Mark A. Landis

Mark Augustus Landis (born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1955) is an American painter of original works and forgeries, who lives in Laurel, Mississippi.^[1] After he donated a large number of forged paintings and drawings to American art museums under various identities, his confidence trick was exposed beginning in 2008.

Biography

Mark Landis's grandfather, Arthur Landis, was a director at the now defunct Auburn Automobile company.^[2] His father, Arthur Landis, Jr., a lieutenant (and later lieutenant commander) in the US Navy, married his mother, Jonita (1930–2010), in 1952. Mark was born three years later, and the family moved around a good deal because of his father's various postings. Following assignments in the Philippines and Hong Kong, Arthur Landis, Jr. was posted to NATO in Europe, where the family lived in Cap Ferrat (France), London, Paris, and finally Brussels, where Landis began forging stamp cancellations for his friends.^[3]

In 1968 the family returned to the United States, settling in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1971, Landis's father was diagnosed with cancer, of which he died the following year. At 17, Landis was deeply struck by the loss of his father, and he was treated for 18 months in a Kansas hospital, diagnosed as schizophrenic. He attended art courses at the Art Institute of Chicago then in San Francisco, where among other things, he worked on the maintenance of damaged paintings.^[4][5] He bought an art gallery but it was not successful, and he lost money in a real-estate investment. In 1988, he decided to return to live with his mother and stepfather, James Brantley, in Laurel, Mississippi. Beforehand, he wished to make a gesture that would please his mother and honor the memory of his father: donate a copy of a Maynard Dixon work to a California museum; this first successful attempt convinced him to repeat the feat.^[6] For more than 20 years, he donated all kinds of faux pieces of art to institutions in the U.S., including more than 50 museums.^[7] He generally chose smaller museums, which did not have the powerful means of analysis of the larger ones. While not all institutions were duped, the whole process went largely unnoticed for more than 20 years, in spite of the large number of dispersed forgeries. Landis even donated up to six copies of the same work to different museums.

During this period, Landis also produced original works; some have been sold through Narsad Artworks, which sells work by artists with mental illness. As of 2013, it was still possible to buy note cards bearing a work entitled Magnolias by Landis (which copies Martin Johnson Heade without credit).^[8]

Landis moved often, having lived at more than 15 different addresses between 1985 and 2000. Patsy Hollister, Narsad co-founder, believes Landis probably is more bipolar than schizophrenic, with an ability to paint extremely fast. Says Landis, talking about icons: "I gave to hundreds of churches."^[6] Landis also is said to have worked in animation and advertisement.^[9]

Landis' success derives not so much from the perfection of his faux artworks (sometimes a basic test exposes the forgery) as from his ability to copy all kinds of styles, his choice to imitate lesser-known artists, and his ability to play the role of an eccentric but sincere philanthropist. Moreover, museums tend not to scrutinize gifts as carefully as they do works that they must pay for.^[3]

Investigation

In 2007, Landis offered several works to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, among them a watercolor by Louis Valtat, a harbor scene by Paul Signac, a self-portrait by Marie Laurencin, an oil painting by Stanislas Lépine, and a drawing by Daumier.^[10] The registrar, Matthew Leininger, investigated the pieces. He discovered a very similar Signac had been offered to the SCAD Museum of Art. A press release even signaled the donation of the same Signac, Avery and Laurencin.^[11] It also provided Mark Landis's real name. Leininger investigated further, and discovered Landis had tricked more than 60 museums in 20 different states, using a number of aliases including Stephen Gardiner, Father Arthur Scott (a Jesuit priest), Father James Brantley (his stepfather's name), Mark Lanois (one letter different from his own name), Martin Lynley, and John Grauman. Leininger warned other museums, providing available photos of Landis. At this stage, the investigation remained confidential.

In September 2010, Landis went to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana, under the identity of Father Arthur Scott. He donated a painting by Charles Courtney Curran, under the pretext of the loss of his mother. The director, Mark Tullos, asked registrar Joyce Penn to check out the painting. When Penn examined it under blacklight, the colors glowed suspiciously. In addition, a microscope observation then showed a dot-matrix pattern, hinting that a mere photocopy of the original had been projected on the board and then painted over. Penn dug deeper and linked up with Leininger's investigation. In November 2010, The Art Newspaper published a comprehensive article on the matter,^[10] inspiring other publishers such as the Financial Times to follow suit.^[4] Despite these exposés, Landis has continued his forgeries intermittently, with attempted gifts in November 2010 to the Ackland Art Museum (as Father Arthur Scott);^[12] in September 2012 to William Carey University (as Martin Lynley); and in October 2012 to several southern museums (as Lynley and as John Grauman).^[3]

Law infringement

It appears that in donating forgeries to art museums, Mark Landis has not actually broken any laws, even though his activities were clearly deceptive. If he had sold work to the museums or taken a tax deduction on them, however, he might very well have fallen under federal art crime statutes. Both the fact that he did not gain economically from his actions (apart from a few gifts from curators), and the fact that he mainly addressed his donations to specialists who had the expertise to detect his forgeries (but often didn't) protect him in the eyes of the law. No legal action has been opened against him to date (as of 2014). As one art crimes expert put it: "Basically, you have a guy going around the country on his own nickel giving free stuff to museums.”^[3]

Exhibition

Both Tullos and Leininger wished to put an end to Landis's career as a forger. Leininger and Aaron Cowan, Director of the DAAP Galleries at the University of Cincinnati, set up an exhibition to address the general matter of forgery in art, and specifically Landis's works. The curators collected some 60 pieces by Landis, who provided his "Jesuit priest" costume and some of his art books. Entitled "Faux Real", it took place in Spring 2012 at the Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed Jr. Gallery, University of Cincinnati.^{[7][13][14][15]} The organizers set up a short video featuring Landis' most relevant paintings.^[16] Landis attended the opening reception of the exhibition.^[17]

Painters and authors copied

Works in his own name

Documentary

Mark Landis is the subject of the documentary Art and Craft, directed by Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman and co-directed by Mark Becker. It premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2014, and was acquired by Oscilloscope Laboratories for North American distribution. The film focuses on Landis's history of forgeries and the process he goes through to create and donate them. The film also features Leininger and Cowan.^[35][36]

Notes

External links

• Art and Craft, a documentary film
• 'Art and Craft': "The life and times of Mark Landis, devoted art imitator"
• Interview with Landis for BBC Outlook.
• Matthew Leininger blog, "On the Trail of an Art Forger"