Famous Fakers
Some of the world’s most prodigious and eccentric art forgers come from the UK. Together they’ve conned the art world out of millions. Here are a few of the more audacious Famous Fakers
JOHN MYATT
(above with a Van Gogh replication) pulled the “biggest art fraud of the 20th century” of by faking more than 200 works by the famed Swiss abstract sculptor and painter Giacometti, along with other modernists, using a lubricant and emulsion paint. The 72-year-old Stafordshire artist duped leading auction houses and critics for nearly a decade until his arrest in 1995. He was sentenced to a year in prison, where he was nicknamed Picasso, for conspiracy to defraud. After his release, he became an artist in his own right. More than 100 of his fakes are said to still be in circulation.
SHAUN GREENHALGH
Assisted by his octogenarian parents and Famous Fakers brother, copied works by LS Lowry, Paul Gauguin and Barbara Hepworth, among others, on the Bolton council estate where he was raised. The 56-year-old bore a grudge after being rejected by a number of galleries. Despite having no formal training, he fooled the art world, including the British Museum, for 17 years and was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Greenhalgh was released in 2010 and now has his own art website.
TOM KEATING
Said he forged Old Masters, including Renoir and Rembrandt, in protest against an art establishment that grew rich at the expense of the artists themselves. The Londoner discredited experts, while making a tidy profit, by adding a layer of glycerine to his copies. If they were ever cleaned the chemical dissolved the paint above, destroying the work. Keating, who was 66 when he died, claimed to have more than 2000 forgeries in circulation by 100 diferent artists. Charges against him were dropped due to ill health, though his condition improved soon after.
sources:Readers Digest, July 2018
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