David Voss

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David Voss is a Canadian art forger of Indigenous artworks, in particular those of the artist Norval Morrisseau, of the Ojibway Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation who has been deceased since 2007. [1] [2] He has forged documents between 1996 and 2019 as a part of a fraud ring that was based in Thunder Bay, Ontario. [1]

Voss and a ring of eight others were arrested in 2023 for forging and selling works allegedly by Morrisseau for over a decade. Voss and his team worked in an assembly line type operation that included children an in sweatshop-like conditions to produce forgeries using a "paint-by-numbers" process to create fake paintings. [1] The forgeries were detected when forensic analysts used infrared photographic processes to discover paint-by-number-like pencil markings on the underdrawings beneath the painted surfaces. [3]

Voss and his team forged thousands of artworks by Morrisseau. The forgeries resulted in $100 million Canadian dollars of losses to the artist's estate. [2]

ArtNews reported that "Voss oversaw the production of thousands of artworks falsely attributed to Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau." 500 of these forgeries have been seized by law enforcement as of June 2024. [4]

Voss, who was 52 years of age at the sentencing, [5] pleaded guilty to the art fraud ring charges. [3] The sentencing judge declared the forgery ring as the "largest art fraud in history" in Canada. [6] [7] Artforum magazine called the operation the "world's biggest art fraud." [1] Voss, who was described as the "principal architect" of the forgery ring, was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the forgeries. His partner, Gary Lamont, who has been described as "the ringleader of the operation" [5] also received a five year sentence, and six others were charged for the crime in 2023. [8] In addition to Voss and Lamont, Benjamin Paul Morrisseau, who is a nephew of the artist Norval Morrisseau, participated in reparation activities with tribal elders. [9] Also charged were Linda Joy Tkachyk and Diane Marie Champagne, all from Thunder Bay, Ontario, James White of Essa Township and David P. Bremner of Locust Hill and Jeffrey Gordon Cowan of Niagara-on-the-Lake. [5] [1]

The 2019 documentary film There Are No Fakes , was inspired by the forgeries of Norvall Morrisseau's art works. [10]

See also

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There Are No Fakes is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jamie Kastner and released in 2019. Starting with musician Kevin Hearn's lawsuit against the Maslak McLeod Gallery after being informed that a Norval Morrisseau painting he had purchased appeared to be a forgery, the film expands into an exposé of a significant art fraud ring that has produced many fake Morrisseau paintings through the use of forced child labour in sweatshops, in which some of Morrisseau's own surviving family members are complicit; by some estimates, there may be up to 10 times as much fake Morrisseau art on the market as real work.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Key Figure in World's Biggest Art Fraud Sentanced". Artforum. September 9, 2024. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  2. 1 2 Law, Sarah (5 September 2024). "Norval Morrisseau's legacy 'irrevocably damaged' due to art fraud, says judge giving man 5 years in prison". Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  3. 1 2 Allan, Michelle. "Another member of fraud ring producing fake Norval Morrisseau paintings pleads guilty". Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  4. ↑ Ho, Karen K. (7 June 2024). "Mastermind of 'Canada's Largest Art Fraud' Guilty of Peddling Fake Norval Morrisseau Works". ArtNews. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 "Man who oversaw massive Norval Morrisseau art forgeries sentenced in Thunder Bay to 5 years in prison". Radio Canada International. 5 September 2024. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  6. ↑ Diaczuk, Doug (5 September 2024). "David Voss sentenced to five years for role in Norval Morrisseau art fraud ring". Thunder Bay news. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  7. ↑ Sutton, Benjamin (6 June 2024). "Alleged ringleader of Canada's 'biggest art fraud' pleads guilty". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  8. ↑ Smith, Marie-Danielle (5 September 2024). "'The damage is profound': Architect of mass Morrisseau forgeries sentenced to five years in prison". National Post. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  9. ↑ Boucher, Brian (6 September 2024). "Kingpin in Canada's Largest Art Forgery Ring Sentenced". ArtNet News. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  10. ↑ Woodend, Dorothy (14 June 2019). "Forgery, Drugs, Money and Art: Documentary Dives into Legacy of Norval Morrisseau". The Tyee. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
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