In an attempt to rectify this, his former label wrote a fake biography in his name and tried to pass it off as his official life story without his knowledge.
The failed history and projected future of QuinQuag, as the colony is called, begins with a fake biography of its purported founder, the art patron and feminist Isabelle Nash, who in 1949 gave a select group of artists a 50-year lease at $1 a year on land near her estate.
While Orlov's celebrity status is hard to deny, the arrival of a fake biography of a puppet character from a car insurance advert seems to be accompanied by the sound of several nails being hammered in all kinds of coffins.
Liner notes include both real and fake biographies of each band.
His aim in writing the fake biography, and in painting the pieces attributed to Tate, he told interviewers at the time, was to "play quite consciously with the ideas of reality and fiction.
Indeed, the author has been famously quoted as saying that "Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life, is my life."
The fake biography said Batuta was born in Odessa in 1898, and participated in the Russian Civil War.
Remo stuck to the fake biography of the fake Remo Pelham.
Music magazines were sent the 7" single, along with an accompanying fake biography describing the artist they were being introduced to.
In fact, the company has even made up a couple of fixed photographs of the two ringers, on display in the lobby with the rest of the cast, complete with fake biographies.