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Art forgery is a divisive topic that inspires awe and anger in equal measure. While galleries, dealers and collectors certainly don't want fakes on their hands, it's difficult not to be impressed by painters who can imitate the greats so believably. Even with all the technology designed to verify artworks, there are still lots of convincing fakes even so on display in museums around the world.

Some of the most high contour art forgers went on to become celebrities in their own right, with enough of gimmicky collectors still willing to knowingly pay thousands for counterfeits. Here, we examine the five painters behind the most famous fine art forgeries of all fourth dimension.

John Myatt

British creative person John Myatt has gone down in history every bit the human being behind "the biggest art fraud of the 20th century", every bit Scotland Chiliad put information technology. He painted an estimated 200 forgeries, many of which were sold by some of the biggest auction houses in the world including Sotheby's and Phillips. His career equally a forger began after he started legitimately selling counterfeits, having placed an advert for "genuine fakes" in Private Heart. Though Myatt was honest to begin with, this changed when a regular customer named John Drewe revealed that Christie'south sale business firm had paid £25,000 for 1 of Myatt'southward 'Albert Gleizes' paintings.

From then on, he forged works past artists such equally Chagall, Giacometti and Matisse. Myatt ended his partnership with Drewe in 1993, growing tired of the unsavoury way in which Drewe handled their finances. Both were eventually arrested two years subsequently, when Drewe'due south angry ex-partner told the law what they had done. As he cooperated and helped to captive Drewe, Myatt was just sentenced to a year in prison, for which he served simply four months. Since his release in 1999, Myatt has continued to pigment, working on commission, and marker each piece every bit a fake. He has likewise enjoyed a boob tube career, appearing on shows like Sky Arts' Mastering the Art and Brush with Fame.

Tom Keating

Tom Keating claimed to have faked over 2,000 paintings by more than than 100 unlike artists, including Rembrandt and Samuel Palmer. The British art restorer and forger alleged that his counterfeits were motivated by his socialist politics rather than fiscal gain. He wrote in his book The Fake's Progress that: "Information technology seemed disgraceful to me how many [artists] had died in poverty. All their lives they had been exploited by unscrupulous dealers and and then, as if to dishonor their retentivity, these aforementioned dealers continued to exploit them in decease." In his optics, his fakes were an attack on the gallery system, intended to fool the experts, and break the industry.

Afterwards The Times published an article accusing him of his crimes in 1970, Keating confessed to his forgeries, and was arrested in 1979 alongwith his quondam lover and accomplice Jane Kelly. Though she had to serve time in prison house afterwards pleading guilty, Keating escaped a judgement after beingness severely injured in a motorcycle accident, subsequently developing bronchitis in hospital. The charges confronting him were dropped, as he looked unlikely to survive, although his health did better and he lived until 1984. Keating'due south works notwithstanding sell for thousands of pounds, and in 2005, The Guardian reported counterfeits of his own forgeries were selling on the market for between £5,000 and £10,000.

Han van Meegeren

Han van Meegeren was a Dutch creative person who turned to forgery after his peers criticised his own work for its unoriginality. In response, he decided to prove his talent by creating and selling a slice said to be by Johannes Vermeer and created a 'new' Vermeer chosen Supper at Emmaus in 1937. It was widely admired by critics, with famous art expert Abraham Bredius calling information technology "the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft". The painting was then bought by Rotterdam'south prestigious Boijmans Gallery.

Though van Meegeren had initially planned to reveal that he was the truthful creator, he instead continued forging, creating half dozen new Vermeer works which fabricated him an estimated $60 million co-ordinate to The Telegraph. As well equally selling to world famous museums, he also counted Nazi leader Hermann Göring as a customer. This ultimately led to van Meegeren's downfall, equally he was arrested for selling a valuable piece of Dutch cultural property to the Nazis. Rather than confront treason charges, van Meegeren decided to acknowledge the work was fake. He became known as "the man who swindled Göring" as well as the world's greatest fine art forger. Van Meegeren died a few weeks into his 1-year prison judgement in 1947.

Elmyr de Hory

Hungarian painter Elmyr de Hory started life as a forger in Paris after World War 2 ended. The idea came to him after selling a pen-and-ink drawing to a British woman who mistakenly believed it to exist an original Picasso. He went on to sell 1,000 paintings to galleries across the globe, including farther forged Picassos, equally well equally counterfeit works purported to be by Degas, Matisse and Modigliani. Though de Hory did attempt to kickstart his own art career, the money was nothing compared to the huge profits he had become accustomed to from his fakes.

Eventually galleries grew suspicious of him and, in time, fine art dealers and curators began realising his works were forgeries. Having eluded the police for some fourth dimension, de Hory returned to his Ibiza home and was sent to prison for ii months in 1968. This was for a number of crimes, including homosexuality, which was nonetheless illegal at the time. Nevertheless, his forgery couldn't be proved, every bit there was no proof of whether any of his counterfeits were created on Spanish soil. After leaving prison house, de Hory was seen as a celebrity, even appearing in the Orson Welles documentary F For Faux. However, he died past suicide in 1976 shortly after the Spanish government agreed to extradite him to France to stand trial for fraud. Many of de Hory's works are still in circulation today.

Wolfgang Beltracchi

Wolfgang Beltracchi started painting in the styles of renowned artists equally a teenager, learning from his male parent who was an art restorer and church muralist. However, rather than creating copies of existing pieces, the German painter started making new works and selling them at flea markets. During the 1970s and 80s, Beltracchi turned his attending to the French Modernists and German Expressionists, equally it was easier to observe the materials these artists would accept used. His paintings in the way of Campendonk would get his speciality, and he even managed to fool leading scholar Andrea Firmenich, who featured some of Beltracchi's paintings in the Campendonk catalogue raisonné he was compiling.

Many of his works sold for extremely loftier prices at auction, like his Campendonk painting Landscape with Horses which actor Steve Martin paid $860,000 for in 2004. He also sold a piece called The Forest (two) — painted in the mode of Ernst — to a Parisian fine art gallery for roughly $vii million. Beltracchi was institute out in 2008, after some of his Campendonks were tested by a forensic specialist, revealing pigments that were not in use during the times attributed to the works. He was sentenced to six years in prison but secured an early on release, like-minded to pigment merely under his own name from then on.

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Chris Mabire

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