Former secondary school teacher John became embroiled in what Scotland Yard call ‘the biggest art fraud of the 20th century’. Following his release from prison, he now creates showstopping artworks inspired by the greatest artists in history. His legendary story has featured on BBC One's Fake or Fortune and inspired an upcoming feature film.
In 1986, John Myatt placed a classified advert in the satirical British magazine Private Eye. "19th and 20th-century fakes for £200" stated the ad, heralding the birth of what was initially a legitimate business. Producing paintings to order, John painted his way through 20th century art history, commissioned by a man known as ‘Professor John Drewe’. His materials were unorthodox, including household emulsion mixed with K-Y Jelly, yet the quality of his work led Christie’s to value one of his paintings at £25,000. This was the moment that the business stopped, and the crime began.
Between 1986 and 1994, John faked as many as 200 works by artists like Marc Chagall and Alberto Giacometti, fooling collectors and experts at Christie's, Sotheby's and the Tate Modern alike. Many of these counterfeit works found their way into private collections and public institutions in the United Kingdom and abroad. Eventually the scheme was exposed by Scotland Yard, and Myatt was sentenced to a year in HM Prison Brixton for his role in this now-legendary art fraud.
Upon his release from prison, John was persuaded to pick up his brush again by the detective who arrested him. In recent years, he has emulated the style of legendary artists like Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Klee, Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. Comparing himself to an actor immersing himself in a role, he says he climbs into the mind of his chosen artist to adopt, rather than copy, their technique. In a 2005 interview with The Guardian, John explained: “I try to get the artist’s work to hypnotise me. I also surround myself with lots of books. I like to know everything…where he was, what he was doing…when he was painting.”
John’s studio is in his house in Staffordshire, and he likes to start his day with a coffee before embarking on his work. He paints every day, spending around 30-35 hours per week in his studio. He has even been known to be hard at it at 3am in the morning! Experimentation is key to recreating the spectrum of effects favoured by different artists: John uses everything from paintbrushes to sponge rollers, spray guns and K-Y Jelly, with the latter creating a smooth finish for his paintings.
John says: “Using another artist’s work is a great opportunity to not just look passively at their art but engage with it and see how they’ve achieved their effects and techniques. I was successful because I wasn’t creating copies; it was new work in the style of a particular artist – which is much more fun. This way, you can put a bit of yourself into the process. For example, Monet would never use fluorescent colours, but using modern paints gives the work more bite. The original painting is a template and you end up putting it to one side to create new work."
To ‘age’ his paintings, John uses strong coffee or brown umber, which is a natural earth pigment. To give the impression of craquelure - a fine web of cracks in old paint - John has a specific way of layering varnishes to produce an ultra-quick cracking pattern. While any scientist analysing these paintings would spot that they’re made with modern materials, the point of a good fake is that it’s so convincing that no one will think to analyse it.
John adds: “I love the challenge of looking at a new artist, and I’ve enjoyed every single one I’ve emulated – from 1960s Modernism to 19th century Impressionism, I like it all. The Pre-Raphaelites created perhaps the most technically challenging pieces, with some taking up to 18 months to complete. It’s phenomenal, but a little bit too much like hard work!"
Alongside television appearances on shows such as A Brush with Fame, Fame in the Frame, Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge and Fake or Fortune, John has worked with Oxford University, Cambridge University and the San Diego Museum of Art, and now advises the police on art fraud. A feature-length film about his incredible story is in production, while his wife Rosemary has also written a book - Genuine Fakes - based on the script.
Following the successful launch of John Myatt’s Monet in Giverny, the artist brings us two new limited editions in the style of the great Impressionist, showing his famous gardens in Normandy, specially created for Monet to paint. The new works are ‘La Barque 1887’ and ‘The Waterlily Pond at Giverny’, two iconic works of impressionism.
'La Barque 1887' was painted when Monet decided to reintroduce figurative elements in his landscape paintings. 'The Waterlily Pond at Giverny' is a key part of the bigger Water Lilies series; a huge number of paintings and drawings from around the artist's garden, which occupied Monet until his death and includes dozens of canvases creating a panorama of water, lilies, and sky in his studio inspired by his Giverny garden.
John Myatt's original artworks capture the beauty and the detailed artistry of the masters he takes inspiration from.
The exquisite genius of artist John Myatt is an amalgamation of many elements: an unrivalled eye, a dedication to research and learning, and a relentless pursuit of perfection. But as an artist, he is so very much more than the sum of his component parts. His is a self-knowledge that can come only through extremely fortuitous birthright, or years of lived experience.
In combining this heightened awareness for his craft with a genuine and enduring love for bringing old masterpieces to a new and wider audience, Myatt’s journey has been a veritable masterclass, more than fifteen years in the making. From Monet to Matisse and Van Gogh to Vermeer, Myatt’s past portfolio of ‘genuine fakes’ traverses most styles and subjects of any note from the annals of art history.
