Results for “fake”
The Beltracchi Forgery Ring
Rather than copy existing paintings, Wolfgang Beltracchi invented new 'lost' works by twentieth-century masters and gave them a fake history. A single anachronistic pigment brought the whole edifice down.
Van Meegeren's Vermeer Forgeries
Han van Meegeren painted 'lost' Vermeers so convincing that they entered major collections — and one reached Hermann Göring. Accused of selling a national treasure to the enemy, he confessed to the greater crime of forgery.
The Long Con of Ken Perenyi
For more than three decades Ken Perenyi flooded the market with 'antique' American and British paintings, passing thousands of fakes through the great auction houses. A five-year FBI investigation ended not in charges but in an expired statute of limitations.
The Knoedler Gallery Forgery Scandal
For over 15 years, the venerable Knoedler gallery sold some 40 forged Abstract Expressionist paintings — fake Rothkos, Pollocks, and de Koonings painted in a Queens garage — for around $80 million, before the fraud collapsed the 165-year-old institution.
The Greenhalgh 'Garden Shed' Forgeries
From a garden shed behind a Bolton council house, Shaun Greenhalgh and his elderly parents forged artworks spanning 5,000 years — most famously the 'Amarna Princess', which Bolton Museum bought for £440,000 as a 3,300-year-old Egyptian masterpiece.
John Myatt
A British painter whose 'genuine fakes' fueled what Scotland Yard called the biggest art fraud of the twentieth century, in partnership with con man John Drewe, who corrupted archives to fabricate provenance. Myatt now sells legitimate 'genuine fakes' openly.
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.
Elmyr de Hory
Hungarian-born painter who became one of the 20th century's most prolific art forgers, producing hundreds of works passed off as Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, and other modern masters. His story, and the dealers who sold his fakes, was immortalised in Clifford Irving's book 'Fake!' and Orson Welles's film 'F for Fake'. Check out this documentary @ Great Documentaries YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zurHc4itBXg And this Trailer for Orson Welles' "F is For FAKE": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAwgt2Z-3Y
Tom Keating
British art restorer who claimed to have faked more than 2,000 paintings by over 100 artists as a protest against a market that exploited artists. He planted deliberate 'time bombs' — anachronisms and hidden messages — in his fakes, and after his 1977 trial collapsed he became a popular television personality.
Mark Landis
American forger who, uniquely, never sold his fakes — he donated them to dozens of U.S. museums over three decades, sometimes posing as a priest. Because he took no money, he committed no clear crime, making him one of art forgery's strangest and most confounding figures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlp_7-YjtHg
Guy Ribes
French forger who produced thousands of convincing fakes attributed to Chagall, Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and others, many of which still circulate with false certificates. After serving prison time he went straight, later painting the on-screen artworks for the film 'Renoir'.
John Drewe
British con man behind one of the most damaging art frauds in history. Rather than forge paintings himself, he forged their provenance — infiltrating archives at the Tate and Victoria and Albert Museum to insert fake documents that authenticated works painted by John Myatt. He was convicted in 1999; many of the falsified records remain undetected.
Shaun Greenhalgh
British forger at the centre of the 'Garden Shed' or Greenhalgh family fraud, who from a council house in Bolton produced fakes spanning 5,000 years — most famously the 'Amarna Princess' bought by Bolton Museum. Working with his elderly parents George and Olive, who handled sales and provenance, he was jailed in 2007.
Robert Driessen
Dutch forger who produced roughly a thousand fake Giacometti sculptures as part of a major German-run fraud ring uncovered in 2009. He later openly sold acknowledged 'forgeries' as legal replicas, insisting his skill rivalled the masters he copied.
Geert Jan Jansen
Dutch forger who flooded the European market with fakes attributed to Karel Appel, Picasso, Matisse, and others — reportedly so convincing that Appel himself once authenticated a Jansen forgery. Arrested in France in 1994, he was released on a technicality and now sells signed 'Jansen' works openly.
Double Crossed Corbet
The Fakes Fight Back!
More than 50 counterfeit Norval Morrisseau paintings have been permanently removed from the market—but experts say thousands are still out there.
Father Daughter Forger Family's 2mil hobby
Warhol Collectors Get Bitten By The Dane!
