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(CNN)   If you're a pair of elite art forgers who've made millions over decades selling so-called "undocumented works" painted by long-dead masters, make sure the zinc pigment you're using for white doesn't contain titanium for pre-1920s work. Obviously   (cnn.com) divider line
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    More: Interesting, Germany, Painting, France, Forgery, History, World War II, Knowledge, Andr Derain  
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2674 clicks; posted to Main » on 07 Feb 2023 at 9:34 AM (6 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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johnny_vegas [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:20:17 AM  
FTFA (from their studio in Switzerland):
"Although the Beltracchis lived comfortably, traveled widely and bought a home in the south of France, where they raised their children, they eschewed many of the excesses one might expect, given the huge wealth they acquired."

media.tenor.comView Full Size
 
patrick767
2023-02-07 9:38:29 AM  
Duh! IDIOTS!
 
Bondith
2023-02-07 9:38:43 AM  
Science.  It works, biatches.
 
The Brains
2023-02-07 9:39:22 AM  
Because the art world is a vapid cloud of bullshiat, like most other things that have been contaminated by capitalism

I mean, the hot thing right now is graffiti. Paint your high school nickname with a bunch of sloppy bubble letters? Wow such expression.
 
Gentlequiet
2023-02-07 9:39:29 AM  
Fark user imageView Full Size
 
AuralArgument
2023-02-07 9:41:34 AM  
The world always needs more items for laundering money
 
big pig peaches
2023-02-07 9:42:34 AM  
Their back story was, the are is loot stolen from the jews by the Nazis.

Whoever got ripped off deserved it.
 
Jeff5
2023-02-07 9:42:59 AM  
Ripping off vapid rich people should get you a Merit Badge until we can formalize the rules to make it an Olympic sport.
 
yakmans_dad
2023-02-07 9:43:47 AM  
I know that art is bought for its collectability not for the beauty it brings. If it were bought for its beauty there couldn't be forgers. The art world pretends that an exact copy isn't also beautiful..
 
MikeyFuccon
2023-02-07 9:44:04 AM  
If all this is true, Beltracchi clearly had the talent to become a first-rate contemporary painter in his own right. He was only caught by sheer luck.

Kind of sad really, that he lacked the confidence in his own gifts to make his own name rather than trade on others.
 
big pig peaches
2023-02-07 9:46:06 AM  

MikeyFuccon: If all this is true, Beltracchi clearly had the talent to become a first-rate contemporary painter in his own right. He was only caught by sheer luck.

Kind of sad really, that he lacked the confidence in his own gifts to make his own name rather than trade on others.


Counterpoint :

Fark user imageView Full Size
 
mrparks
2023-02-07 9:46:56 AM  
Where hero tag!?
 
Somaticasual [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:47:35 AM  
If you have a hand that can recreate the work of the masters, you have a hand to become a master painter yourself. Why would you waste a soul and talent on simply being a thief?
 
AuralArgument
2023-02-07 9:47:53 AM  
big pig peaches:

Seriously, this was a brilliant statement.

But the piece was performance art and the performers where the gallery attendees themselves being duped.
 
LarryDan43
2023-02-07 9:48:02 AM  
AI to the rescue.
 
Someone Else's Alt [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:48:33 AM  
If the art created by these 'masters' is so amazing and rare, how come some rando can imitate the techniques and styles so convincingly that people were paying millions for them at auctions?

Fine art is a scam folks. Never pay more than several hundred dollars for a piece you like.
 
AuralArgument
2023-02-07 9:48:42 AM  
Somaticasual:

Because you have the soul.of a thief and forger
 
Rapmaster2000
2023-02-07 9:49:05 AM  
It's an old racket:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory

The art world has currently become the haven of money launderers with thousands of famous works boxed up in bonded warehouses near airports awaiting their next sale to go sit in another bonded warehouse.
 
krebshack
2023-02-07 9:49:49 AM  

Jeff5: Ripping off vapid rich people should get you a Merit Badge until we can formalize the rules to make it an Olympic sport.


I have a really difficult time seeing this as anything other than a victimless crime. Campendonk's not being cheated out of any income, and I'm just not that worked up over how the forgery made someone who flippantly spends seven figures on a single painting feel.

I get that fraud is wrong in the abstract, but in concrete terms I feel like the sympathy I can muster up is better spent people who can't afford to lose the money they were defrauded out of.
 
puckrock2000
2023-02-07 9:49:57 AM  
Fark user imageView Full Size

"Meh - amateurs."

