B I OGRA P HY
was exposed, and Myatt was sentenced to a year long prison term for his involvement in the forgery of almost two hundred artworks. After a spell in prison for his part in ‘the greatest art fraud of the 20th century’, John Myatt has gone on to become a hugely popular contemporary artist in his own right. Myatt sees his work as not simply creating a copy or pale imitation of the original; he adopts techniques and searches for the inspiration behind each great artist’s view of the world, returning to the places these artists loved, set to explore the angles that remain uncovered or to create the next chapter in a still life. Comparing himself to an actor immersing himself in a role, he says he climbs into the mind of his chosen artist to adopt, rather than copy, their technique. Gaining attention from both national and international media and with plans for a Hollywood movie of his life in the pipeline, Myatt’s profile as an art forger turned legitimate painter continues to grow.
“In prison they called me Picasso.”
In 1986, John Myatt placed a classified advert in Private Eye,‘19th and 20th century fakes for £200’ and a perfectly legitimate business venture was born. Producing paintings to order, he painted his way through 20th century art history, commissioned by a man called ‘Professor John Drewe’. His materials were unorthodox, using household emulsion mixed with KY Jelly to add body and fluidity to his brushstrokes, and yet the quality of his work led Christie’s to value one of his paintings as worth £30,000.This was the moment that the legitimate business stopped and the crime began. Between 1986 and 1994, John played 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. Eventually the scheme
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