Harvey John
Seems like people in Canada have really latched onto the idea that creating fake Indigenous art is going to get them lots of money. Ultimately, as we’ve seen before and we’ll see again today, these fraudsters always get found out.
Harvey John
So the artist in question here, Harvey John, is an Indigenous artist from the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the West coast. He is Nuu-Chah-Nulth from Vancouver Island and learned traditional Northwest Coast formline carving from an uncle. Until mid-July 2021 his wood carvings were popular and prominent in important galleries and gift shops across the province. And they weren’t cheap, ranging from $500 - $5,000 for some pieces. No one questioned this artist or their work for years, some estimate that these pieces have been available on the market since 2010.
I’m sure you can see where this is going already. But the museums and galleries were featuring this art so people felt that they could trust the authenticity of it as well as the artist, interestingly enough no gallery or museum ever dealt directly with the artist. All the work was purchased through an art dealer named Steve Hoffman, based in Langley B.C.
Uncovering the Fraud
It was actually a sloppy description of the artist that caused the downfall of this scheme. As I said, he had been operating and selling his art for years, until 2021 when an Alberta art shop described Harvey John’s work as “original Haida carvings”, not Nuu-Chah-Nulth like his official biography said.
Erin Brillon, a Haida/Cree fashion designer behind Totem Design House, noticed this Alberta listing and she immediately knew that this carving was not done by a Haida person. “It was not Haida-designed in any way, shape or form…And I know that John is not a Haida last name” (Lindsay, 2021). She took a screenshot of this listing and posted it in a Facebook group for exposing fraudulent Indigenous art and soon her post was absolutely inundated with comments. Lots of people were saying that they had seen John’s works in shops around the world and had been suspicious of their origins.
Finally someone reached out to a Vancouver business owner who had been selling the carvings, and they, in turn, reached out to Steve Hoffman for an explanation. Remember him? The dealer that galleries and shops were all dealing with. Hoffman was working directly with the artist creating these artworks and passing them off as work by this invented artist, Harvey John.
The Aftermath
In a phone interview with the CBC Hoffman admitted that he intentionally misled people and that “he’s made some financial restitution to the shops that were duped” (Lindsay, 2021). Though, I couldn’t find details about this restitution anywhere. Hoffman “explained that he believed John was an Indigenous carver when he began representing him. However, he acknowledged that he later found out the truth and continued to sell the works under the Harvey John pseudonym” (Angeleit, 2021). He refused to disclose the artist’s real name because he didn’t want to rat out anyone else and said that he saw it as helping someone make a living. Hmm. Only at the expense of real Indigenous art and artists.
In terms of the museums and shops, they have immediately cut ties with Hoffman, have removed the pieces from their collections, and have notified people who have purchased ‘John’s’ carvings and let them know they can get a full refund. The shop curator at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology said, “we are expecting people to be truthful in their business dealings. Unfortunately, this was a scam” and “this experience has made her more cautious about the products she sells, and she will likely begin requesting face-to-face meetings with artists” (Lindsay, 2021).
The director and chief curator of Whistler’s Audain Art Museum said, “from our perspective, [paying more attention to scammers is] refreshing because it means that both buyers and dealers need heightened scrutiny to ensure that First Nations art — in this case, Northwest Coast formline design — is not being exploited at all” (Lindsay, 2021). This is a good point to bring up because in the US it is illegal to market and sell fake products, with penalties that can be as high as $1 million or even five years in prison, activists want to see similar laws in place in Canada.
Brillon, who made that first post in the fraudulent Indigenous art group, thinks that museums and art galleries should be held accountable for the products hanging on their walls and in their gift shops and ensuring that they’re authentically Indigenous. She says that this scam should have been uncovered much sooner, in the 11 years that ‘John’s’ art had been circulating in the art world, but people were turning a blind eye.
“An investigation conducted in 2019 that cataloged 260 items at 40 stores found that 75% of the Indigenous art in gift shops in Vancouver alone were fraudulent or could not be identified. Just 25% of the shops surveyed fully sold authentic objects” (Angeleit, 2021). This is something that needs to be addressed with seriousness and urgency because all of this fraudulent art takes away from authentic Indigenous art and artists in Canada.
Works Cited
Angeleti, Gabriella. “Dealer Admits to Marketing Fraudulent Indigenous Wood Carvings to Canadian Museums and Galleries”. The Art Newspaper. 2021. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/07/29/dealer-admits-to-marketing-fraudulent-indigenous-wood-carvings-to-canadian-museums-and-galleries
Lindsay, Bethany. “Major Museum and Art Gallery Shops Duped by Fake Indigenous Carver”. CBC. 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-fake-indigenous-artist-harvey-john-1.6114608