly begun a process to adopt his middle-aged gardener, planning to leave him at least half of his roughly €12 billion ($13 billion) fortune.

Nicolas Puech, 80, a fifth-generation descendant of the founder of French luxury goods company Hermes, wants to cancel a contract that would bequeath his fortune to the Isocrates Foundation, which he founded, and instead make his employee a legal heir.

Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 heures reported the news earlier this month.

The charitable foundation is contesting Puech’s plan to cut ties, which it says it learned of only recently. “From a legal point of view, a unilateral cancellation of the contract of inheritance seems void and unfounded,” the organization said in a statement shared with CNN. “The foundation has therefore opposed the cancellation of the contract, while leaving the door open for discussions with its founder.”

Referring to the Swiss media reports on Puech’s “wish to adopt his employee,” the charity said it wasn’t in a position “to judge or comment (on) this initiative,” adding that it “leaves it to the relevant authorities to decide on this matter.” CNN has contacted the billionaire’s lawyer for comment.

Established by Puech in 2011 and funded by him since, the Isocrates Foundation supports public interest journalism and civil society organizations working toward a “healthy digital public space,” according to its website.

The inheritance contract between the foundation and Puech, who isn’t known to have children, reportedly provides for his shares in Hermes to be left to the foundation. That is, unless he becomes a father, in which case his child would be entitled to a part of the inheritance, and at least 50% in the case of a son.

Puech purportedly owns 5.7% of Hermes, a company known for its silk scarves and leather handbags. A post-pandemic boom in demand for luxury goods has propelled Hermes to a valuation of nearly €211 billion ($230.8 billion), making Puech’s stake worth around €12 billion.

Hermes stopped breaking out Puech’s stake in 2016 but listed him as holding a 5.8% stake in its 2015 annual report. The latest report lists “other members of the Hermes family group” as holding a 5.7% share in the firm.

The Hermes family is the world’s third wealthiest, according to an annual Bloomberg ranking published earlier this month.

Richard Ekstract is mentioned in a recent WSJ article which features the book “Warhol After Warhol: Secrets, Lies, & Corruption in the Art World.” Richard got cheated out of millions of dollars because he couldn’t get his Warhol painting authenticated. Read on for the details.

Roger M. Heuberger emailed this recent WSJ article to Marcia Grand and me. I coincidentally bought the ereader version of the book a week ago. Thank you Roger.

By Belinda Lacks

In 2003, Richard Dorment received a call from a man named Joe Simon, a film producer who had bought a print of Andy Warhol’s “Red Self-Portrait” in 1989 for $195,000. Mr. Simon now wanted to sell his print for $2 million, but there was a wrinkle: It had been declared a fake by the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. Mr. Simon asked Mr. Dorment, an art historian and, at the time, the chief art critic at the Daily Telegraph, to offer some expert insight into why the print had been rejected. Mr. Dorment said he didn’t want to get involved—he’s no Warhol expert, he demurred—but Mr. Simon steamrolled over his objections and eventually pulled him into a high-stakes dispute with a formidable art organization.

At the heart of the debate were Warhol’s working methods. To mass-produce his paintings, Warhol used a commercial printing technique called silk-screening, a quick process for making multiple copies of an image. Prior to Warhol, silk-screening was rarely used for fine art, but it proved to have many advantages over traditional printmaking methods, such as etching, which limits the number of prints that can be made. Early in his career, to create texture, Warhol would add paint flourishes by hand to his silk-screened pictures. By the 1970s, most of his work was produced by third parties, with the artist delivering instructions to his printers over the phone. Outsourcing further allowed him to churn out so many prints that his art dealers feared he’d flood the market. It also made him one of the world’s easiest artists to fake.

Today, discerning which Warhol pictures are genuine is the business of authenticators, whose trained eyes and in-depth knowledge are supposed to be bulwarks against forgeries. Sometimes authenticators make bad calls, prompting other experts to weigh in and correct the error. With reputations and multimillion-dollar fortunes at stake, convincing an authenticator to reverse a decision is rarely easy. Armed with conclusive evidence, however, it shouldn’t be impossible—unless, as Mr. Dorment discovered, you’re going up against a powerful, moneyed and secretive authentication board. “Warhol After Warhol: Secrets, Lies, & Corruption in the Art World” is Mr. Dorment’s riveting memoir of how he tried to prove the authenticity—and importance—of Mr. Simon’s “Red Self-Portrait.”

