Eric Hebborn (20 March 1934 – 11 January 1996) was an English painter, draughtsman,

art forger Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

, and later an author.

Early life

Eric Hebborn was born in

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

, London, in 1934. His mother was born in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

and his father in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

. According to his autobiography, his mother beat him constantly as a child. He stated that at the age of eight, he set fire to his school, and was sent to Longmoor

reformatory A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concern ...

in Harold Wood; his sister Rosemary disputes this. Teachers encouraged his painting talent, and he became connected to the Maldon Art Club, where he first exhibited at the age of 15. Hebborn attended Chelmsford Art School and Walthamstow Art School before attending the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. He flourished at the academy, winning the Hacker Portrait prize and the Silver Award, and the British Prix de Rome in Engraving, a two-year scholarship to the

British School at Rome The British School at Rome (BSR) is a British interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture established in Rome. Historical and archaeological study are at the core of its activities. History The British Sc ...

in 1959.''Death of a Forger''
by

Denis Dutton Denis Laurence Dutton (9 February 1944 – 28 December 2010) was an American philosopher of art, web entrepreneur, and media activist. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was also a ...

University of Canterbury There he became part of the international art scene, establishing acquaintances with many artists and art historians, including Soviet spy Sir

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), (formerly styled Sir Anthony Blunt from 1956 until November 1979), was a leading British art historian and a Soviet spy. Blunt was a professor of art history at the University ...

in 1960, who told Hebborn that a couple of his drawings looked like

Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the Classicism, classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and ...

s. This sowed the seeds of his forgery career. Hebborn returned to London, where he was hired by art restorer George Aczel. During his employ he was instructed not only to restore paintings, but to alter and improve them. Aczel graduated him from restoring existing paintings to "restoring" paintings on entirely blank

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable Plain weave, plain-woven Cloth, fabric used for making sails, tents, Tent#Marquees and larger tents, marquees, backpacks, Shelter (building), shelters, as a Support (art), support for oil painting and for other ite ...

es so that they could be sold for more money. A falling out over Hebborn's knowledge of painting and restoration destroyed the relationship between him and Aczel. Hebborn and his lover Graham David Smith''Celebration: The Autobiography of Graham David Smith'', Graham David Smith, Mainstream, 1996 also frequented a junk and antique shop near

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised town square, square in the West End of London, England, and is the centre of London's entertainment district. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leice ...

, where Hebborn befriended one of the owners, Marie Gray. In organizing the prints catalogued in the shop, Hebborn began to learn more about paper, and its history and uses in art. It was on some of these blank old pieces of paper that Hebborn made his first forgeries. His first true forgeries were pencil drawings after

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

, based on a drawing of a child by Andrea Schiavone. Smith states that several of these were sold to their landlord Mr. Davis, several to

Bond Street Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and the l ...

galleries, and two or three through

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

sale rooms. Eventually Hebborn decided to settle in Italy with Smith. They founded a private gallery there.

Life as a forger

When contemporary critics did not seem to appreciate his own paintings, Hebborn began to copy the style of

old master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

s such as:

Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly t ...

, Castiglione, Mantegna,

Van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealt ...

, Ghisi, Tiepolo,

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...

, Jan Breughel and Piranesi. Art historians such as Sir

John Pope Hennessy Sir John Pope Hennessy (; 8 August 1834 – 7 October 1891), was an Irish and British politician and colonial administrator who served as the eighth Governor of Hong Kong and the fifteenth Governor of Mauritius. Early life John Pope Henness ...

declared his paintings to be both authentic and stylistically brilliant and his paintings were sold for tens of thousands of pounds through art auction houses, including

and

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

.''CNN.com'
The prolific forger whose fake 'Old Masters' fooled the art world
24 October 2019 According to Hebborn himself, he had sold thousands of fake paintings, drawings and sculptures. Most of the drawings Hebborn created were his own work, made to resemble the style of historical artists—and not slightly altered or combined copies of older work. In 1978 a

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

in Washington DC, Konrad Oberhuber, was examining a pair of drawings he had purchased for the museum from

Colnaghi Colnaghi is a last name. Notable people with this last name include: * Ignazio Colnaghi (1924–2017), Italian actor * Luca Colnaghi (born 1999), Italian racing cyclist * Martin Henry Colnaghi (1821–1908), British art dealer * Mattia Colnaghi (bor ...

, an established and reputable old-master dealer in London: one by Savelli Sperandio and the other by

Francesco del Cossa Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430 – c. 1477) was an Italian Renaissance painter of the School of Ferrara (Painting), School of Ferrara, who after 1470 worked in Bologna. Cossa is best known for his frescoes, especially his collaboration with Cosimo ...

