Ken Perenyi Master Forger

America's most prolific art forger, Perenyi spent some thirty-four years producing thousands of convincing 'antique' paintings in the manner of nineteenth-century American masters like Martin Johnson Heade and James E. Buttersworth, and British marine and sporting painters such as John F. Herring. His fakes moved through Christie's and Sotheby's — one Heade sold for $717,000 — until a five-year FBI investigation closed in on him in the late 1990s. He was never charged; the statute of limitations expired. In 2012 he told all in his memoir 'Caveat Emptor' and now sells his work openly as signed reproductions.