Artful Codgers
About the codgers
The forger
Shaun Greenhalgh, the 47-year-old talent behind the fakes, had lived at home all his life, until he was sent to prison in November 2007. In police interviews, heard here for the first time, he said he turned to forgery because he believed he'd never be recognised as an artist in his own right and that the art world was only interested in works of art if they were by a famous name. Making the fakes became a compulsion, he said: 'I just have to do it for some reason.'
During a 17 year crime spree, Shaun and his parents systematically deceived the art world, including dealers, auction houses, museums and private collectors. They sailed close to the wind on a number of occasions, with the art squad poised to pay them a visit at least twice during the 90s.
Finally, in November 2005, their cottage industry in art and antiquities began to unravel when a minor error in an 'ancient' Assyrian tablet Shaun had knocked up in their garden shed was spotted by the British Museum.
Shaun Greenhalgh, the 47-year-old talent behind the fakes, had lived at home all his life, until he was sent to prison in November 2007. In police interviews, heard here for the first time, he said he turned to forgery because he believed he'd never be recognised as an artist in his own right and that the art world was only interested in works of art if they were by a famous name. Making the fakes became a compulsion, he said: 'I just have to do it for some reason.'
During a 17 year crime spree, Shaun and his parents systematically deceived the art world, including dealers, auction houses, museums and private collectors. They sailed close to the wind on a number of occasions, with the art squad poised to pay them a visit at least twice during the 90s.
Finally, in November 2005, their cottage industry in art and antiquities began to unravel when a minor error in an 'ancient' Assyrian tablet Shaun had knocked up in their garden shed was spotted by the British Museum.
Hidden treasures
Tipped off by the Museum, the police raided the Greenhalgh family home in Bolton and discovered an extremely unusual family. Shaun shared a cramped room with his 83-year-old mother Olive, his elderly aunt Jessie and his 52-year-old brother, George. The house was littered with fakes, amongst which were three of Shaun's previous attempts at creating The Amarna Princess , a statue of Tutankhamun's sister purported to be over 3,000 years old, which the Greenhalghs had sold to Bolton Council in 2003. The statue went on display in the town's museum after first being shown to the Queen in an exhibition of treasures saved for the nation in London.
Despite having made hundreds of thousands of pounds from selling dozens of fakes, the Greenhalgh's lifestyle did not reflect those riches: the family continued to lead a modest existence, totally cut off from the outside world with only themselves and their forgeries for company. Even their neighbours of fifty years rarely saw them come and go.
Tipped off by the Museum, the police raided the Greenhalgh family home in Bolton and discovered an extremely unusual family. Shaun shared a cramped room with his 83-year-old mother Olive, his elderly aunt Jessie and his 52-year-old brother, George. The house was littered with fakes, amongst which were three of Shaun's previous attempts at creating The Amarna Princess , a statue of Tutankhamun's sister purported to be over 3,000 years old, which the Greenhalghs had sold to Bolton Council in 2003. The statue went on display in the town's museum after first being shown to the Queen in an exhibition of treasures saved for the nation in London.
Despite having made hundreds of thousands of pounds from selling dozens of fakes, the Greenhalgh's lifestyle did not reflect those riches: the family continued to lead a modest existence, totally cut off from the outside world with only themselves and their forgeries for company. Even their neighbours of fifty years rarely saw them come and go.
The perfect salesman
While Shaun was busy carving, casting and painting the forgeries, his elderly father, George, was the salesman behind the operation, assisted by Olive. George played the part of the doddery old man to perfection, fooling the various experts that he came across into thinking that he had no idea of the value of what he possessed. But the family had, in fact, carefully researched lost masterpieces in art reference books from their local libraries, and skilfully assembled stories about the fakes' provenances that some experts and auction houses believed.
George concocted colourful stories for the numerous fakes, and his penchant for storytelling extended beyond trying to prove provenance for relics: in court George claimed to be a war veteran with a bullet in his head after getting shot in Italy, but the film reveals he was in fact a deserter who had spent the war in prison. A Walter Mitty-style fantasist, George appears to have been passing off fakes for decades before he discovered the prodigious talents of his youngest son, Shaun, who could copy anything.
Cooped up in the family home, with no job and no friends, Shaun developed a conviction that he would never succeed as an artist, and therefore should make his success by forging other people's work. In police interviews, George and Olive even asked what happened to the dealers who were making so much money out of Shaun as they sold on 'his' work.
Was the art world as snobbish and vain as George and Shaun imagined? The irony is that, since his arrest, Shaun has finally begun to earn the respect that he had always craved, with experts now claiming that his 'Gauguin' fawn is a masterpiece, and collectable in its own right.
While Shaun was busy carving, casting and painting the forgeries, his elderly father, George, was the salesman behind the operation, assisted by Olive. George played the part of the doddery old man to perfection, fooling the various experts that he came across into thinking that he had no idea of the value of what he possessed. But the family had, in fact, carefully researched lost masterpieces in art reference books from their local libraries, and skilfully assembled stories about the fakes' provenances that some experts and auction houses believed.
George concocted colourful stories for the numerous fakes, and his penchant for storytelling extended beyond trying to prove provenance for relics: in court George claimed to be a war veteran with a bullet in his head after getting shot in Italy, but the film reveals he was in fact a deserter who had spent the war in prison. A Walter Mitty-style fantasist, George appears to have been passing off fakes for decades before he discovered the prodigious talents of his youngest son, Shaun, who could copy anything.
Cooped up in the family home, with no job and no friends, Shaun developed a conviction that he would never succeed as an artist, and therefore should make his success by forging other people's work. In police interviews, George and Olive even asked what happened to the dealers who were making so much money out of Shaun as they sold on 'his' work.
Was the art world as snobbish and vain as George and Shaun imagined? The irony is that, since his arrest, Shaun has finally begun to earn the respect that he had always craved, with experts now claiming that his 'Gauguin' fawn is a masterpiece, and collectable in its own right.