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 consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidden by law in some jurisdict ...

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

Mayans Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, 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 w ...

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

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 cit ...

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, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, dated AD 400–700 and attributed to the Remojadas culture in

Veracruz Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entit ...

. In 1971, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History 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. More broadly, soc ...

, 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, he 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

Xalapa Museum of Anthropology The Xalapa Museum of Anthropology (; ''MAX'') is an anthropological museum in the city of Xalapa, capital of the state of Veracruz in eastern Mexico. It is known for its collection of artifacts from Mesoamerican Gulf Coast cultures such as the ...

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 language, French Reforms of French orthography, 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 ...

'' magazine. Through them, the

St. Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is an art museum located in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. With paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from around the world, its three-story building stands in Forest Park in ...

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 A ...

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 replica is an exact (usually 1:1 in scale) copy or remake 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 ...

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