[MSN] Hollywood eyes British art faker's tale (John Myatt)

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Hollywood eyes British art faker's tale

By Paul Majendie
Reuters
Tuesday, May 9, 2006; 10:11 AM



LONDON (Reuters) - For Hollywood, it is an enticing script idea.

Amateur painter John Myatt bamboozled the art world with a string of
counterfeit Monets and Picassos that were sold to collectors around the
world. He got caught and went to jail.

On release, he built a new life selling "genuine fake" canvasses of great
artists.

The detective who arrested Myatt was so impressed by his talent that he
commissioned him to do a family portrait. Even the lawyers at his trial
bought Myatt paintings.

Now Hollywood producers Jay Weston and Fred Levinson have acquired the
rights from Myatt for a biopic about the scam that London police once called
"the biggest art fraud of the 20th century."

"I am providing all the paintings for the film," said the 60-year-old
artist, who this week stages the biggest exhibition yet of his counterfeit
paintings at St Paul's Gallery in the central English city of Birmingham.

"I shall be fully collaborating on the filming of the movie. But I am sure
they will be adding car chases and sex scenes which never were in the
original," he told Reuters.

"I am told Michael Douglas is also interested in making a film about the
case and I believe he bought the rights from a journalist who wrote a story
about the trial. I offered to do some paintings for the film but never heard
anything back."

STRANDED

Hollywood is full of tales about film deals that never materialize, but
Myatt is convinced Weston, who has produced biopics of W.C. Fields and
Billie Holiday, will deliver.

"They are confident it will make it to the screen. I have signed the
contract. They are planning to start shooting at the end of the year at the
latest."

In the Eighties, Myatt worked as an art teacher. When his wife left him, he
was stranded at home looking after two young children and churning out his
counterfeit Great Masters.

He put an advertisement in the satirical magazine Private Eye offering
"Genuine fakes" for sale.

John Drewe became a regular customer and then one day announced that a major
auction house had mistaken one of the forgeries for a genuine painting by
Salon cubist Albert Gleizes.