How to spot a fake van den hooven.
One of the easiest ways to tell is simply to check the colour palette. Because there are certain colours that van den hooven no longer uses.
Excluded colours and pigments:
If you see phthalocyanine green, phthalocyanine blue, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange or benzimidazolone orange in any of his newest works, then you know it’s probably a fake.
This particular artwork is one exception, as it is one of the earliest pieces by van den hooven, as it has some kind of very saturated benzimidazolone orange in it below the green eye.
I abandoned benzimidazolone orange a little bit later than when I stopped using the pthalo colours colours, so a couple of my earliest artworks do contain benzimidazolone orange.
Objects painted certain colours:
Furthermore, van den hooven frequently paints these quintessential objects certain colours (and not others). For example he’ll paint the neurons/cells cobalt violet in Daniel Smith colour (PV49). He’ll paint the eyes’ irises either Schmincke cobalt turquoise (PG50) and/or Schmincke cobalt green pure (PG19). He’ll often paint hearts Schmincke cadmium red medium PR108 (and the top left corner either Schmincke cadmium red dark, or more recently cadmium red purple, a special colour unique to Old Holland).
Faces are painted with several different tones. Schmincke naples yellow reddish is the most common colour. Noses are often painted either Schmincke naples yellow, Schmincke rutile yellow, or Schmincke Jaune brilliant dark. Several other additional colours are also utilised: Schmincke potters pink (PR233), Daniel Smith buff tianium (PW6:1) and Rublev pink pipestone (catlinite).
Since late 2022, one additional special single pigment cerium oxide skin tone colour unique only to van den hooven is used.
Intestines are usually painted naples yellow. Brains are usually painted either naples yellow or more recently cobalt yellow. The interior of the brains is frequently painted Schmincke walnut brown (a discontinued* colour), as the brain looks like a walnut.
The exterior of the lungs are generally now painted with Schmincke quinacridone purple (previously Schmincke quinacridone violet). The centre of the lungs is painted with a mixture of proprietary erbium oxide light pink and Daniel Smith cobalt violet PV49.
Lastly, van den hooven also uses another very unique colour in the world of art, cerium sulfide orange (PO75). Indeed, this particular colour is so scarce as an art pigment, van den hooven even sells it (along with PO78) in small quantities on his Etsy outlet shop.
As noted previously, some early works are exceptions, as is this limited-edition blue-themed art piece.
Quintessential objects:
There is also a list of “quintessential objects” that van den hooven finds interesting to paint. The list of organic objects is simpler: eyes, mouths, noses, eyebrows/eyelashes, hearts, brains, lungs, kidneys (almost always painted with perylene violet PV29), stomachs, intestines, and to a lesser extent livers (these were always usually painted perylene maroon PR179).
Other animate objects include: tentacles, gum trees, schools of fish, crab claws and other crustaceans like prawns (or shrimp, depending on where you’re from), garpike.
The list of inanimate objects is more complicated. Androids, spectacles (often painted in praseodymium yellow, PY159, a colour pretty much unique Winsor & Newton, known there as lemon yellow deep), security cameras, pills, tea pots, pistons, flying geta footwear and spatulas to name a few.
Objects that do not appear on that list have to be questioned. The entirety of this list has so far not been made publicly available, because van den hooven intends to paint new objects in future.
Types of paper:
So far van den hooven has experimented with different brands and types of paper, the most common being St Armand canal paper. He has also used Canson XL mixed media paper. In future he intends to try Hahnemühle Britannia rough.
There are of course other ways to tell and we’ll add to these in future.
You can be sure that all of the artworks for sale on the official van den hooven store are originals.
* van den hooven is looking to purchase additional Schmincke walnut brown, so if you see any anywhere, please let us know.
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