Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum Plays April Fools' Joke on Prolific Forger
Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 4:59AM 
These prints from a book shows a work by French painter Paul Signac, left, and the forged version and painted by art forger Mark A. Landis, of Laurel, Miss., right, at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio on Tuesday, March 27, 2012. The work of the convincing art forger who has spent nearly three decades copying artists like Picasso and donating his fake art to unsuspecting museums goes on display April Fool's Day. The University of Cincinnati exhibit will explore the problem of art forgery through a look at the unusual story of Landis. AP Photo/Dottie Stover-University of Cincinnati. (Click Photo for Larger Image)Art forgeries have become a big business--and not in the criminal sense. Many museums now have rooms dedicated to those works in their collections that have proven to be forgeries--or at least falsely attributed to great masters. From ArtDaily.org:
CINCINNATI (AP).- Fool me once, the saying goes. But 50 times? That's what a convincing art forger did for nearly three decades when he donated his copies of Picassos and other works of art to unsuspecting museums in 20 states. Mark A. Landis, who has dressed as a Jesuit priest or posed as a wealthy donor driving up in a red Cadillac, apparently never took money for his forgeries and has never been arrested. Now his "works" have been collected into their own tongue-in-cheek exhibit, called Faux Real and opening on April Fools' Day at the University of Cincinnati.