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Wednesday, April 29, 2020

03_The art___ of FORGERY_Genuine Fakes with John Myatt


Now, meet the men whose forgeries are now valuable in their own right.

1. The critic
Noah Charney is an art historian and crime specialist and the author of a new book, The Art of Forgery. In this film Noah shares what motivates forgers and what fascinates him about this little known crime.







2 - John Myatt was jailed for forgeries that fooled the auction houses. 
Now he has a 'genuine fakes' exhibition.

"I have one customer in America who has an original Van Gogh hung behind bulletproof glass and he asked me to produce another for him, to hang next to it. None of his visitors has been able to tell the difference."   

After training as an art teacher, he moved towards forgery after placing an advertisement in Private Eye for his brushwork services.   

"I got quite a lot of customers so was able to make a living from home. Someone would give me a family portrait and want me to paint them in the style of Gainsborough or Reynolds," he explained.  


One such customer kept coming back for more paintings, until one day he told Myatt he had sold a painting in the style of the German Cubist painter Albert Gleizes for £25,000, after a valuation at Christie's.  
 

"He reframed it in an old frame and sold it. He gave me half the money. I just couldn't believe it. It was not even painted in oil but in household emulsion softened by KY Jelly."   

About 80 of Myatt's fakes are believed to be in circulation, with many owners unaware that they have been the victim of a fraud estimated to be worth several million pounds.




3_ The bestest: Beltracchi - Homework

  • This mesmerizing, thought-provoking, and amusing artist delves into a craftman who for nearly four decades, fooled the international art world and were responsible for the biggest art forgery scandal of the postwar era. 
  • An expert in art history, theory and painting techniques, Beltracchi created original works in the style of such masters as Max Ernst, Heinrich Campendonk, and Max Pechstein, to not only fill in the gaps in the oeuvres of these great artists, but the gaps within the art market itself. 
  • Curators and art dealers alike were fooled by these “lost masterpieces”... From his life, some profound questions arise: What makes a piece of art an original? And what makes a person an expert?

Review -here:

    ______  Listen to WRITE: 

          Do one of these three TV programs: 
A) 60 min Overtine 
B) Channel-4 news or C) ABC news

                        A)  ‘Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery’ Tells How a Swindler Fooled the World





B)   Beltracchi: portrait of the artist as a conman



C)  Art and Craft': How a Master Art Forger Was Found Out








BONUS track: in German,with English subtitles





Mr. Beltracchi’s punctiliousness and ability to paint in a chameleonlike array of styles are themselves a form of flair worth appreciating. Part of what allowed Mr. Beltracchi to fool collectors — he grew rich off what he estimates were 300 paintings and drawings created between 1970 and 2010 — is that he was canny about filling in gaps in catalogs. 











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