Reader's Digest

PHOTOS: NEWSCOM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; GETTY IMAG

ES

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.

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...