John Myatt was involved in the biggest art con of the 20th Century. As he brings his legitimate fakes to North Yorkshire, he tells Linsday Jennings what lured him into a life of crime.

TO hear John Myatt's life story, it sounds as if it belongs in the pages of a best-selling thriller. Set in the art world, a humble artist is driven to reproducing fakes of 20th Century greats which sell at auction for thousands of pounds. Locked into his cycle of crime, he is finally caught and ends up in prison where the inmates get him to draw their portraits and nickname him 'Picasso'.

It is no wonder Hollywood is interested in John Myatt's story.

When he answers the phone, he is quietly spoken, humble and a little embarrassed about his past. He knows what he did was wrong and says he is uncomfortable using his notoriety as a tool to generate publicity for his forthcoming tour.

"I don't like the feeling that I'm capitalising on a crime," he says. "But that's just my little rule. If you call me that's okay."

John, 61, grew up on a farm in North Staffordshire, and got into trouble at school for his artwork, doodling soldiers and battleships in his text books. From there, he went to art school, became an art teacher and when he was 23, set up as a full-time artist.

"I got an evening class which paid me £15 for that night's work and my rent was £13 per month, so I was happy," he says.

But 15 years later, his artistic idyll was rocked when he split up with his wife and had two young children to bring up - Amy, then two, and Sam, one. He went back to teaching but found he had a talent for producing fakes of iconic paintings. Friends whom he'd known in London would call him up and say 'can you do Chagall?' and give him £60. With money short, he placed an advert in Private Eye in 1983 for Genuine Fakes, copies of 19th and 20th Century paintings from £150 each.

"It wasn't big money but it was just about good enough to keep the family ticking over," he says.

From there, John's descent into crime was remarkably easy. It began after being commissioned regularly by a 'Professor Drewe'.

"I must have met him about six times and I'd worked with him for about a year and a half," he says. "Then one day he said 'what would you like to paint next?' and I said 'well I've always liked the cubists. I'd like to have a crack at that'."

John painted Portrait of an Army Doctor by Albert Gleizes with his usual materials - household emulsion mixed with KY Jelly - and when he handed the painting over Drewe took it into auction house Christie's where it was taken for an original. Drewe left with a written valuation for £25,000.

"He said to me 'I've got this valuation. Shall I put it on the market and sell it. Would you be interested?' I said 'you bet'. That's £12,000'. And that was the beginning of it. If I'd stopped there, I suppose no one would have known. Unfortunately, I just got carried away with it and it got out of hand and I lost all sense of... I don't know. It didn't occur to me that it was a crime, I was just shut up in my little farmhouse painting away."

Over the next six years, more than 200 copies of John's paintings were sold through leading auction houses in London and New York, right under the noses of countless experts. Southwark Crown Court later heard Drewe had amassed up to £1.8m selling them.

John says over five to six years of selling fakes he was making about £220 a week, "more or less" the same as when he was a teacher. It only dawned on him what he was doing when he went to a sale.

"I never felt like a criminal," he says. "Then I went to see a sale at Christie's and saw some of my paintings go through. I felt terrible and pretty much stopped working for Drewe."

John denies he ever got enjoyment from their scam, although admits he got a thrill when they sold the first one. "I just couldn't believe it" he says.

"But I was never a happy criminal. I got stuck in it and couldn't see a way out, and I was perhaps a little bit worried about Mr Drewe. He was quite a dangerous character."

And he may have got away with his crime were it not for Drewe's former girlfriend, who took a bundle of his papers along to her local police station in 1995. After a four-year investigation, John was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and was handed a 12 month sentence. Drewe was jailed for six years. At Brixton prison, the inmates would get John to draw their portraits and nicknamed him Picasso. John describes it as 'an interesting time'.

"I made a lot of friends. It was basically, you do me a favour, I'll do you a favour and I could write a good letter to a lawyer whereas quite a few couldn't do that."

Asked if he feels any remorse for what he did and he replies: "There's a time and a place for that. Certainly I was determined to stop working with Mr Drewe and if the police hadn't been called, I wouldn't be doing it now. I'm a Christian apart from anything else. I did all I could to give the money back."

He is philosophical when it comes to bearing the tag 'the man responsible for the biggest art con of the 20th Century'. "It was a crime and it was a mistake and it will be a mistake until the day I die," he says. "I don't beat myself up about it every single day. I haven't done anything to cause someone's death."

After being released from prison, John was determined not to paint again. But the day after he arrived home, the officer who'd arrested him called and commissioned a portrait painting for £1,500. "I said 'I don't want anything to do with this' and he said 'you've got to. If you don't exploit it now you're a fool'. He's one of my closest friends now."

From there, there were requests for newspaper and television interviews and he finally began producing Genuine Fakes again, this time legitimately. A limited edition canvas now sells for between £950 and £1,250. As part of a tour unveiling his latest Monet-inspired collection of art, he will be at the Smart Gallery in Harrogate today. The reluctant art star is to be filmed for a new television series, The Forger's Master Class, and, of course, there is Hollywood knocking on his door. John says legendary British comedy writers Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement are producing a film treatment. He'd prefer Matt Damon to play him.

As for the future, he hopes it's slightly less Hollywood-like. He has never seen Drewe since and wouldn't like to. "My plan is to stop painting Genuine Fakes when I'm 65 and spend the rest of my life trying to do my own work - boring, original paintings," he says.

"I don't suppose I'll sell any. I can't see anyone being interested in pictures of my dog."

* John Myatt will be visiting the Smart Gallery, Parliament Street, Harrogate, between 11am and 1pm today, with his artwork on display in the gallery until September.