Paris (AFP)

He prides himself on having done "more works of Caesar" than the sculptor himself. Removed from business, the forger Eric Piedoie Le Tiec returns on his flamboyant career, peppered with years of imprisonment that did not begin his passion for art.

Even today, he says, he "sees" some of his "works" on sale on the internet: "I have a way of doing things, my collaborators - my accomplices - had another and I am doing very well the difference ", amuses the sexagenarian during an interview with AFP, on the occasion of the release this Thursday in bookstores of his autobiography" Confessions of a Counterfeiter "(Editions Max Milo).

Long known as "the main defendant in the trial of the false Caesar", this former "pirate art" is now a gallerist and art dealer in Grasse, southern France, and painted his own works.

Before embarking on this new chapter of his life eight years ago, he became known thanks to his numerous fake Miro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Chagall and especially Caesar - the master of the compressions of objects - passed on the art market.

This "hobby" has occupied him for about forty years, ten of them in prison, to provide for a life of "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll". A journey inspired by Fernand Legros, considered one of the greatest forgers of the late twentieth century, but also and above all, he says, for the taste of art.

"I'm interested in artists, their work, their breadcrumbs ... And I began to do it to better understand," he says.

"Beyond technique, you have to have the spirit of the artist, it's like a theater actor: if he does not go into his role, it will be phony. brain, the mysteries of his thought ".

- The true of the false -

Former student of the arts, Eric Piedoie Le Tiec grew up near Saint-Paul-de-Vence, adoptive homeland of Chagall and Giacometti and theater of an intense artistic scene in the 70s.

"Lacking money", it all starts for him over a cup of black tea. He dipped a drawing sheet in the tea to age it and began to execute a drawing found in a catalog of Raoul Dufy. First conclusive test: he managed to sell the result the equivalent of 900 euros to a merchant Nice.

Then begins a life at one hundred and one hour, where he meets the king of pop art, Andy Warhol, during devastating parties, befriends the writer and activist black-American James Baldwin, enters the workshops of world-famous artists and creates fakes with the shovel, going so far as to deceive the experts.

Whence this interrogation reported at the beginning of his book: will he not have himself realized without knowing it "clones of fake works, even authenticated?"

To immerse yourself in the wrong, difficult to see clearly. "A good fake is never wrong, it's perfect in the mind of the artist, a good fake is a real fake," he summarizes in a pirouette.

"There are no losers in my story (...) No one, they all made money, the work was perfect from what I'm told. complain".

And to describe an art market invaded by fakes. Thanks to the complicity of the experts, the gallery owners, the artists' relatives. When it does not come from themselves, he assures.

A market in full acceleration too, with works flying to astronomical sums in record time.

"Art, drugs and weapons sell well, and one is often used to finance the other," concludes the observer of choice, who dreams of seeing his name at the top of the poster in a film summarizing his colorful course.

© 2019 AFP