Don S. Shoemaker Furniture Designs

To be able to better understand the differences between an original Don S. Shoemaker piece of furniture and a fake, I have taken some close up pictures on the most relevant discrepancies. Please visit each picture for a detailed explanation on the discrepancy. Beware of the loose elephant herd recently produced!

Remember the MANTRA: if the piece seems odd,  if the leather is new, the wood looks new and smells like new, and carries no label or stamp or is taped, then it is a forgery or a brand new copy !

Copyright © 2010-2017 Karin Goyer. All Rights Reserved

@donshoemaker.com

I have seen a wide range of fakes or attributed furniture pieces on sale on the web, magazines, flea markets and even on renowned galleries.

I have questioned myself many times: what motivates curators, gallery owners, writers, as well as the public to rely in good faith on certain traders and see betrayed their trust, if by following some very simple rules (see mantra below), it would be the most reliable filter to avoid being cheated. In a prestigious magazine I have seen published on prime time a desk that Shoemaker never designed; exhibited pieces in fairs that are not Shoemaker´s, and in galleries happens exactly the same. Does this mean, that any furniture piece that was produced in rosewood or cocobolo is attributable to Don S. Shoemaker? I invite curators, gallery owners, auction houses, writers and the general public to make a deeper research on the pieces they are being offered, as we Shoemaker collectors do around the world! I keep close contact with collectors in Germany, UK, France, the US and even some in the Orient, and we all coincide that the best defense not to be deceived is to bear in mind like a MANTRA: if the piece seems odd,  if the leather is brand new, the wood looks new and smells like new, and carries no label or stamp or is taped, then it is a forgery or a brand new copy !

This is an invitation to fight for the purity of Don S. Shoemakers lifetime work that I am sure every owner of a chair, stool or table of the real SEÑAL, S.A. production will share with me as long as when you own, care and cherish you solid tropical wood piece you become a “Shoemakeristi” and we do not want the corruption of his distinctive designs and name.

Here I will show the most underwhelming attribution examples I have come across so far on Don S. Shoemaker furniture pieces:

• This  “apple” chair – attributed to  Don S. Shoemaker – with forged Don S. Shoemaker label taped to the wood. Kind of underwhelming piece of furniture, produced in very light ordinary pine wood, oil painted, and the theme is an apple. I wonder if Don ever even considered producing “apple chairs”!  The painting is so precious to the crook, that he wrapped it in plastic to preserve his brand new piece of art. I have to apologize for the bad quality of these pictures, as they were taken on a very narrow sidewalk of a flea market….

Copyright © 2010-2017 Karin Goyer. All Rights Reserved.

@donshoemaker.com