Michael Barzman of North Hollywood confessed to lying to the FBI about the provenance of forgeries exhibited at the Orlando Museum of Art.
Art Forgery
Posted inNews
How a Prolific Art Forger Got a New York Gallery Show
An exhibition at Wirth Galerie aims to recognize Landis not just as a forger, but as an artist in his own right.
Posted inOpinion
The True Cost of Museum Fakes
The Museum of the Bible recently admitted all of its Dead Sea Scroll fragments are forgeries. But when fake antiquities are donated to museums, taxpayers lose.
Posted inBooks
Shining a Black Light on Art Forgery
María Gainza’s novel dives into art-world forgery and false identities amid Argentina’s politics of the 1960s.
Posted inFilm
Short on Substance, The Goldfinch Falters on Screen
The adaptation of Donna Tartt’s bestseller sacrifices its nuances to fit in all of its plot points.
Posted inBooks
An Art Forgery Thriller With Many Narrators but Not Enough Answers
Author Clare Clark’s In the Full Light of the Sun raises important questions about the lengths we go to distract ourselves from governmental horrors, and how art can’t save us, but it doesn’t manage to find easy answers.
Posted inArt
Lessons from the Unfolding Old Masters Forgery Scandal
The authenticity of recently “discovered” works purported to be by Frans Hals, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Orazio Gentileschi has been called into question, and they might only be the tip of the iceberg.
Posted inIn Brief
Vietnam Museum Admits Exhibition Was Full of Forged Paintings
The Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts has apologized for hosting an exhibition in which 17 paintings purportedly by four of Vietnam’s most influential 20th-century painters proved inauthentic.
Posted inNews
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a psychedelic zebra sculpture was stolen and recovered, an arts organization shuttered following an embezzlement fiasco and lye attack, and vandals smashed a David Bowie painting.
Posted inNews
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: an art dealer was accused of flogging forgeries, Airbnb renters stole their hosts’ Banksy print, and Egyptian authorities arrested three men for selling chunks of the Giza pyramids to tourists.
Posted inIn Brief
How DNA Technology Could Help Prevent Art Fraud
i2M Standards is in the process of developing synthetic DNA labels that will be added to the works of prominent artists, serving as a kind of fingerprint or serial number and offering proof of authenticity.
Posted inArt
A Not-Quite-Great Documentary About the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time
“I think I can paint anything,” says Wolfgang Beltracchi, the infamous German art forger, in Arne Birkenstock’s documentary Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery.
