Dubbed the “pom pom” piece, the work was purported to be painted by Richard Hambleton but deemed to be a forgery put up for sale by Jason Harrington. (Courtesy of U.S. Attorney’s Office)
An Escondido man who sold $1.1 million in forged contemporary art, going to great lengths to establish each painting’s pedigree with elaborate back stories, was sentenced Friday to three years in prison.
Jason Alan Harrington, a 39-year-old native San Diegan with a background in graphic design, focused much of his scam on imitations of Richard Hambleton, a New York street artist who rose to fame in the 1970s and ‘80s with his black-silhouetted “Shadowman” figures.
In pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud in August, Harrington admitted to fooling 15 prominent art galleries and collectors with forged works. He also admitted to trying to sell a large-scale painting purportedly by Barkley Hendricks, a noted portraitist of everyday Black people who exuded 1970s cool.
The paintings were held out as undiscovered works by both artists, rather than copies of known paintings.
But holes in the origin stories of certain paintings began to emerge, and uncomfortable potential buyers reported their suspicions to law enforcement. An investigation of Harrington’s digital communications and photos confirmed the art as fakes.
For the Hendricks painting — depicting a man with an Afro in a powder blue suit — Harrington concocted a story about it belonging to his uncle. The uncle had met Hendricks at a garage sale and had agreed to exchange his jazz record collection for a personal portrait, so the story went.
But Hendricks’ widow quickly dismissed the work as a fraud. She said her late husband had kept meticulous notes about each piece he produced, and this was nowhere to be found. The technique and signature also appeared to be off, she concluded. The gallery owner wanting to buy the painting passed.
Investigators later discovered that the blue-suited subject was copied from a photo in a Wikipedia article about 1970s fashion, according to court records.
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