I remember a judge saying to me,
"Mr Brandrett, you're such an accomplished painter,
why do you persist in doing these forgeries?"
I said, "It's like this: when I see an old canvas,
I can't help it."
I've just,
I've got a knack of being able to copy any subject,
doesn't matter. I've done Picasso.
I did a Picasso and I couldn't even -
'Man with a Guitar' -
I didn't know which way it went up.
I did it upside down, apparently.
[MARYANA] Can you tell me where did you grow up and what was your childhood like?
I grew up in Brighton, in Buckingham Road,
near the station. First room was mum's room,
who lived with my half sister, stayed there;
back bedroom was three of us,
all top to toe in the bed.
You know, that was it.
Hardly any blankets.
Big army coat on the bed.
It was poverty.
There's a place in Brighton called Warren Farm
and I spent about two years in there.
We were back and forward to the home
until finally, one day, I think they'd had enough, you know.
They came to us, a Mrs Gibson and a Mr Odin,
and brought us new clothes, all in grey, and said,
"Your boys, we'll have to take them."
[MARYANA] It was like a care system where you were taken?
I was a Barnardo's, Dr Barnardo's.
[MARYANA] Yeah.
Why is that? Just because your mum...
Mum had TB, mum had a form of tuberculosis
'cause she worked in a laundry in the 30s,
and from the damp sheet she got this,
so she just couldn't like look after us
and that's what they used to do in those days.
You had no choice, they just used to take you away
and that was it.
After that, they moved us around from one place to another
and that was de-homed.
Oh, incidentally, Peggy Ridley
bought me my first set of oil paints
and I started oils at,
when I was six, six-and-a-half; just six.
Just before I went into Dr Barnardo's.
She bought these lovely paints and I,
oh, hours and hours doing everything.
I even started to copy,
I was copying a Constable, The Hay Wain,
and doing things like...
So I painted all my life
and when you get into Barnardo's system, they encourage it.
If I, if it hadn't had been for Barnardo's
I don't know where I'd have been, I really don't know.
But on the day I left,
on a November night with £1.50,
or 10 shillings - no, 30 shillings in my pocket,
and I actually ended up looking for jobs
and I saw this, 'Men wanted for circus'.
This is my circus days.
And the first guy that came to me was a guy called Louie,
and he went, "What do you want, son?"
I said, "You got any jobs, sir?"
He said, "How old are you?"
He said, "You'd never- it's heavy work this is."
I said, "Well, I can do it."
He said, "I don't think- you're so skinny-looking."
He said, "No, I'm sorry."
And I walked away and he went, "Come here.
So, you ever worked with elephants?"
I went, "No."
He said, "Come with me."
So I walked in, walked me across-
This was winter, of course, massive big elephant tent
and all the elephants were all lined up.
And he said, "Your job is to look after these.
You'll be washing them down
and raking them out and cleaning them."
But one day I was, I was painting,
my day off, and Dickie Chipperfield,
he said, "You draw those, Max?"
I went, "Yeah."
He said, "Can you do the sides of the trucks
and the wagons and do the menagerie where the lions are?"
I said, "Yeah."
So I became part of the family
and I ended up with my own caravan.
[MARYANA] What was this turning point in your life when you understood that art forging is a thing and you can start doing that?
When did I start forging?
[Maryana] Yeah.
I left the circus.
I said, "Dick, I've had enough.
I wanna go to London."
Right. So, because I thought I wanna paint, you know.
So but I, you know,
before that I arrived in London,
and ended up in Shepherd's Bush.
And I was dossing, I was sleeping rough, you know,
with all the other dossers.
But they looked after me.
I couldn't afford new canvases so I started buying old ones.
And I thought, I know what I'll do.
I saw a copy of a Clarkson Stanfield,
and I thought I can copy that on old canvas,
age it up with tea stains.
The secret of what I was good at
was to represent, reproducing the colours of that day,
and the ageing.
I don't know if you're too young to remember
what they called bead glue.
It was a glue, Scotch glue it's called,
and you use it in woodwork. You place it in a pan,
cold water, leave it overnight, goes to a jelly.
Next day you put it on the heating
and it comes to, like, a liquid.