Also -

"I make the connection between the disappearance of Beltracchi's name and the emotion flowing into another person," she explained, citing Wolfgang's apparent belief that, through his work, he assumed the identities of the artist he was copying. "He says of himself that he can feel the feelings of others."
In doing so, Fischer argues, Wolfgang demonstrated a remarkable capacity for empathy. He described feeling so close to the 17th-century painter Hendrick Avercamp, the first artist whose work he forged, that he felt like his brother. The forger saw himself filling a gap in the artist's back catalog, as if his creations were contributing to their original body of work.

What an arrogant, insufferable, self-absorbed prick.
 
Another Government Employee
2023-02-07 9:50:33 AM  

Someone Else's Alt: If the art created by these 'masters' is so amazing and rare, how come some rando can imitate the techniques and styles so convincingly that people were paying millions for them at auctions?

Fine art is a scam folks. Never pay more than several hundred dollars for a piece you like.


The Rando has to be pretty damned skilled to pull it.

It makes you wonder what would happen if he had an original idea.
 
The Smails Kid
2023-02-07 9:51:05 AM  
Campendonk

Badonkadonk
 
Jeff5
2023-02-07 9:54:46 AM  

MikeyFuccon: If all this is true, Beltracchi clearly had the talent to become a first-rate contemporary painter in his own right. He was only caught by sheer luck.

Kind of sad really, that he lacked the confidence in his own gifts to make his own name rather than trade on others.


He was "replacing" lost works, getting into the heads of the original artists at the time those works were made, giving the best approximation of what that artist likely produced at that moment.

A pretty original concept...
 
Someone Else's Alt [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:55:02 AM  

yakmans_dad: I know that art is bought for its collectability not for the beauty it brings. If it were bought for its beauty there couldn't be forgers. The art world pretends that an exact copy isn't also beautiful..


I don't mind buying high quality prints directly from an artist instead of the original piece, as they often have already sold off the original.

But Mrs Alt and I do prefer to buy smaller reasonably priced original pieces directly from local artists when we travel. Roadside sculptor in Maui carving turtles out of Koa, yes please. Oil painter set up on the sidewalk in San Fran doing Golden Gate landscapes, sign us up, We bring back one piece of art from everywhere we go.
 
steklo [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:55:06 AM  
Fark user imageView Full Size
 
Ragin' Asian [recently expired TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:55:06 AM  
I enjoy fine art, but I'm not too familiar with the granular workings of that milieu. In the financial sector, when the most successful money launderers, scammers, counterfeiters, etc. are caught, they're offered the opportunity to become investigators. Is this a possibility here?
 
grinding_journalist
2023-02-07 9:55:53 AM  

Somaticasual: If you have a hand that can recreate the work of the masters, you have a hand to become a master painter yourself. Why would you waste a soul and talent on simply being a thief?


Same reason movie studios want to make another Batman or Transformers movie: name and brand recognition that translates directly into revenue.

I'm sure that a wholly original, extremely well-done painting "in the style of Renoir" would sell...for $350, framed, at the Springfield Arts and Entertainment Festival (Live music all 3 days!), just like I'm equally sure that a "previously unknown Renoir from the collection of a fleeing Jewish art gallery owner at the onset of Naziism" would be worth quite a lot more, and attract the attention of well-heeled international buyers.

If both paintings take the same amount of time and effort to create, which one would you rather do, assuming you'd gotten away with it many times before?
 
Someone Else's Alt [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:57:20 AM  

Another Government Employee: Someone Else's Alt: If the art created by these 'masters' is so amazing and rare, how come some rando can imitate the techniques and styles so convincingly that people were paying millions for them at auctions?

Fine art is a scam folks. Never pay more than several hundred dollars for a piece you like.

The Rando has to be pretty damned skilled to pull it.

It makes you wonder what would happen if he had an original idea.


All his work WAS original, he just used the styles and techniques of previous well known artists that are in demand to create new works sell/pass off as originals. That was genius of what they were doing.
 
danny_kay [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:01:13 AM  
If anyone has a bit of time to waste, watch Made You Look, a documentary about forged Rothkos.

It's utterly fascinating how nobody *really* wants to know whether paintings are fake.
You'll order an expertise, and they'll write "it's a beautiful representation of Rothko's work", and that sounds like "it's real!", but when it turns out it's fake, they'll say "we never definitely said it's real, just that it looks real".
 
Jeff5
2023-02-07 10:07:35 AM  
Really, if you think about it, the only bad guy was the Dutch manufacturer who didn't disclose he put titanium in his zinc...

The saboteur, if you will.
 
Oneiros [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:11:26 AM  

MikeyFuccon: If all this is true, Beltracchi clearly had the talent to become a first-rate contemporary painter in his own right. He was only caught by sheer luck.

Kind of sad really, that he lacked the confidence in his own gifts to make his own name rather than trade on others.


I always thought it odd that he wasn't given more credit, as he was able to convincingly fool people into thinking the art was multiple different painters.  That means he's at least as good as those others.

