Mark Augustus Landis “I gave a picture to a museum in the memory of my father which I hoped would please Mother. Everyone was so nice that I was soon to get into the habit of donating pictures to museums. Being treated so nicely by people was something I was unfamiliar with and I liked it very much.” —Mark Landis 2013 "It sounds simple," he said of his technique, cautioning that an aptitude for painting and drawing is necessary.

1. Art Forgery

2. Mark Augustus Landis (born 1955) is an
American painter who lives in Laurel,
Mississippi.[1] He is best known for
"donating" large numbers of forged
paintings and drawings to American art
museum
Landis attended art courses at the Art Institute
of Chicago and then in San Francisco where,
among other things, he worked on the
maintenance of damaged paintings.
Landis lived at more than 15 different
addresses between 1985 -2000 and he had an
ability to paint extremely fast..
Landis was diagnosed a schizophrenic at age
17, although caseworkers have recently
suggested bipolar disorder may be a more
appropriate diagnosis. Landis cannot
understand why museums are upset with his
“hobby.” He claims his donations are a tribute
to his deceased parents and are acts of good-
will.
.

3. He generally chose smaller museums, which did not have the same means of detailed analysis as the
larger ones. the whole process went largely unnoticed. Landis even donated up to six copies of the same
work to different museums.
He imitated lesser-known artists and his ability
to play the role of an eccentric but sincere
philanthropist. Moreover, museums tend not to
authenticate gifts as carefully as works they
buy.
For nearly 30 years, art forger Mark Landis has
copied the work of other artists and then
donated the pieces he produced to museums
and art institutes. Over and over again, his
forgeries were accepted,
“I gave a picture to a museum in the memory of my father
which I hoped would please Mother. Everyone was so nice
that I was soon to get into the habit of donating pictures to
museums. Being treated so nicely by people was something I
was unfamiliar with and I liked it very much.”
—Mark Landis 2013

4. I have done drawings and watercolors, then later on, I don't know, somewhere around 2000, in the late
1990s, I started to realize you could do a lot with the new color Xerox machines," Landis told
LiveScience.
"In 2000, I used to go to Office Depot or something like that and use
their color copier, then, when I got the printer, I wouldn't have to go
any place," Landis said.
Landis pastes copies of a picture onto boards cut at Home Depot,
then goes over a number of them in one sitting while watching TV.
Using colored pencils, paint or markers, he fills in the image. To the
naked eyes of museum staff, these works appear real when Landis
presents them as gifts. But under ultraviolet light or a magnifying
glass, the illusion falls apart.
Before employing the copier, he used a more traditional method,
simply recreating the image with pencils and paints
Since some of the work he copies was created centuries earlier, he
uses instant coffee that mimics the passage of time.
"It sounds simple," he said of his technique, cautioning that
an aptitude for painting and drawing is necessary.