Winner, J.J. Talman Award
In May 2016, Jon S. Dellandrea came into possession of a box of the last effects of an obscure artist, William Firth MacGregor. The contents of the box chronicled a major, and long forgotten, trial involving forgeries of the art of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven.

The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case takes readers back to 1962, a time when forgeries were turning up on gallery walls, in auction houses, and (unwittingly) being hung in the homes of luminaries across Canada. Inspector James Erskine, enlisting the help of A.J. Casson, the youngest living member of the Group of Seven, set out to discover where the forgeries were coming from. Fifty years later, Dellandrea follows Erskine’s hunt to the end, uncovering the masterminds behind the forgeries.

Lavishly illustrated with reproductions and archival images, The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case unravels the mystery of the greatest art fraud trial in Canadian history. Along the way, it also tells the story of a talented artist whose career might have been so very different.

Jon S. Dellandrea is a Canadian educator and author. He is a senior fellow at Massey College, chair emeritus of the Art Canada Institute, and a Member of the Order of Canada. His articles on fakes and forgeries in Canadian art have appeared in the Literary Review of Canada and Canada’s History.

Jon S. Dellandrea's profile page

• Winner, J.J. Talman Award