I wonder if there's a market for copies of fakes, sort of like how some people have cheap copies made of their really valuable jewelry.

I personally think it would be really cool to have a painting that was from the guy who managed to fool all of these people.  Not $1million each cool, but imagine hiring him to paint for a year or two and start a museum of forged art.

Or maybe he could offer classes.  Not just to painters, but to art restorers, appraisers, etc.

/although maybe not exactly as good as them at their peak renown
//assumes he claimed it was their earlier works
 
Breaker Moran [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:16:27 AM  
What really makes "art" fake, man?
glasstire.comView Full Size
I think the title of this one is The MAGA-Magical Tackle Box: Darkly and Deeply but it's probably called something else./There might be a copyright to the above image that I yanked from https://glasstire.com/2019/08/12/the-aesthetics-of-maga///Studied aesthetics formally for a while in the late 80s with Guy Sircello.
 
Oneiros [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:17:40 AM  

Somaticasual: If you have a hand that can recreate the work of the masters, you have a hand to become a master painter yourself. Why would you waste a soul and talent on simply being a thief?


Because art has gatekeepers.

There typically has to be someone with prestige in the art world to say that you're going to be the next big thing, and then sell your work.

Often, they're kinda scummy, as they'll buy up all of an artist's work for cheap, then turn around and have a show where they can sell it for a massive markup.

Without someone with access to the people willing to throw away $10k+ on a painting, it's difficult for most people to break into that market.

/read an article a few years back (or maybe a documentary on PBS?) where some douchebag was screwing over an artist
//buying her work for cheap, nickel and diming her on price, then turning around and immediately selling it for 5-10x
///while she was just scraping by
 
Somacandra [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:21:39 AM  
Fark user imageView Full Size


You could have warned them, Submitter. If only spoke Hovitos.
 
moothemagiccow
2023-02-07 10:22:01 AM  
How much does it cost when I know it's a forgery? I'd love some Van Gogh fakes, they're the only paintings that look noticeably better in real life than a calendar. The brush strokes are really thick and they're all 3-D and shiat
 
johnny_vegas [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 10:23:31 AM  
<insert Calvin and Hobbes cartoon here>
 
InformerSnow
2023-02-07 10:25:05 AM  

Someone Else's Alt: Another Government Employee: Someone Else's Alt: If the art created by these 'masters' is so amazing and rare, how come some rando can imitate the techniques and styles so convincingly that people were paying millions for them at auctions?

Fine art is a scam folks. Never pay more than several hundred dollars for a piece you like.

The Rando has to be pretty damned skilled to pull it.

It makes you wonder what would happen if he had an original idea.

All his work WAS original, he just used the styles and techniques of previous well known artists that are in demand to create new works sell/pass off as originals. That was genius of what they were doing.


Beyond that, he studied the entire body of an artist's work and found paintings that had been lost, but there were at least vague descriptions of. Then he found other paintings for cheap that had the proper canvass material of the time period and removed the paint and repainted them with period appropriate paints, most of which he made himself. Obviously he got lazy with the titanium white, but his process and skill was absolutely brilliant.
 
tjsands1118
2023-02-07 10:32:45 AM  

Somaticasual: If you have a hand that can recreate the work of the masters, you have a hand to become a master painter yourself. Why would you waste a soul and talent on simply being a thief?


First, no one is a thief. A liar? Yes. A forger? Yes. But no thief. Nothing was stolen, people bought paintings and recieved paintings, they just didnt carry the pedigree they thought.

You miss his art. Right now the art whole is so over saturated that a multitude of amazing artist are lost is crowd. Also art is not often appreciated until after the artist's death. But here we are talking about this guy's talent.

This guy has proven to have the same level of abilities as several historic masters. If he would have spent all that time creating his own unique style, someone would still declare it derivative of a previous artist anyways, so he mastered derivative painting. He became famous for doing everything you are told not to in art and that has always been the description of revolutionary artist.

See you are just looking at the paintings, the art was in the sale also.
 
NewWorldDan
2023-02-07 10:35:13 AM  

Someone Else's Alt: If the art created by these 'masters' is so amazing and rare, how come some rando can imitate the techniques and styles so convincingly that people were paying millions for them at auctions?

Fine art is a scam folks. Never pay more than several hundred dollars for a piece you like.


People aren't just buying art, they're buying a story. And bragging rights. As fakes of old masters, the paintings these people made were massively devalued by getting caught, at the same time, by getting caught, there's now a new story and provenance. It turns what might have been a $1k painting into something now worth $10k, so there's that.
 
JasonOfOrillia [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 10:38:01 AM  
Pffft.  Rookie mistake.
 
yakmans_dad
2023-02-07 10:39:37 AM  
It has been years since I read the Lovejoy antique books, but I remember he talked about some forger whose works eventually became collectable. Couldn't tell you the name.
 
iamskibibitz
2023-02-07 10:45:46 AM  

big pig peaches: Their back story was, the are is loot stolen from the jews by the Nazis.

