The Museum of Art Fakes opened in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 in 2005. This small, privately run museum in the Landstraße

Landstraße

Landstraße is the 3rd municipal District of Vienna, Austria] . It is near the center of Vienna and was established in the 19th century. Landstraße is a heavily populated urban area with many workers and residential homes. It has inhabitants in an area of 7.42 km². It has existed since...

 district is the only one of its kind in the German-speaking world.

The exhibits include works by the renowned Vermeer-forger Han van Meegeren

Han van Meegeren

Han van Meegeren , born Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, was a Dutch painter and portraitist, and is considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century....

 and the British art restorer

Art restoration

Art restoration is related to art conservation. Restoration is a process that attempts to return the work of art to some previous state that the restorer imagines was the "original". This was commonly done in the past...

 Tom Keating

Tom Keating

For the football player of the same name see Tom Keating .For the priest and author of the same name see Thomas Keating....

, who claimed to have faked over 2,000 works by more than 100 different artists and deliberately inserted "time bombs" and anachronisms into his paintings. Also on display are items produced by Konrad Kujau

Konrad Kujau

Konrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received DM 2.5 million from a person who in turn sold it for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern.-Early life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of Richard...

, creator of the fake Hitler Diaries

Hitler Diaries

In April 1983, the West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, known as the Hitler Diaries , which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries...

, as well as works by David Stein

David Stein (art forger)

David Stein was an artist who, until 1966, had been frequently sentenced for theft by the French courts before becoming an art forger and art dealer with 15 aliases.-Biography:Stein often copied paintings in the style of the masters; His clients were mainly attracted by his low prices...

, Elmyr de Hory

Elmyr de Hory

Elmyr de Hory was a Hungarian-born painter and art forger who claimed to have sold over a thousand forgeries to reputable art galleries all over the world...

, Eric Hebborn

Eric Hebborn

Eric Hebborn was a British painter and art forger and later an author.-Early life:Eric Hebborn was born in the London suburb of South Kensington to a Cockney family in 1934, although his mother was a gypsy. According to his autobiography, his mother beat him constantly as a child...

 and Lothar Malskat

Lothar Malskat

Lothar Malskat was a German painter and art restorer who repainted medieval frescoes of Marienkirche in Lübeck....

. In addition, the museum presents information on the history of the most famous forgeries, and the sometimes very dramatic fates of their creators.

External links

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