It's hard out there for an art forger

This essay explains how making paintings that look exactly like other paintings may be the simplest part of forging art.

Hooray for fakes?

Last week brought the funny story of guys who sold a fake painting...only to find they'd been paid in counterfeit money...and got arrested anyway.

And today I read that a lot--but sadly not all--of the statues we saw ISIS destroy in Mosul are replicas and not the ancient treasures they thought they were.

Life after forgery

In this short interview piece, a famous art forger John Myatt describes what his life is like now. Mostly, he paints. The most interesting tidbit: his first commissions after getting out of jail were from the police officer who arrested him and the barristers who worked on his case. He also says there are still about 120 of his fakes out there, and he doesn't plan on identifying them.

The Forger

(photo)

Here  (and here and here) are some links to the story of Mark Landis, an art forger who passed fakes off to dozens of museums, sometimes posing as a Jesuit Priest. But Landis has not been charged with any crime, because he never received any money for his forgeries. He just gave the (fake) art away. Apparently he feels philanthropy is the greatest feeling.

I don't know if this is a case of the truth being stranger than fiction, but it's surely a case where the truth feels like it came right out of fiction. Landis's story would make a great novel or film.