Over three decades, Tetro forged works by Rembrandt, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí and Norman Rockwell and others.
Tetro's paintings and lithographs, known for their perfectionism, were sold by art dealers and auction houses as legitimate works and hang in museums, galleries around the world.
In 1991, Gary Helton, an investigator for a California district attorney, described Tetro as "one of the two major [art] forgers in the United States.
[3] His first trouble from his art came while at parochial school in Fulton, where he drew a picture of one of the nuns as a Vargas girl, but with a "pruney face" and wearing a habit.
[1] Reproductions were in demand[1] and Tetro had a reputation for making flawless copies, even going so far as to travel to Europe to buy wooden stretchers and canvas particular to where a certain artist had worked.
[1] Tetro forged works by both contemporary painters and old masters including Rembrandt, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí and Norman Rockwell.
[1] In addition to copying paintings, Tetro made an exact replica of a 1958 Ferrari TR, investing several hundred thousand dollars over six years.
[1] Tetro became successful and wealthy, owning a tri-level condominium,[3] a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit, two Ferraris (in addition to his replica) and a Lamborghini Countach.
[1] His forgeries were discovered in late 1988 after Hiro Yamagata (artist) found a fake work of his for sale in a Beverly Hills gallery.
[7] Gary Helton, an investigator for the district attorney's office, called Tetro "one of the two major [art] forgers in the United States.
[1] The BBC science and technology magazine, Focus website has an article about how to forge a masterpiece based on Tetro's techniques.
[12] In 2024 Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Greatest Art Forger by Tony Tetro and Giampiero Ambrosi won the Listen Award from the American Library Association.
Associate Professor Robyn Sloggett, director of the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne and an art authentication expert, withdrew from a panel to promote the competition, which included Tetro, art dealer John Buckley and writer Linda Jaivin, when she learnt about the commissioned fakes.