The elements at the root of the global economy, the tragedy of Benedict Arnold, how to tell if you’ve got a real Warhol and more.
Mr. Dorment initially concedes that Mr. Simon’s painting looks like a fake. “Red Self-Portrait” is one of Warhol’s best-known works, but it was originally made as a series of 11 silk screens in 1964, a year before Mr. Simon’s print was produced. The subject matter of both versions is the same—the expressionless face and shoulders of a young Andy Warhol, photographed in an automatic photo booth in Times Square—but there are some critical differences. The first batch was printed on linen (Warhol’s preferred material) with an acrylic-paint background; Mr. Simon’s was printed on cotton duck using a plastic-based ink that gives the picture a shiny surface.

The authentication board recognized the 1964 series as genuine; in 2006 one print from the series sold for $3.7 million. But the board deemed Mr. Simon’s picture to be counterfeit, and stamped the back with a red “Denied”—a stain that, in effect, makes it worthless. Mr. Dorment spends much of his scholarly yet wholly accessible account discrediting that judgment. Drawing from eyewitness statements of those who knew and worked with Warhol, the author argues that not only did the artist authorize the second printing, he also approved of it—so much so that he chose the 1965 version over the original to be the cover image of his first catalogue raisonné, published in 1970.

Warhol’s motivation for producing the later series explains its perceived faults. In 1965 Warhol’s friend, a magazine publisher named Richard Ekstract, arranged for the artist to borrow a prototype of an early consumer videotape recorder. Warhol quickly realized the camera’s filmmaking potential and wanted more time with it, so he cut Ekstract a deal: For an extension on the use of the camera and other electronic equipment, Warhol would produce a new set of “Red Self-Portraits” for the publisher. To save money, Warhol’s business manager hatched the idea of turning over the original acetates to Ekstract so the publisher could foot the costly silk-screening bill. Since Warhol didn’t directly supervise the work, the pictures look very different from their predecessors.

Why, then, would the Warhol board deny the authenticity of the second series? “As far as I could see,” Mr. Dorment writes, “they did this for no other reason than because the date of its creation did not accord with their predetermined belief that Warhol did not start making ‘hands-off’ works until the 1970s.” In any case, the board refused to disclose the rationale behind its decision, so Mr. Simon spent years gathering documentation to disprove it. Having failed to accomplish that, in 2007 he brought a $20 million lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the authentication board’s parent organization. Mr. Simon accused the foundation of artificially driving up the value of its own collection—from which it occasionally sells pieces—by removing legitimate competing artwork from the market. (The board contacted other owners of the later “Red Self-Portrait” series and invited them to submit their pictures for authentication with, according to Mr. Dorment, “the deliberate intention of mutilating them.”) Mr. Dorment wrote articles in the New York Review of Books in support of Mr. Simon’s picture, attracting the wrath of the foundation’s president, Joel Wachs, who, in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, accused Mr. Dorment of applying pressure on the board to authenticate a different painting owned by Mr. Simon that was truly a forgery. Mr. Dorment calls the allegation a libel designed to “damage my reputation for integrity both as a critic and as an art historian.” The Guardian eventually printed a correction.

Mr. Simon’s case proved ill-fated. A friend, the Russian oligarch Leonid Rozhetskin, promised to pay his legal bills. But before the trial even began, Rozhetskin disappeared and was later found dead. (Apparently Rozhetskin had fallen afoul of one of Vladimir Putin’s cronies.) That left Mr. Simon at a disadvantage against the deep-pocketed foundation. Mr. Dorment recounts the courtroom antics in painful detail, as the defense counsel buried the real issue of authenticity under what he describes as a mountain of theatrics, obstructions and diversions designed to prolong the trial. The foundation ended up spending $7 million in legal fees, forcing Mr. Simon, who could no longer afford litigation, to drop the case.
Mr. Dorment’s is an entirely one-sided account; we never really get to hear the foundation’s version of any of these events. But then he might say that is his point: In the context of Warhol, the foundation’s version of history shouldn’t be the only official version allowed. For Mr. Dorment, the board’s refusal to recognize the picture is an affront to Warhol’s legacy—the very thing the foundation was established to protect. The picture is not only authentic, Mr. Dorment asserts, but “the hinge that opened the door into Warhol’s hands-off working methods.”

In 2011 the authentication board stopped accepting submissions from the public but, as Mr. Dorment notes, continues to wield influence through its catalogue raisonné, which excludes the 1965 edition of “Red Self-Portrait,” rendering it virtually untouchable. In 2022 Richard Ekstract—who died earlier this year—offered his unsigned “Red Self-Portrait” for auction. Estimated to fetch between $500,000 to $700,000, it failed to sell.

Ms. Lanks is a New York-based editor and writer