Get your old painting, do it on there,
brush it over, take it to a heater,
but it can't be dry heat, it's got to be electric fire.
And you circle it like that.
Go to the tap, wash the bead glue off
'cause it's water-based.
You're left with all the cracks.
Empty your Hoover out, put it on the floor, rub it all in,
all the cracks are filled with crap,
old glass on there, in frame.
The nails you've got from the garden,
they've been there for six weeks,
tap them all in.
You'd fool anybody, because they think
how the hell does he get these cracks on it?
And a guy came up to me who was my sort of,
my fatherly figure, his name's Samuel Cohen.
And he looked at me and he went, "Hello, son."
And he said, "Pictures."
He said, "How much is that shipping scene?"
I went, "150."
He went, "It's a bit cheap, it's a good painting, that."
He said, "Where'd you get it from?"
I said, "Well I, I, I just get them."
He said, "Come on, tell me."
I said, "Look, I paint them."
He went, "You paint these?"
I went, "Yeah."
So he said, "Tell you what,"
he said, "come and have a coffee with me,
or a drink of wine and we'll talk about it."
That's how I got in to meet Sammy Cohen.
And the ageing and the auctions it all,
it all stemmed from there.
Then we, we hit the auction rooms big time.
Really big time.
[MARYANA] Can you talk me through that?
Okay, so Sammy and I, we used to go as father and son,
like, 'Hello dad,' and all that sort of thing,
where we pretended that we knew nothing about paintings.
First of all, we would go into the auction room
and say, "Good morning sir."
And he'd go, "Good morning."
And he said, he said
"Would you have a look at some smudges I got?"
And he goes, "Yes, of course."
So he said, I said, "Dad, bring them in."
So he'd bring these pictures in and he'd go...
We used to send a lot of,
bring a lot of crap pictures, rubbish,
like we'd call pot boilers,
like a lot of junk we used to buy,
and you'd throw in a goodie,
like a, like a Clarkson Stanfield.
And he'd go, "Oh, that on the floor there,
can I have a look at that?"
You'd go, "Here Dad, pick that picture up."
And he'd pick it up
and he'd go, "Yes. That's quite nice.
That is quite a nice picture."
While I'm talking, Sammy would stop me
and he'd go, "You see, son,"
he said, "this gentleman really knows his business."
"If you study like he..."
What we'd do,
we're trying to get his mind off what he's looking at.
Then it used to go into the auctions
and then it would be, we used to ring it.
But we used to go to a preview,
and standing next to the picture with our brochure,
pretending we're potential buyers.
And then we'd listen to the comments,
right? So we'd think, yeah
he'd come out and say,
"Yeah, nice, nice, nice picture here,
I'm gonna have a go at that."
We'd, we'd look at him and think, right,
on the day of the auction we would pick them all out
and think, he's gonna have a go, he's gonna have a go.
And, and Sammy was on one side, I'd be the other, we'd be,
we'd be ringing it, we'd be bidding it up.
So I had my certain sign,
I might either straighten my tie or do something like that.
He would... So when we,
when it got to about two or 3,000
we probably started to sort of, right, be careful
or you're gonna buy the bloody you think back yourself.
And it started to bid up.
We got to five and a half grand, you're out.
So we used to do that, right?
I'm out, gone.
And that's how the auction, that's how we used to do it.
[MARYANA] What would you say were the most famous paintings you copied?
I paint, I copied everybody.
When you say famous, I hit a lot
of galleries in Bond Street, but with lesser-known artists.
You know, you don't walk around
with a Rembrandt or a Picasso or something like that.
It's too good to be true.
I mean, a Lowry, yeah, I could do Lowrys
but he was very popular.
He was, that was in '68.
He was not quite so well known as he is today but,
you know, I was, we used to hit the auction rooms,
I mean I hit a certain gallery for 80,000 in Bond Street,
you know? And that's what, that's what we were doing
that we were hitting big time.
That was a couple of Samuel Palmers and they looked good.
But you know, that was it.
We did lesser-known artists, you know?
[MARYANA] Can you tell me about Ronnie and Reggie Kray, and how you painted their mother?
Yes. This was strange.
One day - I'd already met Ronnie Kray's boyfriend
on, on Green Park.
You know, the railings with the paintings?