Whoever got ripped off deserved it.


Good news: the art you bought wasn't actually ripped off from the Jews
Bad news: because it's fake
 
Stud Gerbil
2023-02-07 10:46:06 AM  
"You can dye your product blue, but your customers will know the difference.  They will pay more for the genuine article. Provenance, biatch."

Fark user imageView Full Size


So basically, meth heads have better judgment than wealthy art collectors.
 
stevesporn2000
2023-02-07 10:50:18 AM  

MikeyFuccon: If all this is true, Beltracchi clearly had the talent to become a first-rate contemporary painter in his own right. He was only caught by sheer luck.

Kind of sad really, that he lacked the confidence in his own gifts to make his own name rather than trade on others.


Lol you don't understand how the modern art world works. It has very little to do with technical skill. The days of the Paris salon are long gone.

People buy art expecting to resell at a future date, therefore, an art made by a famous painter is far more valuable than one off the same skill which is made by a nobody.
 
RobotSpider
2023-02-07 10:51:13 AM  

Stud Gerbil: So basically, meth heads have better judgment than wealthy art collectors.


If you're buying art that you wish to store in crates in so-called "freeports" to prevent paying taxes and import fees, the last thing you want to do is spend more money on xray and UV microscopy to determine if it's legit. Money doesn't grow on trees... I assume, I mean, it might, I just get it from the trust fund when I need more of it but I'm not paying more than I have to to hide my assets. Speaking of which, I should buy a super-yacht.
 
Mr. Shabooboo
2023-02-07 10:53:26 AM  

MikeyFuccon: If all this is true, Beltracchi clearly had the talent to become a first-rate contemporary painter in his own right. He was only caught by sheer luck.

Kind of sad really, that he lacked the confidence in his own gifts to make his own name rather than trade on others.


And it's not like he's not creative..The man creates "new" art, just in the style of others..
It's not so much that he's "copying" individual paintings that exist. These are "new" works.
He's the Weird Al and his band, for painting...Not only can he manipulate previous work, he creates his own
in the same styles as others.. The deep psychoanalysis portion quoted out of  the book on them seems like
horse-shat though...They are smart people and went about their work in a well disciplined and intellectual
manner that true scholars of art would use..Because they love art, it wasn't work for them..They made their
living doing what they loved..They studied art, studied artists and they made art.. It just happens that they
commuted fraud as part of that..And that fraud just so happened to be pulled on people that may have deserved it..I totally agree with their sentiment that everyone came out happy in the end..The owner got what they wanted, the galleries and auction houses made their commissions and the artists made their living.
 
stevesporn2000
2023-02-07 10:55:09 AM  

tjsands1118: Somaticasual: If you have a hand that can recreate the work of the masters, you have a hand to become a master painter yourself. Why would you waste a soul and talent on simply being a thief?

First, no one is a thief. A liar? Yes. A forger? Yes. But no thief. Nothing was stolen, people bought paintings and recieved paintings, they just didnt carry the pedigree they thought.

You miss his art. Right now the art whole is so over saturated that a multitude of amazing artist are lost is crowd. Also art is not often appreciated until after the artist's death. But here we are talking about this guy's talent.

This guy has proven to have the same level of abilities as several historic masters. If he would have spent all that time creating his own unique style, someone would still declare it derivative of a previous artist anyways, so he mastered derivative painting. He became famous for doing everything you are told not to in art and that has always been the description of revolutionary artist.

See you are just looking at the paintings, the art was in the sale also.


There's a reason that the Pythagoras theorem is named for him and not the guy who copied the work out of a textbook yesterday. Artwork has historic significance it is not just about (and is rarely about) the work being hard to reproduce today. Some like Yves Klein's work would be particularly easy to reproduce but that doesn't diminish the value of the original. Many many artists today are trained to produce art to a high level of quality. Like I said, the days of the Paris salon are long gone.
 
Concrete Donkey
2023-02-07 10:55:15 AM  
Just a reminder, art only has the "value" it given to be the best form of money laundering in the world


The replica poster you pick up from walmart for 5 bucks are worth exactly as much as the original
 
groppet
2023-02-07 10:55:57 AM  
Hey if you can take rich peoples money for something they think is valuable go for it milk those idiots.
 
buravirgil
2023-02-07 11:00:55 AM  

Breaker Moran: What really makes "art" fake, man?
[glasstire.com image 600x487]I think the title of this one is The MAGA-Magical Tackle Box: Darkly and Deeply

Trump"s never been so thin and that looks like a Baldwin.
Also...

Fark user imageView Full Size
 
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