Julian Crowley
4. Tom Keating
Tom Keating painting
Tom Keating broke the law to make a point. He found the artistic world to be rotten and corrupt – a system where those in the know connived “to line their own pockets at the expense both of naive collectors and impoverished artists.”
Forged Degas
His forgeries were works of subversive warfare with “time-bombs” indicating their inauthenticity planted within them so that they would emerge as forgeries and, he hoped, bring down the system. His forgeries included works by Samuel Palmer, François Boucher, Edgar Degas, Amedeo Modigliani and Rembrandt. He has claimed 2,000 forgeries but refused to identify them.
