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Warhol Brillo boxes confirmed as fakes

It has been confirmed that the Brillo boxes exhibited at Stockholm's Moderna Museet were nothing but cheap copies of Andy Warhol's celebrated work, according to a final report into the art world scandal.

Warhol Brillo boxes confirmed as fakes

The Local reported in 2007 on revelations that a large number of Warhol’s Brillo boxes, which were donated to Moderna Museet, were worthless copies.

In a final report from the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board in the USA it has been concluded that the works were mass produced in Skåne in southern Sweden in 1990 at the request of the museum’s former head Pontus Hultén.

Hultén later sold on the works for millions of kronor, according to the Expressen daily.

The revelation that some 100 artworks long believed to be Andy Warhol originals were probably fakes raised a slew of questions in the art world, notably about the work of experts, but initial inquiries into the affair were met with a wall of silence.

Pontus Hultén, the key person in the tale, died in 2006.

Hultén was an internationally renowned art expert and the former head of the Pompidou Centre’s modern art museum in Paris before he took over Stockholm’s premier modern art museum Moderna Museet.

The Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, as well as two auction houses and the Andy Warhol Foundation, declined to comment on the case but have now confirmed once and for all that the Brillo boxes were indeed not the work of the famed pop-artist, who died in 1987.

The works in question are Brillo boxes, pieces inspired by the real cardboard packaging of Brillo soap pads from the United States. They sell for up to $100,000 dollars.

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