‘We got a kick out of it’: art forgers reveal secrets of paintings that fooled experts

Photograph: Simon Vogel/picture alliance/dpaPhotograph: Simon Vogel/picture alliance/dpasuch as Max Ernst and Fernand Léger duped the art world into parting with millions of pounds – until a modern pigment gave them away.

Wolfgang said he had never forged pictures with compositions that would unnerve the onlooker. “I have to create something beautiful … I want to make people happy,” he said. Wolfgang und Helene Beltracchi. ‘The more success we had in selling pictures, the higher we set the bar and the more stories we told,’ said Helene.She recalled approaching an auction-house expert with a forged painting by Georges Valmier, the French artist and early cubist. “I was pretty nervous. What if she rejected [it]? We made up a story to explain the provenance of the picture. I was amazed at how easy the whole thing was. My heart was in my mouth – but I got a kick out of it, too.

His talent extended to imitating numerous artists, including Heinrich Campendonk, the German expressionist, and André Derain, the French fauvist. Forged labels from galleries or collections heightened the authenticity. The Beltracchis spent months researching the artist’s life, creating paintings that related to “lost” works or “gaps” in their oeuvre.

Helene explained that they travelled to the places where such pictures were painted and at the same time of year. “When you’re actually there, you can really feel what it was like and you can imagine how the painter stood or sat or lived and which influences he was exposed to.” For him, “the cherry on the cake” was a note he had forged between the gallery’s deceased former owner and a collector known to have bought from him. The owner’s son identified his father’s signature “straight away”.

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

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