Art forgery is the best crime tbh. It requires absolutely incredible artistic talent, technical skill, and attention to detail to make convincing fakes. Does anyone get hurt from it? No! The only people who suffer for it are the extremely wealthy who want the prestige of having original paintings in their own homes. It’s full of international intrigue and mystery. Perfect.
Also… art forgers like van Meegeren sometimes become a kind of folk hero. A swindler, sure, but a gentleman’s swindler.
I liked this guy’s story, Mark Landis, who conned several dozen museums into displaying his forgeries, but when the FBI came after him they couldn’t do anything because he had always given them away as donations. They said if they could have found that he’d ever taken anything in exchange they would have prosecuted him, but all he wanted was get to out of the house and meet people.
“The first painting Landis “donated” was a copy of a work by Maynard Dixon, an artist well-known for his paintings of cowboys and Indians. It started as impulse, Landis says, but then “everybody was just so nice and treated me with respect and deference and friendship, things I was very unused to — I mean, actually not used to at all. And I got addicted to it.””
And it looks like all his forgeries are done with cheap materials, like markers and Hobby Lobby frames.
Ok, but Wolfgang Beltracchi is probably one of the best Fraud Artists in the world.
His career brought him millions upon millions of dollars and lasted almost 40 years. He finally admitted to painting fraudulent art after the white paint he used came under scrutiny.
In The interview with Beltracchi, he said that none of his forgeries are copies, they’re all original works that the famous artists could have painted.
His wife was also in on the scam, she would dress up in old clothing and take pictures holding the paintings with old cameras to fake proof of the paintings’ ages.
At the end of the interview with Wolfgang Beltracchi he was asked if he felt he had done anything wrong, his answer was “ Yeah, I used the wrong kind of paint”
Just … the levels of con there, the fake photos and … wow. That’s incredible.
Heroes
Also fun fact we learned in class today: Michelangelo carved a sculpture of a Roman god, broke off the arm, and then buried it. The sculpture was dug up and was considered to be an authentic Roman artefact, until Michelangelo came along with the missing arm and called shenanigans on himself, just to prove he was as skilled a sculptor as the ancient Romans.
When Laura Muir won a 1500m gold
medal, she wasn’t allowed a victory lap.
Though customary when a runner wins
the gold, a European Indoor Athletics
Championships official blocked Laura’s
attempt because there ‘wasn’t enough
time.’ Once she realized no one would
be able to catch her, she took off, ran
a victory lap, and nobody caught her-
even though she stopped to high five
the crowd along the way. SourceSource 2
I had to do this once with Privateer II: The Darkening. It gained a bit when he said “I bet you didn’t play it through, I bet somebody just told you how…” and I was able to smile gently and say “God, possibly, since I wrote the game.” And plainly the Deity was with me that day, as I happened to be carrying docs from my UK agent (who’d done the deal) that showed not only that I was the writer, but the five-figure sum I had been paid. …It was a happy day for me. Not so much for him. I’d never had a referent for the word “slink” for a full grown male before. As in “slink away in utter dejection.” I smiled for at least three days without stopping. And am smiling now… I had completely forgotten about this.
Reblogging because “I beat the game” is fantastic, but “I wrote the damn thing” is even better.
So I am absolutely unable to tell when people are flirting with me or if they like me probably because of my cripplingly low self-esteem hahaha
So when I was 17 I was at a basketball tournament and this dude and his squad called me over after I finished my game and this dude asked me for my number
and I was all ‘????’ and then I was like ‘oH he’s asking for my basketball number!’ keep in mind we usually have our jersey numbers on the front of our uniforms too but for some reason this one didn’t so I was like ‘oh I’ll turn around and show him’
I didn’t even realize how savage me turning my back on him, showing him my jersey number, and immediately walking away would be
His bros were laughing so hard at him
TBH I didn’t even know what I did until I walked back to my mom
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