. Oberhuber noticed that two drawings had been executed on the same kind of paper. Oberhuber was taken aback by the similarities of the paper used in the two pieces and decided to alert his colleagues in the art world. Upon finding another fake "Cossa" at the

Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum (originally known as the Pierpont Morgan Library and colloquially known the Morgan) is a museum and research library in New York City, New York, U.S. Completed in 1906 as the private library of the banker J. P. Morg ...

, this one having passed through the hands of at least three experts, Oberhuber contacted Colnaghi, the source of all three fakes. Colnaghi, in turn, informed the worried curators that all three had been acquired from Hebborn,False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes, Thomas Hoving, Simon & Schuster, 1996 although Hebborn was not publicly named. Colnaghi waited a full eighteen months before revealing the deception to the media, and even then never mentioned Hebborn's name, for fear of a

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

suit. Alice Beckett states that she was told '...no one talks about him...The trouble is he's too good'."Fakes: forgery and the art world", Alice Beckett, RCB, 1995 Thus Hebborn continued to create his forgeries, changing his style slightly to avoid any further unmasking, and manufactured at least 500 more drawings between 1978 and 1988. The profit made from his forgeries is estimated to be more than 30 million dollars.

Confession, criticism and death

In 1984 Hebborn admitted to a number of forgeries – and feeling as though he had done nothing wrong, he used the press generated by his confession to denigrate the art world. In his autobiography ''Drawn to Trouble'' (1991), Hebborn continued his assault on the art world, critics and art dealers. He spoke openly about his ability to deceive supposed art experts who (for the most part) were all too eager to play along with the ruse for the sake of profit. Hebborn also claimed that some of the works that had been proven genuine were actually his fakes. During this period, Hebborn went on record to state that Sir Anthony Blunt and he had never been lovers. On one page he offers a side-by-side comparison of his forgeries of ''Henri Leroy'' by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and the authentic drawing, challenging "art experts" to tell them apart. On 8 January 1996, shortly after the publication of the Italian edition of his book ''The Art Forger's Handbook'', Eric Hebborn was found lying in a street in Rome, having suffered massive head trauma possibly delivered by a blunt instrument. He died in hospital on 11 January 1996. The provenance of many artworks attributed to Hebborn, including some which are alleged to hang in renowned collections, continues to be debated. Both the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

deny that they feature any Hebborn forgeries, although this was disputed by Hebborn himself.

Legacy

A documentary film ''Eric Hebborn: Portrait of a Master Forger'', featuring an extended interview with Hebborn at his home in Italy, was produced for the BBC's '' Omnibus'' strand and broadcast in 1991. The 2014 novel ''In the Shadow of an Old Master'' is based on the mystery surrounding Eric Hebborn's death and its aftermath.Blake, P. J. (2014). ''In the Shadow of an Old Master''. London: Matador. In October 2014 it was announced that 236 drawings were to be sold, in individual lots, ranging in price from £100 to £500 each, by auctioneers Webbs of Wilton in Wiltshire. On 23 October 2014 the drawings went on to sell for over £50,000, with one

sanguine Sanguine () or red chalk is chalk of a reddish-brown color, so called because it resembles the color of dried blood. It has been popular for centuries for drawing. The word comes via French from the Italian ''sanguigna'' and originally from the ...

drawing, after a design by Michelangelo, selling for £2,200, more than 18 times its expected price; Hebborn's modern drawing manual, ''The Language of Line'', complete with pencil corrections and edits, sold for more than £3,000. Although the identity of the successful purchaser of ''The Language of Line'' remains unknown, and no further copies are thought to have been in existence, Hebborn's former agent Brian Balfour-Oatts allowed ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' to have sight of the manuscript, which had been sent to him by a friend of the artist. Details of the previously unpublished text were published by the newspaper in August 2015. On 21 June 2025, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a play by Mike Harris about Hebborn's career, under the title ''Secrets and Lies: Fraud vs Fraud Hunter''.

Hebborn's books

*''Drawn to Trouble,'' Mainstream, 1991 *''The Art Forger's Handbook,'' Overlook, 1997 (posthumous) *''Confessions of a Master Forger,'' Cassell, 1997 (posthumous reprint of ''Drawn to Trouble,'' with epilogue by Brian Balfour-Oatts)

References

External links

Artfakes
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hebborn, Eric 1934 births 1996 deaths 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English LGBTQ people English art forgers English autobiographers English expatriates in Italy English non-fiction writers English people murdered abroad English gay artists English LGBTQ painters LGBTQ people from London People from South Kensington People murdered in Lazio Prix de Rome (Britain) winners English male non-fiction writers Conservator-restorers Unsolved murders in Italy Gay painters