Legal art forgery, for the sake of movies

A skeleton crew worked on creating the faux Basquiats—it essentially included one scenic [artist], Leigh, Schnabel, and actor Jeffrey Wright, who played Basquiat. “Julian himself pretty much started each of the paintings,” said Leigh. “Jeffrey Wright, who is not trained as a painter, needed to appear on camera, as though he really knew how to handle pastel sticks and brushes and all of the artist tools and equipment. So Jeffrey would go to Julian’s studio, and they would work on the Basquiat, and at the same time, Julian was teaching Jeffrey how to use these things, so he could get Jeffrey really relaxed. So all of those paintings were actually handled and touched and worked on by Julian and Jeffrey and the scenic artist and a couple of times, I drew stuff on there.” Schnabel, a noted artist and collector in his own right, also donated many pieces from his own collection. Gary Oldman’s character in the film, Albert Milo, is based on Schnabel, who was a prominent part of the art scene, ... Read full article.