Since ancient times, the theory and practice of the visual arts has been founded, quite exclusively, upon the relationship between the real and its copy. Ever since, this complex connection has shaped the way art history is written and objects are viewed. During the Renaissance, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci were celebrated for their ability to represent the real, whilst Jackson Pollock and the Abstract Expressionists of the twentieth century prided themselves on their rejection of it. Sentenced to a year-long prison term for his involvement in the forgery of almost two hundred artworks, there are few people more aware of the complicated relationship between the real and its copy than the artist John Myatt. Playing a central role in what is cited as one of the most elaborate and sophisticated art frauds in history, Myatt’s painstaking renderings of works by the likes of Alberto Giacometti and Jean Dubuffet fooled critics and collectors alike, with many of these counterfeit works finding their way into private collections and public institutions in the United Kingdom and abroad. A common trait of modern life is that the existence of a market for any kind of valuable object almost always encourages the production of counterfeits - such is the case with banknotes, drugs, and designer handbags. It is also
the case with works of art.The great fakers of history - Tom Keating, Eric Hebborn and Shaun Greenhalgh to name but a few - continue to live on in art folklore, with John Myatt the latest in a long line of great British forgers whose notoriety and fame almost match that of the artists whose works he once faked. However, it is not only this handful of relative unknowns who have been subverting the idea of the real and its copy in visual art. History has been kind to the well documented forgeries made by Michelangelo, named often as a Renaissance great but also found to be a skilled forger, making copies of major works before ageing them with smoke and swapping them for the originals. Since then, fakery, deception and theft in various forms have been critical weapons in any painter’s arsenal. Whether it be Rembrandt hand-signing an assistant’s work as his own, René Magritte’s clever canvases masquerading as a view from an open window, or Pablo Picasso’s famous declaration that ‘great artists steal,’ in visual art, nothing is ever quite what it may seem.Throughout history, artists famed and unfamiliar - Myatt amongst them - are life’s great imitators; tricksters and magicians who utilise their talents to dazzle, deceive and delight the viewer.
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