Art Experts Warn of a Surging Market in Fake Prints

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Milton Esterow

The estate of Roy Lichtenstein says his “Crying Girl,” (1963), an offset lithograph, is one of the artist’s works that forgers have tried to fake most often. Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

In Basel, the Swiss authorities are prosecuting a local art expert who they say sold hundreds of fake prints that he passed off online as the work of Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and others over 10 years. The term “print” is a broad one, traditionally used to describe a number of types of original fine art works such as etchings, lithographs and woodcuts that are produced in limited editions through a range of processes. In each case, the artist creates an image and works with a publisher or printer to produce the set number, often destroying the plate, the stone or other matrix used after printing. Often the artist will sign and number each print with a marking that says it was, say, 12 of 200. (12/200.) The fakes, on the other hand, are typically photomechanical reproductions of the originals. [More]