He came up to me one day,
he was suited and booted,
about my age, he was.
He went, "Hello, sir,"
he said, "Do you do these smudges, like?"
I said, "Yes."
He said, "Do you ever do portraits from photographs?"
I went, "Yes."
He said, "Where are you, then?"
I said, "Well I'm at Portobello Road on Saturday."
So he came down and he went, "Hello, sir."
He said, "I've got this photograph,"
he said, "You want, could you do it?"
And it's of, like, of a woman of about about 50
or something like that.
So he said, "Can you do that smudge, then?"
I went, "Yes."
He said, "By next week?"
I went, "Yeah, I can do that for you."
So I went and did it and came back with it,
and he went, "My mates are up the road
at a pub," called the Duke-
The Earl of Lansdowne, I think it was.
And he walked in front of me and I walked at the back
and I walked into the pub
and it was pretty darkish, you know, I couldn't focus.
It was quite sunny outside.
And I, and I suddenly recognised Reggie.
Reggie was sitting down, Ronnie was at the bar,
and Ronnie came up to me, he went, "Hello, son."
He said, "You've got that smudge, then?
You've done it have you? My boy says you've done it."
I went, "Yeah."
He said, "Let's have a look then."
So I pulled it out the bag like that
and he, it all went quiet,
I thought, 'S**t, he doesn't like it.'
And he went, he went, "Reggie, have a look at this, Reggie.
Have a look at this, Reggie. You really did this, son?"
I went, "Yes."
He said, "Bloody marvelous.
Look, Reggie, have a look."
And he went, "Yeah, God, that's Mum, look...
The eyes are right, aren't they?
Sit down, son."
So I sat down, Kray there, Kray there.
I'm in the bloody middle, "Have a drink."
And I was going, I was so nervous
especially of Ronnie, you know?
'Cause there was something about him.
And he went, he went, "Love it."
He said, "How much I owe you then, son?"
And I was going, "Oooh, eeh..."
And Reggie said, "Give him a two."
I thought, 'Two quid!'
£200 in '68 was a fortune.
And Ronnie put his hand on my leg
and he went, "And he's a good looking kid, as well,
he looks like a pop star."
And as I'm going out the door, he goes, "Here,"
he said, "Max, Maxy boy,
you must come and have tea with my mum in Valance Road."
I went, "I, I can't Mr Kray.
I've gotta go to church on Sunday."
I was out of that one quickly.
So, that was it.
[MARYANA] It's quite a versatile skill to copy different techniques and everything.
How did you achieve that?
I, I've just, I've got a knack
of being able to copy any subject.
Doesn't matter.
I've done Picasso, I did a Picasso
and I couldn't even, 'Man with a Guitar',
I didn't know which way it went up.
I did it upside down, apparently,
but so... It didn't matter 'cause it, I didn't know.
But there are, nobody fakes today.
Because of the knowledge they have,
you know, the scientific...
In my day they didn't have that.
You could get away with it.
Now they can even tell you what day you painted it,
or, or the colour you've used, you know?
So, you know, now it's, it's too difficult, you know?
I wouldn't bother anyway.
[MARYANA] What was the point that got you into prison?
Erm, well, first time I went into the nick
and I was dossing, I ended up in Dorchester.
I was sleeping in a railway truck.
And I got up one morning
and I thought, right, no food. Starving.
I was in Dorchester, walked up the high street
I thought, hello - I hadn't eaten for two days -
I walked into this hotel,
little guest house thing, and I saw a chandelier.
So I nick the chandelier and a hundred-day clock,
and wheeled it down the high street,
and just thought I could sell it for food.
And then somebody at the station said
this guy just walked in, you know
wheeled something in the barrow.
And they got me.
I ended up in the magistrates' court
and I refused to give them my address.
So they gave me three months.
But as soon as you get in nick
and they know you can paint and draw, you're made.
'Cause they respect you for who you are there.
And I had a separate cell and I started my drawing
and I was, I was doing old drawings, and dogs,
and pictures, and children for the old lags.
So I got, I became a tobacco baron;
I was doing a painting, a drawing, for some tobacco.
There's an artist called Samuel Palmer,
pen-and-ink drawings.
Now Sammy used to come to me on a visiting day.
