Man Spent $50K on Fake Art That was Copied From a Catalogue

By
Shawn Ambrose
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In the old days, all you needed to be a scammer was a working phone and the ability to construct complete sentences.

But now, scammers have gotten so sophisticated that some are armed with the aesthetic sensibilities and brushwork of an accomplished artist.

In fact, they’re so good at forging meticulously-crafted works of art that they can even dupe seasoned art collectors into handing over tens of thousands of dollars for a fake.

Man Spent $50K on Fake Art That was Copied From a Catalogue

When art collector Johnny Quek forked out more than $50,000 for two paintings, he certainly believed he was getting his money’s worth.

After all, the paintings were done by Singaporean multidisciplinary artist Tan Swie Hian.

According to The Straits Times, Tan is the most expensive living artist in Singapore and South-east Asia.

One of his works, a painting of Bada Shanren completed in just 60 seconds, was sold for $4.4 million at the Poly Auction in Beijing in 2014.

So Quek must have been rather pleased with his purchases… until he discovered they were both forgeries. 

It all started with a purchase of a piece called “Picture of Mimicry”, which Quek bought for $25,000.

A friend of Quek’s, an art dealer, had sold it to him and said he had another similar-sized painting by Tan.

This painting – Cold Mountain Comes To Guo Qing Temple – was bought for $28,000.

Quek only grew suspicious when his art dealer friend offered yet another painting of Tan’s the following month.

“I know that Tan Swie Hian doesn’t produce that many paintings a year, so how could there suddenly be so many on the market?, he told ST.
Quek then contacted Tan, who confirmed that the paintings were both fakes. He urged the art collector to make a police report.

A Dead Giveaway

As you can imagine, copying the work of a highly-skilled artist like Tan, no matter how competent the forger is, is a tough task.

For Tan, it was the forger’s calligraphy style that was a dead giveaway.

“The hardest is the calligraphy because it is so small. The inscription is on the catalogue so he just copied the words but used his own style.”
Because of this, Tan believes the fake was copied from a catalogue from a 2012 exhibition.

Authorities Shouldn’t Take Art Forgeries Lightly

Art forgers have been the bane of artists’ lives for centuries.
Both Tan and Quek called upon the authorities to take such cases more seriously, as the number of art forgeries are on the rise.
“The police should get more expertise to deal with the increasing number of forgery cases. They should not be taken lightly. These cases are not hard to prove”, Quek said.
Featured Image: Alexander Davidyuk / Shutterstock.com

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Shawn Ambrose
Email: [email protected]