CBS News has broadcast a fascinating feature and interview with Ken Perenyi, a self-taught artist who fooled the art market and auction houses with forgeries of paintings. His method was to bring paintings he himself made into auction houses, and ask them what he had, saying now in retrospect, “risk is addictive“.
The man has published a tell all book – “Caveat Emptor” – about his experiences fooling the experts and thus defrauding collectibles buyers. One of his fake paintings earned him $650,000 at auction.
Watching his interview, I get the sense that some of the psychology behind his crimes mirror those found in the original prop and costume collecting field, confessing, “It was me against the experts – can I outsmart them again? Can I outwit them? Can I succeed? Can I make a fake and pass it off as an original?”
Like in this hobby, he learned how to artificially age items in extremely sophisticated ways.
The FBI interviewed him, and yet he still got away with his efforts, and now, the statute of limitations have run out, so he can be open about his illegal activities.
Over 1,000 of his fakes are currently in the marketplace, by his own estimations.
The full article and video can be found at CBS.com (“A forger of art tells all“):
Jason DeBord