Mark Landis: the Fake Philanthropist
When the Art Gallery of Chicago graduate found himself in a financial fix and on the verge of going back to Mississippi, he gave the last shot at a risky battle, and to his surprise, that became the beginning of something new. When Landis tried ‘donating’ his edition of Maynard Dixon’s work to the California museum as an original, he succeeded and saw new opportunities for him.
Since then, Landis has been donating and forging artworks to several small museums and posed as several artists, big and small, for 30 years. Even after his game was uncovered, no charges could be pressed against him as donations aren’t against the law in any sense.