The Wild West of Artificial Intelligence has found its way into the Western art world, says prominent Western artist Bob Coronato, who recently spotted what he believes is an example of a new type of AI-assisted art forgery in a high-dollar private art collection.<\/p>\n
The scheme, as the Hulett artist describes it, works like this: An AI-generated image is painted by a third party overseas, lightly finished and signed by the named artist, then sold as an original work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coronato wouldn\u2019t name the artist or the sales price, but said the painting he suspects was produced this way was sold for a high-dollar amount to an individual who believed he was getting something original.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What tipped Coronato off, he said, were Western details that didn\u2019t fit the painting\u2019s setting, along with marks he associates with painting \u201csweatshops\u201d in the Philippines. <\/p>\n
He said he believes the artist made the image with a 99-cent AI app, sent it overseas to be painted, then set the canvas on an easel to videotape himself adding a few highlights before signing it.<\/p>\n
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Bob Coronato produced these Western art images using a 99-cent artificial intelligence app. From here, the photos can be sent overseas for painting, then they come back to an artist to highlight and claim as his own. It\u2019s Easy, Even If You Don\u2019t Know How<\/p>\n
Coronato has demonstrated the idea to a few friends and they\u2019re always shocked by just how easy it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t even have to type it in. You just tell it what you want it to show,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe you don\u2019t understand or know anything about it, but you know there\u2019s a market there.<\/p>\n
“All you say is, \u2018Big clouds, sunset, prairie, horse, Indian,\u2019 and boom, there\u2019s a painting. It takes like five minutes to generate 35 paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of the images will look good, if not great, Coronato said, because AI will go looking for the five best examples closest to the desired image.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt grabs the best artworks, figures out the best lighting and the best subject matter,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then it basically collages that into a new item and everyone goes \u2018Oh wow, that\u2019s amazing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the artist chooses images, they can be shipped electronically to a sweatshop in Asia, which will produce the paintings, then ship the finished works back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you just film yourself putting highlights on them and post them online, and everyone thinks you painted them,\u201d Coronato said. \u201cIt\u2019s misleading the people who are viewing that movie of you painting it, thinking that you painted the whole thing, when really, you just added the highlights.\u201d<\/p>\n
The art world is anything but ready for this, Coronato added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a whole wave of this coming that the old and ignorant art dealers aren\u2019t ready for,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s already out there. It\u2019s already happening. And it\u2019s going to flood the market with, I don\u2019t know if you want to call it fraud, but it is a kind of fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Fake-AI-Art-Artist-Thom-Ross-with-10.3.26.jpg\")
Artist Thom Ross with four Western cutouts he made. (Courtesy Photo)The Telltale Signs<\/p>\n
Coronato has made a living for more than 30 years finding rare objects, which has given him the experience to spot fakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the case of the AI forgery passed off as an original, a couple of things stood out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AI might produce strong compositions, but it struggles to keep anachronistic things out of a setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAI will grab a thoroughbred instead of a ranch horse,\u201d Coronato said. \u201cIt will grab a show jumper. Or maybe it has a cowboy wearing woolies in the middle of the summer in an area they never wore woolies in a time period they never had them. <\/p>\n
“AI doesn\u2019t know any of that, because it doesn\u2019t know anything. It can only steal. It can\u2019t actually produce something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paintings produced in Asia, meanwhile, have their own set of tells.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever seen production-line paintings that are done overseas, they have a certain look to them,\u201d Coronato said. \u201cBut you have to have seen one to know one. I\u2019ve seen hundreds of them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Art fraud, Coronato added, is nothing new.\u00a0It\u2019s been a constant battle for him through the decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AI is just adding a new wrinkle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually was contacted by a firm in the UK who represents me because there was so much stuff being stolen of mine in Europe, they represent me for free,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we won 30-plus lawsuits last year alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Coronato went to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas recently, he and his brother handed out 35 letters to people who were using his artwork without permission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it was AI-ed,\u201d Coronato said. \u201cSome of it was the person didn\u2019t know they were stealing it because they downloaded things on Etsy and the person who they got it from stole it. So I have to battle it all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Fake-AI-Art-Georgia-Rowswell-10.3.26.jpeg\")
Artist Chris Navarro says he has had Chinese sweatshops steal and sell his work. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)Other Artists React<\/p>\n
Thom Ross, a Wyoming artist whose painting Wright-Patrol is in the Wyoming State Museum, was gobsmacked once the scheme was explained to him. It was not a use of AI he\u2019s seen, nor one he had thought about.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ross said he does know of some popular commercial artists who hire other artists to do paintings for them. In fact, when he was young, he worked for one in a commercial art studio. <\/p>\n
The apprentice painters would lay down base layers, replicate specific textures, or execute background elements, which helped his employer keep up with commercial demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you buy one of those paintings, the brush stroke you see is not necessarily done by the guy whose signature is on the canvas,\u201d he said. \u201cI knew a gal who worked for one of these guys and she would paint a smiley and he would yell at her and say, \u2018Get that out of there!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the images were at least conceived by the artist, Ross said, and the guy himself could paint \u2014 and sometimes did. Also, the arrangement was not unknown to the buyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re painting Westerns as the theme, they should be dealt with in a Western theme,\u201d Ross said with a chuckle. \u201cSuch as hang them. Let\u2019s just hang them.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Fake-AI-Art-Chris-Navarro-10.3.26.jpg\")
Artist georgia Rowswell creates textured Western landscapes using textile fabrics. She believes artists will find ways to protect themselves from bad uses of AI. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)Not All Artists Are Worried<\/p>\n
Other artists were less alarmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, anything powerful can be used for good or bad,\u201d Cheyenne artist Georgia Roswell told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cWe have to come up with ways to protect ourselves from the bad and find the ways to use that kind of intelligence for the good.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s human nature to take the easy road, Casper sculptor Chris Navarro told Cowboy State Daily.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to make AI art, you gotta say it\u2019s AI art,\u201d he said. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s original, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, he hasn\u2019t really worried about it much \u2014 though he has taken note of some Asian sweatshops ripping off his sculptures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a website in China that\u2019s got some of my stuff for sale,\u201d he said. \u201cMe and a bunch of other artists. They don\u2019t have any copyright laws, and it\u2019s not worth hassling and going overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Navarro said he knew a sculptor who tried going after them, and things didn\u2019t go so well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe spent a bunch of money, got an attorney, and nothing happened,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cI try not to worry about things you have no control over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casper artist Travis Glasgow, who creates digital art using photographs he\u2019s superimposed one over the other, said he believes most of the artists who try such tactics will produce inferior art.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal art is even more rare,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s all this other crap out there. So I see it as actually adding value to real artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Fake-AI-Art-Artist-Thom-Ross-10.3.26.jpeg\")
Artist Thom Ross in his bearskin coat at a show about Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show with friend and Buffalo Bill reenactor Ralph Melfi. (Courtesy Photo)Some Western Art Is Worth Millions<\/p>\n
The financial stakes are high for Wyoming art galleries and auctions, where premier operations are lately pulling in gobs of money from single-day sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n