An Artist of Talent and, Some Say, Genius, Tony Tetro Is Charged With Forging the Works of Chagall, Miro, Dali. But He Claims Only to Be . . . : The Repro Man

His bachelor condominium in Claremont was trilevel and custom-decorated in wallpaper of lizard and suede. The paintings were Picasso erotics.

Tetro knew the bistros of Paris as well as the \o7 tavernas\f7 of Rome and when in Monte Carlo he stayed at Loews but gambled at the old casino.

Yet the cool, mobile, groomed, expansive, charming and ever-partying Tetro had no visible income. Nor any apparent career, known inheritance or lottery win.

So suspicious neighbors were not at all surprised when county investigators raided the condo and arrested him.

Then the charges were announced; that really shook the complex on Manchester Court.

Tetro stood accused not of dealing drugs--but of forging the fine art of Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, and modern watercolorist Hiro Yamagata.

Specifically, he was charged with 38 felony counts of forging lithographs of paintings by Chagall, Miro and Norman Rockwell. He also faces 29 counts of forging Yamagata watercolors.

"I consider Mr. Tetro to be one of the two major (art) forgers in the United States," said district attorney's investigator Gary Helton. "The other was in New York, but he died."

Tetro--the son of a New York house painter who developed a special process for coating water towers--recalls his feelings when arrested, arraigned and proclaimed the nation's biggest art forger.

Some relief. A certain satisfaction. Also a twitch of pride.

"For well over 10 years, every cop in this valley and many people who didn't know me personally, were certain I was a drug dealer," he remembers. "I must have heard it myself, conservatively, 300 times. And the more I defended myself, the more I wasn't believed.

"Drive down the street in a Ferrari and a cop is certain that you're a drug dealer. And you are constantly harassed, constantly getting tickets for nothing, constantly getting your car searched.

"So there \o7 was\f7 some satisfaction . . . even some pride when I was arrested . . . that finally these idiots knew that I was an artist."

An artist of definite talent, he claims. Certainly a painter with a genius for re-creating the oils of Rembrandt, Renoir and Monet, right down to their signatures. But, he insists, not an art forger.

"Forgery indicates intent to defraud . . . and I never sold anything as real," he explains. "I prefer (the term) \o7 reproductions\f7 , in my definition an exact copy as close (to original) as you can do.

"Every one of my friends knew what I did. You know: 'What do you do for a living?' 'I copy masters.' I even had business cards which said: Anthony Tetro, Art Reproductions."

That explanation undergoes public examination next month when Anthony Gene Tetro, 40, ex-altar boy and a former furniture salesman for The Broadway, goes to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

At a preliminary hearing, he pleaded innocent and was released on $10,000 bail.

And in the nine months since that hearing, Tetro has concentrated on liquidating his assets to solidify finances for his defense.

He has sold the exotic cars (the Rolls-Royce went for a bargain $32,000) and now drives a Honda Civic. The condo has gone and home is a small apartment in an unimaginative complex in Upland.

Some Yamagata watercolors overlooked by raiding investigators have been sold to longtime friends such as Colton mortgage banker Ken Ketner. "I have a couple of real Chagalls and some of Tony's Chagalls and I have a lot of fun with them," said Ketner. "No one can tell the difference.

"I also have a genuine Yamagata that cost me $7,500. After his arrest, Tony sold me five or six of his Yamagatas for $1,000 for all of them. They aren't bad. And they were definitely purchased as Tetros."

Tetro has a personal publicist from Exclusive News Relations of Los Angeles. "We specialize in celebrity repositioning," notes chief press agent Mark Manning, "people who have been misunderstood by the public and the media."

The agency's fee will be a Tetro oil of Winston Churchill, and a percentage of proceeds from the sale of a Ferrari Testarossa replica that Tetro built in flusher years.

The artist has a new attorney. But Jay J Tanenbaum is working for cash only.

And as his Feb. 4 trial approaches, Tetro, who acknowledges no formal art training beyond reading books and visiting museums, agreed to his first full-length interview.

"I think we (defense) are going to show, in essence, that I painted . . . and other people did the crime," he says. "I never represented them as real. Other people sold my stuff as real.

"I want to also emphasize that most of the work that I did do was not for the art industry at all. (Art brokers) contacted me, they came to me because they found that I could copy anything and emulate anything.