This exhibition profiles five prolific forgers from the 20th century to the present day, and how their infamous legacies beguiled the art world. See fakes and originals with your own eyes, learn about the forgers’ techniques and materials, and test your connoisseurship by guessing the real from the not.
Among the more than 55 works on display, Intent to Deceive features original paintings by major artists including Charles Courtney Curran, Philip de La’szlo’, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and Maurice de Vlaminck, among others, interspersed with the fakes and forgeries painted in the styles of these masters. The exhibition presents some of the most notorious scandals in the art world and allows you to test your perceptions of authenticity.
Unable to make a career based on the acceptability of their own artistic style, the five forgers profiled in Intent to Deceive – Han van Meegeren, Elmyr de Hory, Eric Hebborn, John Myatt, and Mark Landis – found fakery (the exact duplication of an original work of art) and forgery (the creation and selling of a work of art which is falsely credited to another) to be their most accessible avenue to recognition and commercial success. Showcasing their personal effects and the materials and techniques each used to create their fraudulent works, the exhibition illuminates how each forger managed to fool the experts, until they were ultimately exposed.
Intent to Deceive: Fakes and Forgeries in the Art World is organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington D.C. Curated by Colette Loll.
