Bids for Shaun Greenhalgh art hit record on day

'Going to work' (1925) by L.S.Lowry

THREE paintings in the style of Lawrence Stephen Lowry by the Bolton artist Shaun Greehalgh, beat their reserve prices when they went on sale at the Bolton Auction Rooms today.  People at the auction rooms reported that the pictures were bought after a bitter series of telephone bids came in.
The reserve prices in the auction house catalogue was given as £1,000-£2,000 in the case of each painting.
On the day, a spkesman for the auction house told Northern Voices that one of the paintings went for £5,700, and the other two went for £5,100.
Shaun Greenhalgh was born in 1961, and became famous after the British Museum examined some of his work before two of his reliefs were submitted to Bonhams auction auction house in 2005, its antiquities consultant Richard Falkiner spotted 'an obvious fake'.  Then Bonhams consulted with the British Museum about various suspicious aspects, and the Museum then spotted several unlikely anomalies.
The Greenhalgh's family became known as the 'the garden shed gang'.  They built up an elaborate cottage industry at Shaun's parents' house in The Crescent, Bromley Cross, South Turton, which is  north of Bolton town centre.[
Shaun Greenhalgh had left school at 16 with no qualifications.   A self-taught artist, he had been influenced by his job as an antiques dealer, he worked up his forgeries from sketches, photographs, art books and catalogues.  He attempted a wide range of crafts, from painting in pastels and watercolours, to sketches, and sculpture, both modern and ancient, busts and statues, to bas-relief and metalwork.  He invested in a vast range of different materials - silver, stone, marble, rare stone, replica metal, and glass.  He also did meticulous research to authenticate his items with histories and provenance (for instance, faking letters from the supposed artists) in order to demonstrate his ownership.  Completed items were then stored about the house and garden shed. The latter probably served as a workshop as well.
Shaun's father, George Greenhalgh, who fronted as the sales operation of the fakes – produced by Shaun, died in October 2014 at the age of 91.
Since his Dad died, Shaun Greenhalgh has produced several paintings in the style of Lowry which went on sale in Bolton today, and bringing more than double their reserve price.
The three successful pictures at the auction included 'Going to work'; 'Coming from the mill'; and 'Before kick off', all framed oil on canvas after L.S.Lowry, and painted by Shaun Greenhalgh in 2015.

NEW FAKES IN BOLTON EXHIBITION

FAKE WORKS created in the style of famous artists Banksy and Tracey Emin will feature in a prestigious exhibition at Bolton Museum. These previously unseen pieces will form part of the Fakes and Forgeries exhibition, which opened at the museum on Saturday, April 16 and will continue till July.

The exhibition, which was created by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Art and Antiques Unit, also includes the Amarna Princess statue crafted by convicted Bolton forger Shaun Greenhalgh. The Amarna will form the centrepiece of the exhibition, which was launched at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in January last year.

There will be a reconstruction of Shaun Greenhalgh’s garden shed – where he made his forgeries – and a collection of his other works, such as the Risley Park Lanx, Barbara Hepworth’s Goose, and Thomas Moran paintings. Other objects on display will include fake antiquities by John Andrews and forged silverware by Peter Ashley Russell, paintings by renowned forgers John Myatt and Robert Thwaites.

Robert Thwaites, a forger who made more than £120,000 from the sale of two fake paintings, was jailed for two years in September 2006. Thwaites tricked Antiques Roadshow art expert Rupert Maas into paying £20,000 for one of his copies. London gallery owner Maas sold on The Miser purported to be by John Anster Fitzgerald for a profit of 300%. Thwaites, from Leek, Staffs, made more than £100,000 from another Fitzgerald fake called 'Going To The Masked Ball'.

Since appearing at the V&A, the Art and Antiques Unit have introduced some Tracey Emin fakes by Jonathan Rayfern and added some different Banksy fakes. Jonathan Rayfern, a 32 year-old ex-art student from Manchester was sentenced to 16 months at the Manchester Crown Court last October. He had sold at least 11 fakes on Ebay including sketches on fabric and a pencil drawing and made about £26,000. Ten items had been sold to a Gallery owner in Warwick. In his defence he said that he had been trying to pay off loan sharks. Commenting on the Rayfern case at the time the 'artist' Tracy Emin said: 'My artwork is deeply personal and comes from my heart. It hurts and distresses me to see these fakes and forgeries that have no regard, respect or understanding of what I do.'

The free exhibition will appear at Bolton Museum until Saturday, July 2.

Estimating the chances of buying a forgery:

· Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has estimated that up to 40% of the art market is comprised of some type of forged art.

· It has been suggested that only half of the 600 works supposedly painted by Rembrandt are genuine and as many as 10% of modern French paintings may be forgeries.

· The 20th century's most famous forger was Han van Meegeren, confessed in 1945 to having forged several Vermeers, including The Supper at Emmaus, which scholars had proclaimed a masterpiece.

· In the 1980s and 1990s, British forger John Myatt infiltrated the art market with fake Giacomettis, Ben Nicholsons and Graham Sutherlands.

· In the late 1980s, Eric Hebborn claimed he faked and sold more than 1,000 old-master drawings to institutions including the British Library.

Copies of Northern Voices 10 with our report on the Bolton forger Shaun Greenhalgh from Bromley Cross is still available. To obtain a copy send a cheque for £2.20 payable to 'Northern Voices' to: 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.