The Mind Creative March 2014
Joni spent many years as
a successful art forger,
even fooling the renowned
art
historian
Bernard
Berenson. When Berenson
realized he had purchased
fakes, he travelled to Italy
to meet Joni to express his
admiration. It is rumoured
that Berenson sold several
of Joni's works as originals
afterward, while keeping a
few of the pieces in his collection as reminders. In 1936, Joni
published a memoir titled "Affairs of a Painter," in spite of antique
dealers' attempts to bribe him into not to publishing.
With the help of his wife, Beltracchi has
admitted to having forged hundreds of
paintings including the works of Max
Ernst, Heinrich Campendonk, Fernand
Léger
and
Kees
van
Dongen.
He
masterminded one of the most lucrative
frauds in the post war era and acquired a huge
amount of wealth. Beltracchi has sold
paintings for sums running into six and seven
figures, which helped him to fund a lavish
lifestyle. He is a self-taught painter who
astonished his father by creating a perfect
Picasso forgery, when he was just 14. In
2011, he was sentenced to six years in prison.
Beltracchi is regarded as not only a brilliant
artist and forger but as also an exceptional
con man.
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