var beforeAfterContainer = $('#nytmm_beforeAfter_wrapper587 .nytmm_beforeAfter_container'); We use rightCredit: data.images.right.rightCredit, He was a diffident, artistic child who was diagnosed at age 17 with schizophrenia and institutionalized for eighteen months. FUNERAL HOMES. But money was not a factor in the scheme of Mark Landis, aka Steven Gardiner, aka Father Arthur Scott, aka Father James Brantley and aka Marc Lanois, when he showed up at Loyola University in New Orleans in February of 2012. Vintage Roots, Modern Enhancements Erin and Ben made thoughtful modifications that took this 1920s cottage from plain-vanilla to sharp and stylish with interiors defined by functional design and a modern-masculine aesthetic. In Art & Craft, we also learn that Landis is a. Mark Landis, in the guise of Father Scott, among others, has spent decades creating forgeries and gifting . You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many users needs. Landis Sims, a 10-year-old boy born with no hands or lower legs, joined Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees for a day of baseball. Career An internationally acclaimed artist, Mark Landis, who suffers from mental illness, was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17. showButton: data.footer.button.showButton, rightCredit: data.images.right.rightCredit, He crafted meticulous back-stories for his own alter egos, and for the works that supposedly came from his familys collection. They get a letter in the mail of a promised gift of art and then it shows up via FedEx or in person, as he did while I was in Oklahoma City, along with a photocopy of an auction catalogue entry for provenance reasons showing he was the owner. leftCredit: data.images.left.leftCredit, A documentary is often only as good as its subject, and Art and Craft has a truly unique and astonishing one. rightButtonText: data.footer.button.rightButtonText var data = chameleonData[0]; Hes also made copies of letters from John Hancock and Abraham Lincoln. But the fact is he gave it to the museum for free.". } But when he paid a visit to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, La., last. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. Landis grew up in Europe in the 1960s. Lived In Dublin OH, Hilliard OH, Santa Teresa NM, Drums PA. Related To Jennifer Landis, Kyle Landis, Jason Landis, Terri Landis, Lindsay Landis. "I mean, these are no small potatoes," Leininger says in the film. Mark Landis, the forger whose hoodwinking of more than 50 museums across 20 states was the subject of this year's documentary Art and Craft, does not exactly play to type. Mr. Bassi knew Mr. Landiss mother, Jonita Joyce Brantley, who was born and raised in Laurel and was a member of the museum. Address: Room 306, Cato Center for the Arts. They look the same, you know?. And I think over time we learned that, while they may have opposing roles, they shared an obsession. })(jQuery || NYTD.jQuery); Stanislas Lepine, Terrassiers, au Trocadero (c. 1890) Offered to: Oklahoma City Museum of Art, St. Louis University Museum of Art, University of Kentucky Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum The auction house, gallery owner, or other middle man selling the piece gains its commission. Leininger admits that he became "obsessed" with stopping Landis. In August 2011, posing as a Jesuit priest, Landis showed up at Mississippi University for Women with a sketch by costume designer Edith Head he wanted to donate to the school in honor of his sister. The media can report on a great story, that there are hidden treasures among us, there for anyone to find. It looks like a million dollars. rightButtonText: data.footer.button.rightButtonText None of his numbers worked. A funny, fascinating, too-good-to-be-true documentary about Mark Landis, one of the world's most prolific art forgers, who for over 30 years has duped museums across the country--until one determined registrar sets out to stop him. "Mark has seen almost everything up to a point, maybe the 1970s," says Art & Craft producer and director Jennifer Grausman. Now, Landis is producing original works and accepts commissions . Landis, 60, is distinctive in many ways. hide caption. Resides in Warren, MI. Landis was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17. All rights reserved. var data = chameleonData[0]; Website designed and maintained by IA&As Design Studio. Life and career [ edit] Mark Landis was born in Norfolk, Virginia. So in creating these fakes he thought he was making pretty pictures to impress his mom and gifting them to institutions in her name and his fathers name. She passed away from after battling a 2 year fight with cancer. By Matthew C. Leininger, former Curatorial Department Head at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. Art & Craft includes an interview with Robert Wittman, who founded the FBI's Art Crime Team. Above, Landis heads in to one of his "philanthropic" visits. Landis's career as an art forger began in the mid-1980s, when he gave some pictures to a California museum, saying they were by the American 20th Century artist Maynard