NEW YORK.- Gallery HD, the only high-definition channel devoted to the visual arts, announced today the premiere of a new series: FORGER’S MASTERCLASS, teaching aspiring painters how to emulate the style of the world’s greatest artists such as Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir and many others. The FORGER’S MASTERCLASS series will include ten half-hour episodes launching March 3, at 8:30 p.m. Gallery HD is one of fifteen VOOM HD Networks, the largest and most diverse suite of high-definition channels nationwide.

The series is hosted by John Myatt, whose stunning forgeries of Matisse, Chagall and Klee notoriously fooled the art world in the 1990s. Myatt was eventually caught and charged in 1998. He served time in Brixton prison but his subsequent fame enabled him to open a legitimate ‘Genuine Fake’ business where his replica paintings now sell for thousands of pounds and fine art publishers have exhibited his work.

To help kick-off the series, GALLERY HD is hosting a contest to give viewers a chance to win a limited edition print of the forged masterpiece of their choice from a limited selection of five of the world’s most sought after paintings. Viewers may enter to win at www.GALLERYHD.com through April 30. The winner will be announced in May.

“Learning from past masters can only improve today’s artists’ skills and creativity,” said John Myatt, host of GALLERY HD’s FORGER’S MASTERCLASS series and notorious art forger behind the biggest art fraud of the 20th century. “I also share with students some of my own tricks to create truly genuine replicas of some of the world’s most famous and sought after paintings.”

FORGER’S MASTERCLASS is a revealing and inspiring series for both art lovers and aspiring artists alike to learn the painting techniques and stylistic insights of world-renowned artists, such as Van Gogh’s brushstroke techniques, Monet’s special color palettes and how to paint a landscape in the style of Singer-Sargent. From a Monet landscape to a Modigliani nude, Myatt provides his students with both the theory and technique to set up their easels and capture the composition of a street scene by Hopper or the brushstrokes of a still life by Cezanne. He also passes on his own techniques such as rubbing soil onto canvas replicates Braque’s finish, or that coffee ages a painting by a century or more.

World renowned artists’ works featured in the series include: Pierre Auguste Renoir, Edward Hopper, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Georges Braque, John Singer-Sargent, David Hockney, Amedeo Modigliani, and Andre Derain.

GALLERY HD is dedicated to visual art and the artistic process. Through visually stunning imagery and compelling storytelling, GALLERY HD is the first and only HD channel that defines the most talked-about artists of today and tomorrow. GALLERY HD is available nationally on the DISH Network satellite service (Channel 9472) and Cablevision’s iO digital cable service (Channel 714).