Costco and Bulk Counterfeits

The Los Angeles Times reported today, Friday, October 26th, that the mammoth bulk-seller corporation known as Costco has reached a settlement agreement with artist, Cao Yong. Costco reached a settlement this week with Yong in an art-counterfeiting suit he had brought in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. He claimed that the mammoth, members-only merchandising chain had sold phony prints of his paintings in Southern California and provided buyers with faked certificates deeming them “signed and numbered by the artist.”

Costco landed in a separate, highly publicized art controversy last year when Pablo Picasso’s daughter asserted that two purported Picasso drawings sold on Costco’s website were not authentic and that accompanying certificates supposedly bearing her signature were frauds.

(Image of Cao Yong painting)

Based on the image above, one wonders who would pay a single dollar for such such an “artwork,” let alone thousands.