THREE ACCUSED OF FORGING CLEMENTINE HUNTER PAINTINGS
A federal indictment in Louisiana accuses a Baton Rouge–based couple and a New Orleans man of plotting to sell forgeries as paintings by folk artist Clementine Hunter, reports the Associated Press.
Acting US Attorney William Flanagan announced Thursday in Shreveport that seventy-eight-year-old William Toye, sixty-eight-year-old Beryl Ann Toye, and sixty-two-year-old Robert E. Lucky Jr. have been charged with mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
The Toyes have said they sold only authentic paintings. Their home answering machine wouldn’t accept messages Thursday. Lucky has said he never sold any fake art. His attorney didn’t immediately return calls for comment.
A granddaughter of a slave, Hunter was self-taught, and her paintings of plantation life are believed to number in the thousands. She died in 1988 at 101.
