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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Dalya Alberge

‘We got a kick out of it’: art forgers reveal secrets of paintings that fooled experts

Red Picture with Horses
Red Picture with Horses – the forged Campendonk painting that led to the artists’ arrest in 2010. Photograph: Simon Vogel/picture alliance/dpa

Their forgeries of 20th-century masters such as Max Ernst and Fernand Léger duped the art world into parting with millions of pounds – until a modern pigment gave them away.

Now, after serving lengthy prison sentences, Wolfgang Beltracchi and his wife Helene have told the story behind the hundreds of paintings that tricked even the artists’ families.

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