Dixon. When contacting museums, he would often use aliases and dress like a Jesuit priest. It bore a weathered label of a defunct New York art gallery on the verso. He has a master's degree in fine art, as a printmaker, and he is a knowledgeable follower of Nascar, which his wife introduced him to while they were courting. According to John Gapper, who investigated Landis for the Financial Times article, Landis explained his preferred method as follows: he would go to Home Depot, spend approximately $6 on three boards cut to the desired size, and paste digital reproductions of the works he planned to copy onto the boards. Landis was very close to his dad Lt. Cmdr. In the film, Landis quotes from, among other old gems, Outer Limits ("Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear") and talks about how he and his late father "lived by the code of The Saint," as in the Roger Moore character Simon Templar from the 1960s TV show. Since the release of the film, that has changed: Hes been to New York for a screening; a touring exhibit of his forgeries has been organized and hes invited to appear at screenings of the movie, as was the case Thursday evening at the Rosenzweig Arts Center. I used watercolors and black crayon because thats what they said he used in the catalog. Art fraud investigator Colette Loll believes making fakes was the way he managed his mental illness. "To them Mark was a symbol of hope and wellness and productivity," says Loll. That was not a concern to me. (The Hilliard said it discovered the forgery within hours, using a microscope to find a printed template beneath the paint.). Ever since being conned by Landis that day in 2007, he's been obsessed with tracking the forger down. startPoint: data.images.startPoint, I did not seek the media; they sought me and this story as a social interest piece to help me educate the public, which has been my mission with Landis. Since Landis was donating his copies to museums, he wasn't doing anything illegal. The St. Louis University Museum of Art still lists his donations on its Web site but describes them as in the manner of Stanislas Lepine and Paul Signac, not as works by the artists. Landis was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17. He got a kick out of giving away the paintings for free and leading art collectors to believe he was a philanthropist. Birney Imes: The curious case of Mark Landis. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community. Leininger spent five years tracking Landis, and shared his findings with the public in 2010, resulting in media attention from The Art Newspaper, The Guardian (London), The New York Times, Financial Times, Maxim, CBS Sunday Morning, in addition to other international social media outlets and publications. For three decades, he used plain old colored pencils, magic markers, and acrylic paints to . var options = { These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. beforeAfterContainer.BeforeAfter(options); and I do not know his wealth or how he could make his travels over the years. On May 29, 1987, Landis, Wingo and three co-defendants--associate producer . In the years since, Mr. Leininger has appointed himself as a kind of Javert to Mr. Landiss Valjean. Art fraud investigator Colette Loll believes making fakes was the way he managed his mental illness. beforeAfterContainer.BeforeAfter(options); "Mark is one of those people that are so unusual that you kind of don't know what to make of when you meet him," says Cullman. But when the Hilliards director of development chatted with Father Scott about the church and his acquaintances in deeply Roman Catholic southern Louisiana, the man grew nervous. Hi everyone. The verso of a fake Charles Courtney Curran painting that Mark A. Landis presented, with a label from a defunct Manhattan gallery. Art and Craft. [1] The best four summaries of the case appear in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/arts/design/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all), The Art Newspaper (http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/%E2%80%9CJesuit-priest-donates-fraudulent-works/21787), the Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5905c640-2359-11e0-8389-00144feab49a.html#axzz1iaLh3QxA), and Maxim (http://www.maxim.com/amg/STUFF/Articles/Art+Forger+Mark+Landis), and it is largely on these articles that this section is drawn. Institutions provide lunch or carte blanche in their stores, but the story is the same. He'll correct you if you call him an artist because his art, like his life, is not what it first appears to be. Mark Landis visited the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana, dressed as Father Arthur Scott and claiming he wished to donate a painting in honor of his deceased mother. His goal was only to gift his creations in his parents honor and institutions accepted the work into their collections. Leininger quickly found that James Brantley was the name of Mark Landis' step-father, and all signs suggested that the painting was a forgery. Hes very well read and knows a lot about art history, and so he can be very convincing, he