No-one wants to be fooled. People are fooled by art much more than we know. The director at the Metropolitan museum was once asked, How many fakes do you think could possibly be on the walls? To which he responded, I have no idea. It’s embarrassing. Worse than that, I think, is that they don’t want to own up. Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art, Freedman, Netflix 2021
‘I Am the Central Victim’: Art Dealer Ann Freedman on Selling $63 Million in Fake Paintings. ibid. online article James Panero 27th August 2013
It started with the news of Knoedler closing. And that was shocking because Knoedler was a very old-guard institution in the art world. And nobody really knew the details of that until you know, news started leaking out about this forgery scandal. ibid. M H Miler, The New York Times
A con that went on for nearly twenty years. ibid. Patricia Cohen, The New York Times
None of the works Rosales brought to the gallery were in the catalogues raisonnés of the artists. ibid. Luke Nikas, Freeman’s lawyer
‘A 75-year-old artist [Pei-Shen Qian] who went from selling his paintings for a couple of hundred dollars to selling them for millions.’ ibid. television presenter
‘I firmly refute the accusations that I misled anyone concerning this transaction. I believed in the authenticity of the Pollock at the time [of sale] and continue to do so.’ ibid. Ann Freedman, The Financial Times 9 December 2011
The calm of Salt Lake City Utah was rocked today by two booby-trap bombs that left two people dead. Murder Among the Mormons I, newscaster, Netflix 2021
A morning that brought fear and death. The first explosion ripped through a downtown office building, killing one man. The second explosion outside a holiday home claimed another life. ibid.
There was dark talk involving religious documents, hired professional killers … ibid.
The bombing’s impact has drawn the Church into an uncomfortable spotlight: Murder among the Mormons. ibid.
Salt Lake City 1980: At that time I was introduced to Mark Hofmann. And I was very excited to meet Mark. He was in the Mormon document world, he was a rock star. ibid. Shannon Flynn, rare document dealer
The Anthon Transcript discovery was widely publicised and brought Mark Hofmann into contact with top leaders in the Mormon Church. ibid. reporter
I’d never seen anybody come up with the material that Mark was coming up with. ibid. Brent Ashworth, historical document collector
He takes out from his briefcase the Salamander letter. ibid. Flynn
It just changed everything. Instead of God and angels, now it’s salamanders and magic. ibid. Sandra Tannner
The McLellin Collection was potentially devastating. ibid. Flynn
Last year Hofmann sold a document known as the White Salamander letter to the men who were the apparent targets of the first attack. Murder Among the Mormons II
For more than three hours officers sifted through boxes and collected evidence they hope to use in their case against Hofmann. ibid. news
The FBI has reportedly concluded there is no reason to believe the Salamander letter is a phony. ibid.
Every single document that Hofmann had handled had that cracked ink. ibid. document verification dude
It’s the biggest forgery case to ever occur. Period. Murder Among the Mormons III, observer
After Mark’s confessions, the Parole Board decides he will serve his entire life in prison. ibid. caption
Fairies Photographed: An Epoch-Making Event Described By A Conan Doyle. Strand Magazine Christmas edition
Francis Griffiths has brought her daughter to see the house in Cottingley where she lived with her cousin Elsie Wright during the First World War. Francis and Elsie used to go down to play by the Beck, the stream at the bottom of the garden, and it was by that stream they said in 1917 they took photographs of Fairies ... Francis and Elsie confessed the pictures were faked ... The case was cracked in 1928 with evidence from the Brotherton collection at Leeds University. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World of Powers
Silver-Tongued? Alex Jones peddled a fake Coronavirus cure that can turn people’s skin permanently blue: InfoWars has long sold alternative medicine products, claiming miraculous health benefits. And many others are trying to cash in on the public health crisis by selling colloidal silver products and other fake cures. The state of Missouri sued televangelist Jim Bakker for peddling SilverSol products as a Coronavirus medication, and the FDA sent a warning last week to seven companies that were making similar claims. Quartz online news report 14th March 2020
Hundreds of fake paintings. Millions of dollars and a master forger who changed the history of art itself. Masterminds s1e16: The Forger’s Art, truTV 2004
In 1986 the iron-clad system of provenance failed spectacularly as a master criminal fooled the world’s greatest art experts. And executed the most sophisticated forgery scam in the history of modern art. ibid.
