Art Fraudster - The Movie

Infamous art fraudster, John Myatt, who now paints ‘Genuine Fakes’ as a legitimate business is set to be the subject of a major Hollywood film, Picture Business reports. Myatt’s story reads very much like the pages of fiction. Left alone with two young children to support, he worked as an art teacher to pay the bills. “I spent all day teaching other people’s children and had no time for my own,” he says. “I needed to find a way to work at home.” Looking for inspiration, Myatt remembered that a few years earlier a friend had offered to pay him £300 to copy a painting by the French Post Impressionist Raoul Dufy. His friend had been delighted with the result reporting that the copy was so good it had fooled experts. At the time Myatt had shrugged off the compliment but then it played on his mind – perhaps he’d found a way to work at home after all. In 1986 he placed a classified ad in Private Eye, ‘19th and 20th century fakes for £200’ and a perfectly legitimate business venture was born. His materials were unorthodox – Myatt used household emulsion mixed with K-Y jelly to add body and fluidity to his brush strokes – but the results were pleasing. Then Myatt received a call from a ‘Professor Drewe’ who claimed to be a nuclear physicist wanting to purchase paintings to decorate his home. Myatt obliged with paintings in the style of Matisse, Klee and two 17th Century Dutch Masters. One evening Drewe phoned Myatt, “I took one of your paintings to Christie’s and they said it was worth £30,000.” Myatt says: “That was the moment when the legitimate business stopped and the crime began. The mistake occurred when I expressed an interest.” Despite Drewe’s constant reassurances, Myatt’s gut feeling was that the illegal enterprise would all end in tears… and it did. In 1999 Myatt was convicted for conspiracy to defraud and was sent to Brixton Prison for 12 months, but was released after four months for good behaviour. (For full source and article click the Headline) Irish Art