Peter Howson Coping with Financial Problems, Peter Howson Sells Paintings at Auction Nude Madonna Painting Fails to Find Buyer Peter Howson Paints Madonna and ‘Ogre’ Material Girl, Sans Material New Zealander to Head Troubled Scottish Opera

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

Howson, a favorite of Jack Nicholson, David Bowie and Madonna, said he believes other forgeries of his work have been sold via the auction Web site.

“I’m sure there are more, but I just do not know about them,” Howson said. “The rise of the internet makes this difficult to regulate. It’s bloody annoying and infuriates me beyond belief. I suspect it may just be one or two people doing a lot of them and I will find out who it is.”

He also accused a Glasgow auction house of selling the forgery last autumn, which led to it later trading on eBay.

Howson, whose dark, brooding canvases normally sell for around £4,000, was alerted by his stepdaughter, who spotted the fake version of Steam Age.

Lee McCallum, director of The Art Company Scotland, which sells original Howsons, said fakes were on the rise.

“Increasingly, people are just looking for a good deal and lose sight of the pitfalls of buying on something like eBay,” McCallum said.

Ebay responded with the statement: “We take the issue of counterfeiting extremely seriously. We have a system inviting specialists to notify us if they believe there is an issue with a listing, at which point we would investigate and take the item off the site.”

Daily Record: Don’t Be Fooled By These Fakes!: Howson hits out at eBay over forgeries