Some art experts are cautioning that the spiking value of Maud Lewis paintings will make the Nova Scotia folk artist's work more attractive for fraudsters to replicate.
Lack of expertise with art fraud in police, judicial systems part of problem, lawyer says
Some art experts are cautioning that the soaring value of Maud Lewis paintings will make the Nova Scotia folk artist's work more attractive for fraudsters to replicate.
Making Maud frauds isn't new, with allegations dating back decades. One of the people accused of making forgeries of her work was her husband, Everett Lewis, after Maud's death in 1970.
The Nova Scotia government even purchased what it thought were three Lewis works in 1982, which were found to be frauds four decades later. Two of those paintings were even hung in the premier's office.
While Lewis sold her paintings for a few dollars each, her paintings now routinely sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Experts say these prices, coupled with a lack of an appetite for prosecuting art fraud in Canada, create a market ripe for fraud.
"That proliferation is always going to accelerate as prices go higher, and they certainly have been going higher," said art fraud lawyer Jonathan Sommer
