Four of the World's Most Notorious Art Forgers

Art is not how gifted a person is with creating a piece of artistic genius with qualities of extraordinary beauty creating a beautiful exquisite piece of art. means nothing to art lovers if they don’t demand the highest monetary value in their selling to the world’s richest people. Most expensive art is not a masterpieces genius but a great famous highest values in sales history that are not in any way genius created but popular known rather than exquisite masterpieces.

You missed an hilarious one: Eric Hebborn

Ken Perenyi deserves to be on the list as well!

Tom Keating, the man who outparmered Parmer.

Great video, many thanks. I would have added the flamboyant and talented Eric Hebborn into the mix too.

Would take the video more seriously if you narrated more normally. What's the rush?

I admire forgers because they are superb artists and they fool pretentious "experts." I dislike pretentious, preening, posturing, dishonest, arrogant "experts."

In his autobiography, American forger Ken Perenyi claimed that he did not claim that his forgeries were originals, telling galleries and auction houses that they had been left to him by relatives, bought at flea markets, etc. He let the customer make the claims. It may have worked because despite a reputed FBI investigation he was never charged.

The last guy and his wife are insufferable, watching their interviews is painfull and to publish a book of you and your wife's love letters to eachother is the most arrogant self obsessed thing i have ever heard of.

BRITAIN'S No1 ART FORGER - MAX BRANDRETT, THE LIFE OF A CHEEKY FAKER biography is out now!

Wolfgang Beltracchi in my opinion was the daddy of them all to dress his wife up as her grandmother and take photos of her in a staged room with the fake paintings on the walls amazing, also he had the ability to fake so many different artists he even thought of the paintings must have the right smell the dust must be of the right age.

Oh yeah whistle boy? ... Well…
Your Mother’s a forgery!!!
(Whistler‘s Mother)
Take that!

Pity you didn't extrapolate on Van Meegeren, there was a lot more about the affair but mayb not enough time?

Buy a real Rembrandt and sell a forgery. This guy is living life in 3021

Although not art per se, one man forged several dozens if not hundreds of religious artifacts. His name.... Oded Golan. Royal seals, ancient jewelry, aaand... the so called ‘tablet of King David’. The tablet was touted as genuine by several experts until an in-depth analysis of the patina as well as a grammatical error proved it to be false.

now that we talk about Art, i wonder how successfull Hitler would've been if the Art school in Vienna hadn't rejected him Twice.

Just wondering if you like Canada

When I was in graduate school I worked with an art historian to do carbon-14 dating and chemical analysis of paintings to check for forgeries before purchase by a local gallery.

I am a bit disappointed that you didn't include Konrad Kujau. But then, he possibly deserves a video for himself, as he single-handedly caused one of the biggest press scandals in Germany, and sold "original Kujau-forgeries".

I love the idea of art forgery. Hope to see it succeed.

" Bad artists copy. Great artists steal. " - Picasso

He would have been expelled from the UK, not Great Britain. You really should know better.

Although it's illegal, it's just one of those crimes I really find respectful. They mainly scam rich people who are obsessed by an artist's name, you can't tell the difference and it takes a lot of skill.

Would be interested in more side projects about criminals maybe a book Thief list with William jacques

You should have included Ken Perenyi

With a like to dislike ratio of almost 100:1 you probably not pay much heed ... but you need to slow down. But good choice of subjects, though.

Lol, how can you dislike these characters, duping the pretentious fops in the art world. Buyer beware!

Many real art works were lost during the Second World War, so all this forgery isn't suprising. In fact many famous artist works have been destroyed or disappeared, for many other reasons too.
Beware that if you accidentally buy a forgery, some artist's estates will insist that they be destroyed, after being found to be a fake, leaving you out of pocket on the money you paid.
If you want a genuine famous artist's work, it is often better to opt for prints, if the artist has done etchings, aquatints and / or screen prints, because paintings are often the target of forgers.

@sideprojects you should have included Mark Landis the art forger who doesn’t do it for money in fact he gives his paintings away you could do a biographics video all about him

I dunno if this is a hot take or not but I genuinely think that if the original artist is dead, then making forgeries of their work (assuming they're high quality enough to fool experts) is a victimless crime.

A few examples of their work would be welcome...
Or are there issues of copyright ?

I see the only crime being committed is not telling disgustingly rich ppl that they were not originals.

Comments

"Art experts" are notoriously full of shit. If some unknown can paint a piece that's indistinguishable from a master, why is one a master and the other is unknown? Basically they all get together and agree on what is going to be declared valuable. It has nothing to do with the aesthetic or artistic merit of the piece.

Hey, you can add Shaun Greenhalgh to that list - and he's still alive! He's still profiting in a small way from his crimes, and is now a respected artist in his own right.

Elmyr De Hory's life was documented by Orson Welles in de docudrama F For Fake. Highly recommended!

Hell not long ago twenty percent of hundred dollar bills were forgeries from China.

day 18 of suggesting “Das Bauhaus” art school.
pretty please!! 🥺🥺

Geeze, there's not much interest in this subject, apparently. I think it's a great video.

Actuallly, the greatest forgers are like the greatest spies. They’ve never been discovered.

Elmyr de Hory was also the subject of the Orson Welles movie F for Fake. I'm not sure if I'd call it a good movie, but certainly interesting.

How about a Biographics on Han van Meegeren. He discovered (created) 'new works by old masters' and and narrowly avoided the death penalty for his troubles.

20%? Har! Triggers a suggestion if applicable: many years ago but heard of an experiment/test whereupon highly-rated traditional literature was resubmitted in guise of fresh writing by unknown authors and all were summarily rejected as trash.

Video idea: body farms.

Human remains collected and doled out for forensic training or scientific use. There's a couple notable ones in Utah and Georgia

Sorry to pick you up on a technicality but forged art hasn't been around since the dawn of time. In fact, for many billion years after the big bang, there were none.

Greatest fake artist of all time, Hunter Biden.

you have missed to put Konrad Kujau in your video. Not only is he famous for the forgery of the Hitler Diaries. But he was also an excellent painter who could copy the style of nearly every old master.