The Garden Shed Gang

The exhibit we went to at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was about Shaun Greenhalgh "the greatest master forger". He forged all kinds of art work including sculptures, paintings, silver reliefs, etc. His father and mother helped sell the art work. They were called the Garden Shed Gang because all the work Shaun did was done in the shed in their garden of the government housing they lived in (basically welfare housing).  They lived in Bolton where the Horrocks family grew up. They sold one sculpture to Bolton for 460,000 pounds and it was displayed as an original for years. One of his forgeries was sold to a gallery in Chicago. They were finally caught, investigated, and Shaun was sentenced to 4 years in prison.  He was released a few weeks before we arrived, and the Museum was able to display some of his work.  A detective that worked on the case was the speaker at the exhibit. The people of Bolton was kind of proud of Shaun, because he and his father were able to fool a lot of artsy, rich people, and of course, the artsy, rich people felt exactly the opposite.