said. MEMORIALS. As an apology for not having opened the door when Gapper first knocked, Landis gave him a painting he had designed and completed of Joan of Arc, signed with his own name. His stunts made headlines around the world. In 2012, an adult male mountain lion was discovered roaming the Hollywood Hills, and he was captured and fitted with a radio collar for study. Leininger did his due diligence and found out that other museums had some of the same works. startPoint: data.images.startPoint, Under his first alias, Steven Gardiner, he gifted in honor of his mother Joan Greene Gardiner a drawing supposedly by Jean-Antoine Watteau, as well as the same Curran forgery to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in 2009. This holds little sway when thousands, and occasionally millions, are at stake, should the new work be deemed authentic. caption: data.footer.caption, Our soft spot: art and money.". Landis' birth is one of those riddles wrapped up in an enigma, stuffed into a paradox, and then boxed in a quandary. (He tends to favor lesser-known artists but occasionally tries his hand at a Picasso, a Watteau or a Daumier.) Although what he was doing was wrong, Loll believes the process helped him manage his mental illness by giving him a sense of purpose, and by "feeding his desire for acceptance and friendship and camaraderie and simply to be liked and respected.". As Landis puts it in the film, for him, "Copying is reassuring." His lack of concern with details shows his disinterest in the lasting effect of his fraud. leftButtonText: data.footer.button.leftButtonText, Landis did not respond, but the Father James Brantley sightings abruptly ceased until February of 2012, when he came out under his fourth alias, Marc Lanois. Mark Landis, the forger whose hoodwinking of more than 50 museums across 20 states was the subject of this year's documentary Art and Craft, reveals just how he See more artspace.com Legendary Art Forger Mark Landis Tells All var options = { Landis himself stated to me that his rationale for perpetrating this unusual scheme was that Everyone likes to be treated nice.. On the below images, click and drag the slider to compare Landiss versions (at left) to the original masterpieces (which can be uncovered The next is from 1987 when a work of his, a supposed watercolor by Marie Laurencin was given to the New Orleans Museum of Art. Landis was self-depreciating, brutally honest and frequently hilarious. I emailed Landis anonymously to inform him that I was aware of his continued activities and new name. He is believed to have given over 100 forgeries, according to the New York Times . Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? He speaks softly, sometimes in incomplete thoughts. Landis, now in his fifties, is a painter and former supposed gallery owner, and a most unusual type of personone who has yet to break a law, and as I mentioned, gained financially. startPoint: data.images.startPoint, rightImage: data.images.right.rightImage, })(jQuery || NYTD.jQuery); Jos Clemente Orozco, Estudio De Tres Mujeres Desnudas Offered to: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Art Museum of the Americas, This is an easy one. First, it demonstrates that the forgers ability level is comparable to that of the famous master whose work has been copied. died in 2010, the soft-spoken Landis is engaging if remorseless about his deception, and more than happy to demonstrate for the directors the crude yet ingenious ways he sets about copying works of art. When he arrived at the Hilliard University Art Museum in Louisiana, driving a large red Cadillac that had belonged to his mother, Jonita Joyce Brantley, formerly of Laurel, Mississippi, he introduced himself as Father Arthur Scott. He had a connection to Laurel and he knew of the museum, he said, and you just assume good intentions.. His last known attempt to pass off a forgery occurred in mid-November, when he presented himself, again as Father Arthur Scott, at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, bearing a French Academic drawing. Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, "It wasn't like Landis went in and said, 'Here, I want to give you this fabulous painting by Picasso and you need to pay me $100,000 for the painting,'" Wittman explains. " caption: data.footer.caption, Why was he doing this? Cadillac that had belonged to his mother, Jonita Joyce Brantley, formerly of Laurel, Miss., he introduced himself as Father Arthur Scott. Mark Landis has been a member of Actors' Equity Association since 1978, and his work in the professional theatre took him to a number of different parts of the U.S. where he worked as an actor, a director, and a stage manager. Landis' mom learned that her son would have no hands and feet from an ultrasound picture taken when she was about eight months pregnant. Exhibition organized and toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington DC, in conjunction with curator Colette Loll. When I met Landis for the first time, not only did he show the love of art but the love of his family, mainly mother as he always referred.