Fool me once, the saying goes. But 50 times? That’s what a convincing  art forger did for nearly three decades when he donated his copies of  Picassos and other works of art to unsuspecting museums in 20 states.
Mark  A. Landis, who has dressed as a Jesuit priest or posed as a wealthy  donor driving up in a red Cadillac, apparently never took money for his  forgeries and has never been arrested. 
Now his “works” have been  collected into their own tongue-in-cheek exhibit, called Faux Real and  opening on April Fools’ Day at the University of Cincinnati.
Educating people about forgery and letting people know about  Landis “is the only way to stop him,” said Mark Tullos, director of the  Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, La., which  was duped in 2010 with a donation of a painting supposedly by American  Charles Courtney Curran.
Landis creates works in oil, watercolor,  pastels, chalk, ink and pencil, making most of his copies from museum  or auction catalogs that provide dimensions and information on the  originals.
He sometimes bestows gifts under different names, such  as the Father Arthur Scott alias used at Hilliard. In that case, he  told officials that his dead mother had left works including Curran’s  oil-on-wood painting  
Three Women and that he was donating it in her memory.
Tullos  said museum employees became suspicious when Landis kept changing the  subject under questioning. After he drove off, the museum quickly  concluded it was a forgery.
To convince museums he is a  philanthropist, he also concocts elaborate stories about health  concerns, said Cincinnati exhibit co-curator Matthew Leininger.
“He  has been having heart surgery for almost 30 years,” Leininger said with  a frustrated laugh. “This is the strangest case the museum realm has  known in years.” 
Landis, 57, acknowledges what he’s up to. He  told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his home in Laurel,  Miss., that he made his first forgery donation to a California museum in  1985.
“They were so nice. I just got used to that, and one thing  led to another,” he said. “It never occurred to me that anyone would  think it was wrong.”
The Cincinnati exhibit of about 40 works  given to 15 museums grew to around 100 when Landis donated 60 pieces he  possesses, along with his priest’s outfit.
The Faux Real show  will run through May 20 at the Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed Jr.  Gallery. It depicts famous art forgers, details of how Landis made some  donations and ways of detecting fakes. Visitors can view some works  under ultraviolet light that causes sections to glow if they contain  contemporary ingredients.
Art experts say not accepting payment  for his forgeries has helped keep Landis from being charged with a  crime. Museum officials say forgeries can hurt their reputation and cost  time and money researching suspected fraud.
Landis typically  targets smaller museums without resources to thoroughly check donations.  While museums don’t pay Landis, some treated him to meals, receptions  and gifts like catalogs and souvenirs before realizing they were duped,  Leininger said.
The exhibit doesn’t judge Landis but is using his  story to show how forgeries occur and demonstrate that institutions and  the public “shouldn’t take things at face value,” said Aaron Cowan,  exhibit co-curator.
The exhibit won’t increase the value of  Landis’ works – considered worthless except as educational tools on  forgery – and the curators have heard no objections to spotlighting his  works.
Landis won’t profit from the show but says it is “nice of  them to do this.” And though Leininger says he doesn’t think Landis can  stop, the forger acknowledges that it’s harder to fool people now “than  the ’80s and ’90s, when you could just walk in and donate.”
 “Now they want all types of documentation.”
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