Eric Hebborn
Eric Hebborn (* 1934 in London, † January 11, 1996 in Rome) was a British painter and art forger.
Life and work
Hebborn grew up in dismal social conditions, but showed early talent as a painter and could already exhibit the age of 15 in Maldon Art Club.
As a student at the Royal Academy of Arts, he won the Silver Award and received a 1959 Romstipendium. In Rome, the art expert and spy Anthony Blunt should have it with those of Nicolas Poussin's attention to the similarity of his work.
Hebborn worked in a row for the restorer George Aczel, where he could also attach "improvements". His first "real" counterfeits were drawings on paper by Augustus John.
Hebborn moved in sequence with his life partner Graham David Smith to Italy, and he started on a large scale images of painters such as Corot, Castiglione, Mantegna, Van Dyck, Poussin, Ghisi, Tiepolo, Rubens, Jan Breughel and Piranesi to forge. Art historians such as Sir John Pope Hennessy declared his works for real and this provided high profits at auctions.
However, in 1978 discovered Konrad Oberhuber, curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, that two newly acquired works on paper by various artists used the same type of paper as a base. The art dealer Colnaghi referred to his suppliers Hebborn. This remained unmolested and to have committed approximately 500 forgeries between 1978 and 1988. 1984 Hebborn known but, like before Tom Keating, his forgeries and attacked the art world, their cliques and experts, as well as in his book Drawn to Trouble ( 1991).
On 8 January 1996, shortly after the publication of the Italian edition of his art forgers handbook Hebborn was found in Rome with severe head injuries. He died three days later from the effects of a blow with a blunt object.
A BBC documentary was produced in 1991: Eric Hebborn: Portrait Of A Master Forger. In it he states, a world-renowned Leonardo da Vinci drawing that had been accidentally destroyed, have newly put on paper.
(Books )
- Drawn to Trouble Mainstream Publishing, 1991 ISBN 1851583696
- Art Forger 's Handbook Overlook Verlag, 1997, ISBN 1585676268