Must be nice to be able to purchase great art from the 20th century. Steve Martin has been an avid and smart collector for years, but even he was fooled by this bogus painting. Martin bought German-Dutch modernist Heinrich Campendonk’s 1915 painting “Landscape with Horses” from a French gallery in 2004. He had it confirmed as authentic by an expert and paid $850,000 for it. In 2006 he sold it at a loss for $650,000. It was later revealed to be an expert fake and was part of the biggest German art forgery scandal since WWII. Which just goes to show that even Steve Martin, who published a novel about the New York art scene, “An Object of Beauty,” can be fooled.
16 Comments
VERY Interesting! Remember the con-man role Steve played in Mamet’s “The Spanish Prisoner?”
Life imitating “art,” no?
Bet there’s an intriguing story there!
850,000? That’s a lot of fishing lures! That’s also a new fishing vessel and Plus, maybe hire a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader to spend the evening with me to wipe the sweat from my brow and hold my chilled glass of sweet ice tea. LOL
I know nothing about art. Either I like something or not. I can’t imagine paying that kind of money for any picture. It’s cool if others like it but it does nothing for me. When I look at the photo above, I see pretty colors and three mishaped horses.
It happens all the time. . I’ve purchased chinese faked antique scrimshaw and perfume bottles. The Hongs are all over fakery and very good at it.
I’m with Walt. I see pretty colors and misshaped horses too. I will never have the kind of mind that sees “art” the way they do.
and a lot of people buy expensive art just to show off, they don’t “get it” either
You have to understand these people have so much money they don’t know where to blow it next. You won’t see Steve in Walmart buying a Miley Cyrus poster.
he still tries to figurea out “What Went Wrong”.
It’s amazing and sad to me that people that rich spend that kind of money for a small thing to hang on the wall. It’s probably not even his main house! There is so much need in the world, and suffering, that reading about overly rich people who have no clue what to do with that money (how bout just not spending it). It reminds me of the Ellen story where she can’t find anything better to do that buy houses all around her. And, then, of course, they have to FURNISH those houses and sections of houses, don’t they? My mind boggles at they wasted money the combined movie stars and entertainers waste every day. Just on Purses, jeans, and cars!
Yet there they are every time there is a catastrophe somewhere in the world, all the rich people come out and start guilt tripping the rest of us poor schlubs for some dough. It pisses me off over and over again each time it happens. There they are, manning the phone banks for our donations, sitting there just waiting til they can go home in their luxury cars to their luxury homes full of luxury the likes of which mere mortals like us will never even see.
Does it bother you that someone like Will Smith’s little annoying daughter willow probaby already has more money than you’ll ever see in your lifetime on only one horrible “song” about whipping your hair around???
Damn, I gotta go take a pill or something and go to bed! I can’t take this shit!
Anyone who could look at that brightly-coloured mess of misshapen horses and think it worth money has been robbed of sense, even before any purchase could be more than contemplated. I do not condone fraud, and that is why I cannot call this “valuable art”, even if it were genuinely by the artist Mr. Martin believed it to be.
I’m sure this style of art (when not forged) is original, underivative, and primitive to beat the band, but those qualities are also true of the works of ours that our mothers used to hang on the family refrigerator, and they are not enough to justify supporting the artist who produces such works.
I don’t get “art” sometimes either, although I do love Renoir and Monet. Many people buy art for investment purposes because it doesn’t lose its value, unless you buy a fake which Steve Martin obviously did.
@Walt, interesting fantasy you got going there with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. LOL
Denise, I had just seen the taped show of “Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy”. He spends the day with the Dallas cheerleaders and tries to do a few cheers himself. He’s a funny goofball. lol
Steve Martin married Tina Fey?
Steve Martin married HIS DAUGHTER! What the eff is up with these old farts??? YOU’RE OLD DUDES…………accept it! (Not even going in Hefner territory). Truly — that does look like a photo of him with his daughter. (Latent pedo).
Marian, the librarian…if ever a movie role calls for a character like this, she would be perfect.
I loved Steve in “The Jerk”, and also “Planes,Trains and Automobiles.” Anyone who would not belly laugh at these two movies doesn’t have a pulse.
Christ… Will someone please lance that raging abcess on the shoulder of the red horse?
There’s a lot going on in that painting for circa 1915.
I think it’s great.