Faking It - the Kujau Case

I blogged about cheating in the world of literature the other week (see Faking It - the Viswanathan Case). Plagiarism, theft of another writer’s words, is seen as a terrible crime but there is no law against the taking of another’s ideas (see Holy Smoke, what a relief!).

In art, forgery - the faking of another artist’s work - is the equivalent of plagiarism. Konrad Kujau came to infamy as the man who forged Hitler’s diaries and also was a master forger of many paintings. In the 1980s, Kujau claimed he found Hitler’s diaries and sold them to The Times (the London newspaper) and The Stern (the German magazine) - but he had in fact faked them. When Kujau emerged from prison, he became a media celebrity in Germany - he was invited onto chat shows and became an art sensation in his own right. He would fake famous paintings for buyers, including the signature - but also sign the pictures in his own name - and sell them as "original Kujau fakes".

In a fitting twist the no novelist could have made up, his niece Petra Kujau was recently arrested for faking her uncle’s fakes - as reported in The Times, London on 22 April 2006. She apparently sold them as "original Kujau fakes" and is said to have made more than £380,000, the Kujua signature inflating the price of the fake fakes.

So, in literature, faking it brings you ignominy and shame, whereas in art, faking it gives you fame and glory and a lot of money. If found guilty, Petra will have to do her time and then, she will probably be able to capitalise on it all as her Uncle Konrad had done. For artists, it seems that the act of faking art can be art in itself.