A master forger once dubbed ‘the most prolific in British history’ is to sell imitations of LS Lowry paintings legally at auction. Shaun Greenhalgh served a four year prison sentence for swindling unwitting museums, dealers and collectors out of £1,000,000 over a 17-year criminal career. The forger created fakes ranging from Roman antiquities and a Paul Gauguin sculpture to a Leonardo da Vinci painting worth millions. Scroll down for video Shaun Greenhalgh, once dubbed ‘the most prolific in British history’, is to sell imitations of LS Lowry paintings legally at auction But since his release in 2010 Greenhalgh has continued painting and now three of his LS Lowry ‘imitations’ are set to sell ‘within the confines of the law’. As a forger he offloaded a number of fake Lowry paintings, including one of ‘The Meeting House’, which went on to sell for £70,000. However, the three up for sale are not direct copies of Lowry paintings, but works done in the style of the Salford artist. On the front they bear Lowry’s signature and an incorrect date of when they were painted but on the back of each it states: ‘2015, Shaun Greenhalgh after LS Lowry’. This protects Greenhalgh, who explained how he created his fakes on the BBC’s from Fake or Fortune, from breaching copyright laws when selling the work. One piece depicts a football match with factories in the background while the other two show ‘matchstick’ people walking along a busy street. These three paintings, all produced in…more detail
