When it comes to art heists, the most successful tactic for one man was to hide in plain sight.
There was never a need to sneak through a museum window for one of America’s most prolific living art forgers Earl Marshawn Washington. He tricked collectors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling counterfeit woodcuts passed off as rare Renaissance-era works.
In fact, prosecutors in court conceded that 61-year-old was a “skilled artist” himself, and you can still find his work on Invaluable.com.
His woodcuts were so masterful, collectors believed for years that they were created in the 15-century during a period known for cultural evolution.
On April 2, 2024, after at least 30 years on the art scene, the law caught up to Washington, and he was sentenced to over four years in prison. His decades-long scam had finally ended.
Art fraud is most easily accomplished when no one knows it’s happening.
Washington got his start in the late 1990s when he began selling woodcuts on eBay that he claimed were made by a little-known Black artist named Earl Mack Washington — who happened to be his great-grandfather.
The elder Washington, a “master wood-engraver and printer,” had supposedly accumulated a phenomenal collection of woodblocks from famous friends during his lifetime (1862 – 1952), and now his great-grandson was raking in the cash, selling tens of thousands of woodblock prints on eBay and through galleries in San Francisco and Detroit, among other places.
The pieces were reasonably priced, usually from $20 to $350, and printed on old paper. The elder Washington’s elaborate bio also threw off suspicion. The bio said the late Washington “had one of the largest collections of artists’ woodblocks in the United States,” which he had acquired through a “circle of acquaintanceship” that included Eric Kill, Lynd Ward, Rockwell Kent, M. C. Escher, and Robert Gibbings.
“Washington’s career began at the age of 13, when he was…
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