CAVEAT EMPTOR

In his highly reviewed best-selling autobiography, Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger, Ken recalls his days as a major player in the international art underworld in NYC from the 70s to the 90s. (Here are some pictures from Ken's Caveat Emptor Scrapbook). Even during his heyday as one of the most prolific - and most lavishly compensated - master forgers in the world, his primary drive was the desire to utterly master his craft. Those few who are lucky enough to have witnessed him at work tell of his preternatural ability to discern at once how the masters created their works and to adopt their techniques entirely. Indeed, he is recognized and consulted regularly by academics and art historians worldwide as a foremost expert on the masters he paints.

 

As his book details, Ken often creates an entirely original work, adopting a particular master's techniques to create paintings he believes they themselves would recognize as worthy of their own canons of work. In this view, Ken's paintings aren't - and never were - forgeries. In a very real sense, he thinks of them as continuations of the masters' works, very much in the Old Europe tradition of master artists employing apprentices in their studios.

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Today, Ken has greatly expanded his oeuvre to include modern and impressionist masters. The paintings on this website are examples from his recent collection and are available for purchase, although many of his paintings are not included on this website.  To view some of Ken's available paintings, please click here.

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