Brígido Lara (born 1939/40) is a Mexican artist and ex-forger of pre-Columbian antiques. Lara claims to have created perhaps as many as 40,000 pieces of forged pre-Columbian pottery. Brígido Lara began to create

forgeries Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...

in the 1950s and 1960s. He created many items in the style of the

Mayans The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical reg ...

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

s and especially the lesser-known

Totonac The Totonac are an indigenous people of Mexico who reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained quarters in Teotihuacán (a city wh ...

s – in fact to such an extent that the majority of purported Totonac artifacts may actually be of his creation. He worked in a museum, where he was acquainted with both original artifacts and potential customers. Lara sold his work as genuine Mexican antiquities; buyers did not ask many questions since they were buying contraband — taking antiquities out of Mexico is illegal. Some of the works were sold to the Morton D. May collection and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, dated AD 400–700 and attributed to the

Remojadas Remojadas () is a name applied to a culture, an archaeological site, as well as an artistic style that flourished on Mexico's Veracruz Gulf Coast from perhaps 100 BCE to 800 CE. The Remojadas culture is considered part of the larger Clas ...

culture in

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

. In 1971, the

Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States. Its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and artifacts and cover 4.5 billion years of history. This large coll ...

presented a large exhibition entitled "Ancient Art of Veracruz" – Lara later recognized many of the exhibits as his work. In July 1974, Mexican police arrested a group of what appeared to be antique

smugglers Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various ...

– with Brígido Lara among them. An antiquities expert declared Lara's forgeries genuine. While serving his prison sentence, Lara requested fresh clay, and to prove his innocence, created just the items he was accused of smuggling. The same antique expert declared them genuine as well. Lara was released in January 1975. The

Museo de Antropología de Xalapa The Museo de Antropología de Xalapa ( en, Xalapa Museum of Anthropology) is an anthropological museum in the city of Xalapa, capital of the state of Veracruz in eastern Mexico. The building was designed by the architect Paul Balev at EDSA, 4 ...

later hired Lara as a restorer and to recognize forgeries. In 1987 Brígido Lara told his story to two journalists from ''

Connoisseur A connoisseur ( French traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts; who is a keen appreciator ...

'' magazine. Through them the

St. Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, M ...

heard that their Morton D. May collection contained his forgeries. The

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

and the Metropolitan Museum of Art also realized they had Lara forgeries in their collections, though they initially claimed that there was no proof. In 1999 he was featured in the documentary film "Ruins," directed by Jesse Lerner. The film screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and in many museums around the world, giving him further exposure. Lara continues to sculpt in ancient styles but now signs his work and is a licensed maker of

replica A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Al ...

s. He calls his previous forgeries "his originals" or "original interpretations".

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lara, Brigido Archaeological forgery Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Mexican artists