BERLIN — German police say a Berlin gallery owner has committed suicide days after confessing to forging and selling paintings by French-German artist Lou Albert-Lasard.
Police say the 73-year-old former teacher, whose name they did not release, admitted last week to having forged works by the Jewish painter since 2003. His body was found Sunday in a forest near Berlin.
Authorities suspect he sold some 100 watercolors and prints claiming they had been painted by Albert-Lasard in the 1920s. The artist and her daughter were interned in Gurs, a camp for Jews not of French nationality, in southern France during World War II.
A spokesman for the Protestant Church in Berlin and Brandenburg says the man donated several paintings for charitable auctions he conducted to raise money for refugees.
Volker Jastrzembski said church officials were “deeply shaken” by the suicide and would now contact people who bought the paintings.
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