Drewe now reinvents himself as a cultured art expert to get the respect he craves ... In the back pages of Private Eye magazine he uncovers a starving artist with the skills he needs: John Myatt. ibid.
‘I just thought to myself this is too good to be true.’ ibid. John Myatt
Drewe is not only alienating his wife, but his partner in crime as well ... Drewe’s hold on reality is beginning to slip ... He claims he is actually working for the British Secret Service selling the painting to raise money for covert weapons sales. ibid.
Drewe is finally found guilty and sent to prison for six years. ibid.
Police estimate there are still over a hundred and seventy of his forgeries corrupting collections around the world. ibid.
‘He became the largest purveyor of counterfeit memorabilia in the country.’ Masterminds s56: Foul Ball
In 1996 the Chicago FBI discovered that Michael Jordan’s autograph was being forged … Thousands of Jordan’ forgeries had flooded the market. ibid.
Wayne Bray built the biggest sports memorabilia forgery operation in US history. ibid.
A high school student nearly crippled the nation’s economy … ‘He [Wesley Webber] was Canada’s most notorious counterfeiter.’ Masterminds e59: Money Maker
In the late 1990s Windsor, Ontario. was hit with a flood of extraordinary counterfeit hundred dollar bills. ibid.
As Weber’s fortune grows so does his greed and it soon threatens to bring him down. ibid.
April 1983, The Sunday Times, London: Hugh Trevor-Roper is Britain’s most celebrated historian. Days that Shook the World s3e3: Diaries of Adolf Hitler, BBC 2005
The newspaper’s presses downstairs will be printing the biggest scoop the paper has ever had: the publication of the diaries of Adolf Hitler written across the whole period of the Fuhrer’s reign. ibid.
Trevor-Roper is the leading authority on Hitler and the Third Reich. ibid.
The new owner of Times Newspapers Rupert Murdoch entered a bidding war to buy the rights to the diaries. ibid.
Nazi memorabilia ... the number of forgeries is vast and uncontrolled. ibid.
No surviving Nazi had ever mentioned Hitler keeping a diary. ibid.
He [Trevor-Roper] decides to make a clean break and tell the world his fears. ibid.
The paper in the diaries was laced with a chemical whitener that had not existed before 1955 ... The ink was not more than twelve months old. ibid.
It was one of the great discoveries of the last century. Sixty-two volumes of the hand-written personal diaries of one the most infamous and reviled men in modern history: Adolf Hitler. History’s Greatest Hoaxes s1e3: Hitler’s Diaries, Yesterday 2016
Rupert Murdoch paid a cool $500,000 for the rights to publish them in The Sunday Times. ibid.
Having already put in place a deal to buy the Hitler diaries [Magnus] Linklater was tasked with trying to authenticate their contents and validate Murdoch’s proposed purchase. ibid.
The Sunday Times was still not completely sure that the diaries weren’t fakes so they asked revered Cambridge historian Hugh Trevor-Roper … [who] started to have serious doubts. ibid.
On September 17th 1903 the Daily Telegram shared a shared story with its readers in Clarksburg, West Virginia. A dispute over a pet dog between two immigrant miners had led to a tragedy: it was one of the miners who took the bullet. Ian Hislop’s Fake News, BBC 2019
What motivates fake news? From propaganda and paranoia to profit and politics. ibid.
New York Journal: Destruction of the War Ship Maine was the work of an enemy. ibid.
When President Trump talks about fake news, which he has more or less constantly since being elected in 2016, what he means is real news that he doesn’t like. ibid.
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion purports to reveal the detailed plans with which a Jewish elite will take over the world. ibid.
There are occasions where fake news has been undertaken with the full knowledge of the state and justified as being in the national interest. ibid.
Doesn’t lying make us as bad as the enemy? … Lies have unforeseeable consequences. ibid.
I believe that there are potentially very real threats from fake news. ibid.