A Florida pastor has found himself in hot water after he allegedly attempted to sell counterfeit copies of Damien Hirst’s ‘dot’ paintings. Kevin Sutherland, who heads the Mosaic Miami Church, was arrested last week after New York prosecutors worked undercover by posing as interested buyers.
According to prosecutors, Sutherland attempted to sell a Hirst artwork to Sotheby’s in December, which he claimed he had purchased from an unnamed source. Sotheby’s realised that the work was a forgery and notified law enforcement who emailed Sutherland asking if he had any more Hirst works to sell.
After Sotheby’s informed Sutherland that there had been a problem in the authentication process (including the fact that Hirst’s signature did not match), Sutherland told the undercover official that he had several more Hirst paintings for purchase, which he offered to sell for $185,000.
When the undercover officer asked whether the works were genuine, Sutherland reportedly responded with ‘everything’s good, everything’s good.’ It would seem that everything was not good at all, however, as Sutherland met up with the official at the Gramercy Park hotel only to find himself arrested.
Sutherland has since been charged with second-degree grand lacerny and is being held for $100,000 bond. His court-appointed lawyer, Laurence Spollen, told press that his client would be fighting the charges.
UK artist Damien Hirst is a somewhat controversial artist best known for his work featuring dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. He has received much criticism over the years, mainly over his simplistic concepts and mass reproductions which are actually done by his staff. In fact, the works Sutherland was attempting to sell were reproductions of Hirst’s ‘spin’ paintings (colour projected onto a spinning circular surface) and ‘spot’ paintings (rows of colourful circles which are mass produced by his assistants). As The New York Times puts it, ‘to hear Damien Hirst’s critics tell it, his works may be among the easiest to duplicate in the art world.’
But perhaps the skill of the work has little to do with the success of an art forgery. Just ask Wolfgang Beltracchi who pulled off possibly one of the greatest art forgeries in history when he reproduced German Expressionist Heinrich Campendonk’s Red Picture with Horses for €2.88 million. He was later caught, charged with a number of forgeries and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Another famous forgery was completed by Dutch artist Han van Meegeren who sold over $60 million worth of fake Johannes Vermeer paintings, fooling everyone from high-ranking Nazi officer Hermann Göring to the Netherlands government.