John Myatt’s paintings are a unique way to understand the spirit and methods of history’s greatest artists. Although Myatt now emulates the masters while adding his own panache, that luxury wasn’t always afforded to him. To support his family as a single father, Genuine Fakes began on the wrong side of the law, when Scotland Yard detectives called his immaculate imitations of work by art world heavyweights like Marc Chagall, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse “the biggest art fraud of the 20th century”.
After a short stint behind bars, the detective who arrested him became the first person to commission a legitimate Myatt, followed by the barristers who wanted mementos of the case. Over 20 years later, Myatt’s work is prized by private collectors and he works with law enforcement to help expose would-be fraudsters.
Myatt has managed to perfectly capture the styles and techniques of countless celebrated artists, and hugely enjoys the dialogue he has with past masters through his work.
John believes that the works Monet painted at Giverny are some of his finest. “They show him at the peak of his powers, and they were a deeply personal project for him,” he explains. “It almost seems like a crossover into music; as you’re looking at the different colours, there’s almost a symphonic element going on under the surface of the painting and music in the way those colours speak to each other.
“You can really discern this when you’re actually painting – when you’re doing it from the inside, you can see how Monet faced the problem of painting the works at Giverny, where the gardens were created for him especially for painting, enabling him to explore different lighting without travelling; he was already internationally famous and at last had the luxury of being able to paint for himself.”
The genius of John Myatt comes from his combination of his own creative skill with his in-depth study of the artists whose work he recreates. “It’s hugely important for me to understand them well. You can sit and stare at Monet’s work for two or three hours and suddenly notice something you’ve never seen before. You are always learning from working in the style of Monet, because he lived for such a long time and went to so many different places as an artist. The Giverny pieces show him as man who was totally at the top of his game, and they are timeless”.
John Myatt has recreated two of Monet’s classic Giverny views in the pieces ‘Harmony in Green: The Japanese Bridge (965)’ and ‘Avenue of Flowers II’ available individually or as a stunning set of two.
John believes that the works Monet painted at Giverny, in the garden created by Monet especially for him to paint, are some of his finest. “They show him at the peak of his powers, and they were a deeply personal project for him,” he explains. “It almost seems like a crossover into music; as you’re looking at the different colours, there’s almost a symphonic element going on under the surface of the painting and music in the way those colours speak to each other.
Named after John's now-infamous ad in Private Eye magazine for convincing replicas of classical works, the innovative Genuine Fakes series showcases the talent that led to his supporting role in one of the most sophisticated art frauds in history. Alongside an upcoming feature-length film about his incredible story, Genuine Fakes: The Hopper Collection reflects the enduring interest in the artist, who has appeared on television shows including Fake!
Hopper's cinematic aesthetic - characterised by the juxtaposition of light and darkness, and a theatrical voyeurism that inspired the Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock - is captured in the saturated colours of the signed limited edition prints.
Amongst the selection are interpretations of some of Hopper's best-known works, including 'Nighthawks' (1942) and 'New York Movie' (1939), which are currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art respectively.
Each of the intricate frames has been handmade by a team of craftsmen in the UK. An original hand-carved 18th century mould was used to recreate an authentic period design using sustainably sourced wood.
A plaster resin mix was used for the decoration, which is applied to the primed wood moulding. The frames were then carved and pierced by hand before being hand-stippled to create the beautiful colour finish. This was followed by a gentle burnishing with an agate stone, before it is sealed with a delicate application of wax.
He’s got one of the most fascinating stories in the art world, so it was our pleasure to reveal the Spring/Summer 2021 collection by the infamous art forger John Myatt. For these stunning limited edition prints, he took on Claude Monet and Marc Chagall. No detail was spared, with every hand-embellished canvas presented in a frame cast from an original 18th century mould. He told us: “It’s so good that it could be, just could be, a real one.”
The relationship between art and film has a complex connection that stretches back to the dawn of cinema in the late 19th century. Captivating audiences and challenging norms, the two are tightly bound by their shared visual power, storytelling and use of both legacy techniques and new technology, meaning the notional bridge between the two mediums is regularly crossed. We explore the film-art crossover that has resulted in both still and moving masterpieces for over a century.
Immerse yourself into a world of masterful recreation as John Myatt pays homage to Monet and his beloved Giverny collection through his own unique vision and talent.
In this edition of our 2022 Curator’s Picks series, we hear from Glyn Washington about why John Myatt is unmistakably a modern master.
Adding to his Genuine Fakes series, John Myatt steps into the heart and mind of master Impressionist Claude Monet with his spellbinding Venice collection.
Claude Monet's unforgettable impressionist paintings of Venice have now been captured by world-renowned British artist John Myatt. Bespoke framed in a gilded Rocco-style and hand-embellished, these iconic and graceful limited edition artworks will add a touch of museum magic to your home. Discover more about Monet and John's inspirations here.
The 20th-century realist painter Edward Hopper is the latest artist to be reimagined by the infamous art forger. This collectible release includes some of the artist's best-known works, including 'Nighthawks'.
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