Now, in those days I was not high risk
and I used to sit on the table
and Sam would say, "How you doing, son,
are you finding it hard?"
I went, "No."
He said, "Here, listen. Fancy doing a bit of work here?"
I went, "How am I gonna do it here, you know?
Send it out by post?!"
He went, "No."
He said, "Up my sleeve, I've got six sheets of old paper,"
which he nicked from the library.
Used to go to the library
and raze them out of the old books, you know?
And used to roll them up,
and I'd be talking to him like that,
and he'd go, "Right."
And then you'd go and he'd say, "Now learn- do your time,
keep your head down and you'll be out soon."
And, and then he would just slide it up my sleeve
and I'd go back and I'd say, "Out governor?"
He went, "Okay then."
I said, "See you later, Dad."
And I used to go up to my cell, put them in my Bible
and I'd knock out a Samuel Palmer pen-and-ink drawing.
And then I'd think, right, in my Bible.
And then get about six together; next visit.
Three weeks after, he'd come along.
"What you got?"
Said, "I've done five for you."
He went, "Good lad."
So he used to do the same thing,
roll them up in his sleeve.
So when I came out I had a few bob in the bank,
you know, so it was good.
They were going for about £1,500.
That's the first time I went in the nick
then after that I did three stretches for forgery.
I remember a judge saying to me
"Mr Brandrett, you're such an accomplished painter,
why do you persist in doing these forgeries?"
I said, "It's like this:
when I see an old canvas, I can't help it."
I just get a withdrawal symptom.
I've got to paint on the bugger.
And I get that feeling now, you know?
I must admit, I miss the old days.
I really do miss the old days.
[MARYANA] So the other three times in prison...
Yeah.
[MARYANA] Have you spent a long time in there? What were the sentences?
I did an 18-month for forgery,
two Samuel Palmers from a greedy dealer called Otto,
who tried to sell the same paintings
in the same auction, so he got nicked.
Came back to me.
I got raided in Cricklewood. Came in, fraud squad
and of course I've got two on the easel, right?
Not finished.
And he went, "Hello."
I said, "I don't know anything about them, sir."
Anyway. Bang to rights, gone.
So, I got 18 months on that one.
And then the other time was,
I got, I got an eight month,
yeah, I got an eight month for doing a, yeah,
that was the same sort of thing.
It was fake.
The gallery, the galleries got wise to me after a while.
I didn't just do it in London,
I did Manchester, I did Canterbury
I did... Oh, a nice big hit in Canterbury, yeah.
[MARYANA] Did you ever feel guilty about selling someone a copy?
No. Honestly it was survival.
I mean, I felt sorry one day
when I was in the auction room and I did a Dommersen.
Oh, it was a good,
it was a Dutch winter scene, skating figures,
and it went up to £14,000.
And I, and it was a total of fake,
but the canvas was so right.
It was perfect.
And the guy came to me after,
a Persian guy in a lovely suit.
He went, "I'm so sorry, my friend,
you did not get the picture."
I said, "Well, governor, you win some, you lose some, son."
That's it.
But I did feel guilty.
I do feel guilty sometimes.
It was just, it was just living, surviving.
Because I've been ripped off by so many dealers
and that sort of thing, you know?
You live on the edge. I'm okay now.
I don't... Money is okay.
But I still love meeting people.
I love all this.
I love talking.
I love my Barnardo's.
I made a lot of money.
I made 80 grand for Barnardo's, for, you know, auctions.
You know?
I met Oli Reed in one of my auctions. So, yeah.
[MARYANA] What would you say is your favourite style to copy?
I did a Caravaggio
and I got it pretty damn close to the original.
It's called 'The Taking of Christ', if you know it.
There's, there's Caravaggio,
there's the two soldiers,
there's Judas, there's Jesus and Saint Peter.
I sold that, you know.
And I, when I sold it, I was heartbroken
'cause I didn't wanna sell it.
I've got a Coolidge, I've got a Coolidge,
which is the 'Dogs Playing Poker'.
Have you seen that?
I love it.
And I don't,
I don't give a monkeys about the money side of it.
I really don't.
If any of you need a Banksy on your kitchen door,
ring me up.
I'll come and do it half price.
You're gonna what?
[CREW] I'm going to hold you to that.