Overview

"In 2013 a reporter for the London Financial Times, wrote a story about Mark Landis after he got wind that someone from the Oklahoma Museum of Art believed that someone was donating forged paintings to museums all across the U.S. The donor did not use his real name and sometimes dressed as a Jesuit Priest, other times as landed gentry from the South. The reporter tracked him down in Laurel, Mississippi, a small town that is probably best known as the home of the popular home-renovation TV show, ""Home Town."" As it turned out, Mark Landis, is an unassuming, 68-year-old genius with an IQ of 150 who has spent most of his life in mental health facilities, mostly in Mississippi, bravely coping with schizophrenia. However, despite that he has created not only flawless forgeries of the world's greatest art, but also a memorable body of original art, which he is now willing to share with the public in this book. Intrigued by the news stories about Landis, two filmmakers, Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman, contacted Landis and expressed interest in doing a film. The result was a 2014 documentary that exposed America's most talented art forger by making him the subject and star of an Emmy-nominated film, ""Art and Craft."" As a result of the forgeries, Landis was investigated by the FBI. He was not arrested for his forgeries because he never asked for money for the artwork and he never claimed them as donations on his income tax returns. In other words, he broke no laws with his deceptions. It was his way of making new friends. Mark Landis is a genuinely likeable man who has had to overcome much in his lifetime. His honesty about his struggles in life is admirable. Despite the efforts of some to make him into a common criminal, his art fantasies were a threat to no one but himself. This is a book in which the reader can satisfy both intellectual and artistic palates. The tone and subject matter of the text is reminiscent of J. D. Salinger/s Catcher in the Rye, and the story of Mark Landis' life and art is reminiscent of the life and art of Vincent van Gogh, who struggled with mental health issues throughout his life. Despite the controversy of his forged paintings, Landis may just turn out to be the most important artist of our generation."

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Reviews

"""Things are seldom what they seem."" - Mark Landis. Every so often someone comes along and holds up a fun-house mirror to the art world. For 30 years Mark Landis with his donated ""forgeries"" filled this role with verve and humor. While Landis is a serviceable painter, his true gift is his resourcefulness and audacity so well portrayed in the laugh-out-loud-funny documentary, ""Art and Craft."" In this disarmingly candid autobiography, Landis displays an irresistible naivet� that belies his wide-ranging knowledge of art and the ability to devise a refreshingly innocent scheme that allowed him to hoodwink dozens of museum curators.- Birney Imes, author of Juke Joint, Whispering Pines and Partial to Home."

"""Things are seldom what they seem."" - Mark Landis. Every so often someone comes along and holds up a fun-house mirror to the art world. For 30 years Mark Landis with his donated ""forgeries"" filled this role with verve and humor. While Landis is a serviceable painter, his true gift is his resourcefulness and audacity so well portrayed in the laugh-out-loud-funny documentary, ""Art and Craft."" In this disarmingly candid autobiography, Landis displays an irresistible naivet� that belies his wide-ranging knowledge of art and the ability to devise a refreshingly innocent scheme that allowed him to hoodwink dozens of museum curators.- Birney Imes, author of Juke Joint, Whispering Pines and Partial to Home. ""Little did I know when I first met Mark Landis in 2011 as we began filming the documentary Art and Craft, that he would impact me in the way that he has. His creativity and resourcefulness-an evidenced by his work-always inspire me, but it's his mischievous sense of humor and particular point of view that define his true creative spirit. I'm happy that with Self-Portrait of a Master Art Forger more people will be able to spend time in his mind and in his world.""-Jennifer Grausman, Director and Producer."

Author Information

"Mark Landis is the star and subject of the Emmy-nominated documentary, ""Art and Craft,"" the story of the search for America's greatest living art forger. For more than three decades, Landis donated artwork done by the world's greatest painters, to America's premier art museums, explaining that the valuable artwork had been in his family for years and needed a permanent home. Sometimes he showed up at the museum dressed as a Jesuit Priest, other times dressed as wealthy Southern landed gentry. His presentation was very impressive, but it was all a lie. By any measure Mark Landis is a master art forger, arguably the best con-man America has produced since Elvis's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. More likely, he falls in the autism spectrum and probably qualifies as a savant. According to Landis, he has an IQ of 150, putting him in the genius category. He is a prolific reader and has lived in the Philippines, throughout Europe, San Francisco and Chicago, where he attended the Chicago Art Institute. Christen Shepherd, a gifted Canadian writer who was able to bring out the complicated personality and artistic vision of her subject through three years of interviews with him. It is an incredible document that will establish Landis as the Forest Gump of today's generation, someone who can see through the bullshit of society and conclude that Americans are living the lives they have learned from watching television and attending movies. She has written for Today's Parent Magazine and The Huffington Post Canada. She has a post-graduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers, under the supervision of Governor General Award-winning author, Dianne Bruneau-and a degree in anthropology from the University of Western Ontario."

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