Mark A. Landis

Mark Augustus Landis (born 1955) is an American painter who lives in Laurel, Mississippi. He is best known for donating large numbers of forged paintings and drawings to American art museums.

Life and career Mark Landis was born in Norfolk, Virginia. His grandfather, Arthur Landis, was a director at the now defunct Auburn Automobile company. His father, Arthur Landis Jr., a lieutenant (and later lieutenant commander) in the US Navy, married his mother, Jonita (1930–2010), in 1952. Landis was born three years later, and the family moved around because of his father's various postings. Following assignments in the Philippines and Hong Kong, Arthur Landis Jr. was posted to NATO in Europe, where the family lived in Cap Ferrat (France), London, Paris, and finally Brussels, where Landis began forging stamp cancellations for his friends.

In 1968, the family returned to the United States, settling in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1971, Landis's father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he died the following year. At 17, Landis was deeply struck by the loss of his father and he was treated for 18 months in a Kansas hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenic, paranoid, and psychotic disorders and catatonic behavior. He bought an art gallery, but it was not successful, and he lost money in a real-estate investment. In 1988, he decided to return to live with his mother and stepfather, James Brantley, in Laurel, Mississippi.

In the mid 1980s, Landis presented several forged artworks to a museum in California, attributing them to the renowned American 20th Century artist Maynard Dixon and claiming he wished to make a gesture that would please his mother and honor the memory of his father. These first successful attempts at art forgery convinced him to repeat the feat. For more than 20 years, Landis donated all kinds of faux pieces of art to institutions in the United States, including more than 50 museums. He generally chose smaller museums, which did not have the same means of detailed analysis as the larger ones. While not all institutions were duped, the whole process went largely unnoticed. Landis even donated up to six copies of the same work to different museums.

During this period, Landis also produced original pieces; some have been sold through Narsad Artworks, which sells work by artists with mental illness. As of 2013, it was still possible to buy note cards bearing a work entitled Magnolias by Landis (which copies a work by Martin Johnson Heade without credit).

Landis lived at more than 15 different addresses between 1985 and 2000. Patsy Hollister, Narsad co-founder, believes Landis probably is more bipolar than schizophrenic, with an ability to paint extremely fast. Says Landis, talking about icons: "I gave to hundreds of churches."

Landis' success derives not so much from the perfection of his faux artworks (sometimes a basic test exposes the forgery) as from his ability to copy all kinds of styles, his choice to imitate lesser-known artists and his ability to play the role of an eccentric but sincere philanthropist. Moreover, museums tend not to authenticate gifts as carefully as works they buy. The registrar, Matthew Leininger, investigated the pieces and discovered a very similar Signac had been offered to the SCAD Museum of Art. A press release had even noted the donation of the same Signac, Avery and Laurencin. It also provided Mark Landis's real name. Leininger investigated further, and discovered Landis had tricked more than 60 museums in 20 states, using a number of aliases including Stephen Gardiner, Father Arthur Scott (a Jesuit priest), Father James Brantley (his stepfather's name), Mark Lanois (one letter different from his own name), Martin Lynley, and John Grauman. Leininger warned other museums, providing available photos of Landis. At this stage, the investigation remained confidential.

In September 2010, Landis went to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana, under the identity of Father Arthur Scott. He donated a painting by Charles Courtney Curran, citing the loss of his mother. The museum director, Mark A Tullos Jr., asked registrar Joyce Penn to check out the painting. When Penn examined it under ultraviolet light, the colors glowed suspiciously. In addition, a microscope observation showed a dot-matrix pattern, hinting that it was a photocopy of the original which had been projected on a board and then painted over. Penn dug deeper and linked up with Leininger's investigation.

In November 2010, The Art Newspaper published a comprehensive article on the matter, in September 2012 to William Carey University (as Martin Lynley); and in October 2012 to several southern museums (as Lynley and as John Grauman). The organizers also set up a short video featuring Landis' most relevant paintings.

Most recently, Mark Landis' work was the subject of the exhibition "Creative Conscience" in New York City, curated by Wirth Galerie and hosted by Salomon Arts Gallery, and later extended in Luxuny Atelier, a penthouse overlooking Bryant Park. The exhibition aimed to separate Landis' work from his story as a forger, presenting it instead on its own artistic merit. The exhibition brought up themes of appropriation, authenticity, and the way value is created. It was taken a step further during a panel discussion involving the directors of the film alongside Landis and NFT experts, when the idea of creating a collection of NFTs from Landis' work was brought up and debated.

Painters and authors copied

Hans von Aachen Walter Inglis Anderson (Flock of Ducks) Woman and Boys on Beach Young Girl Sisters Woman and Children in Water Ride in the Park Tree Alone Autumn Scene Blue Dress Magnolias Pink Dress Tropical Scene Vase of Flowers White Dress Landis now also creates commissioned original portraits from photographs and donates a portion of each commission toward mental illness awareness.

In 2020 he appeared on the HGTV show Home Town when the makers of the program commissioned a Landis original portrait of a homeowner's dogs to be hung in the historic Laurel house they were restoring.

Documentary Landis is the subject of the documentary Art and Craft, directed by Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman and co-directed by Mark Becker. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014, and was acquired by Oscilloscope Laboratories for North American distribution. The film examines Landis's personality, his history, his forgeries and the process he goes through to create and donate them. The film also features Leininger and Cowan. The documentary had its television premiere on September 25, 2015, on the PBS program POV.