Provenance How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art (Audible Audio Edition) Laney Salisbury, Marty Peterson, Aly Sujo, Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Provenance How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art (Audible Audio Edition) Laney Salisbury, Marty Peterson, Aly Sujo, Audible Studios Books
Here is a tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries - many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today. Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history. Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices. Chief among those was the struggling artist John Myatt, a vulnerable single father who was manipulated by Drewe into becoming a prolific art forger. Once Myatt had painted the pieces, the real fraud began. Drewe managed to infiltrate the archives of the upper echelons of the British art world in order to fake the provenance of Myatt's forged pieces, hoping to irrevocably legitimize the fakes while effectively rewriting art history.
The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least 200 forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of these fakes are still out in the world, considered genuine and hung prominently in private houses, large galleries, and prestigious museums. And the sacred archives, undermined by John Drewe, remain tainted to this day.
Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and told at a breakneck pace. But this is most certainly not fiction; Provenance is the meticulously researched and captivating account of one of the greatest cons in the history of art forgery.
Provenance How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art (Audible Audio Edition) Laney Salisbury, Marty Peterson, Aly Sujo, Audible Studios Books
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Provenance How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art (Audible Audio Edition) Laney Salisbury, Marty Peterson, Aly Sujo, Audible Studios Books Reviews
I very much enjoyed this book. I learned quite a lot about how the "art world" works. The story is a compelling one, the research seems solid, the writing is fluent and engaging, and the book is a remarkably easy read when you consider how much technical material is covered in it. The authors have a real knack for descriptive writing, making things that the reader cannot see real and solid in the mind's eye.
However, there were three things that I found frustrating about the book. First, the lack of illustrations -- it seems as if the book would have been stronger if there had been images to help the non-expert understand the ways in which the forged pieces were good and the ways in which they fell short. Second, I was left with real curiosity about what Drewe had been doing prior to this scheme. I wish that the authors had managed to uncover this information. it seems odd to me that where they are willing to make educated guesses (always identified as such!) about other things, they had no theories to advance about this particular point. And finally, I find myself wondering where the painting Myatt says he did not do came from.
These are minor quibbles, and should in no way stop anyone with an interest in art, in confidence games, or in interesting well-told stories from picking this book up and getting a great deal of enjoyment out of it.
Published in 2009 after the death of one of the couple of authors this in depth presentation of an extraordinary series of art and documentation forgeries ever.
Years of research were required to effectively present the deeds or misdeeds of John Drewe who seem to become the characters he pretended to be - a physicist, an heir to a remarkable art collection, a Mossad agent, a consultant to the British Atomic Energy Commission and the list goes on. All the while cleverly documenting and selling "modern masterpieces" to the leading dealers in London and elsewhere.
John Myatt - failed painter is swept into this whirlwind of activity and doing a reasonably good job of creating masterpieces by Ben Nicholson, Roger Bissiere, Braques and Giacometti, Graham Sutherland et al.
Drewe prepared an "authentic" provenance for each work and then used "runners" to present and sell them to the likes of Leslie Waddington, Daniel Stern, Peter Nahum among many others. Upwards of 200 works were made and sold.
Drewe parlayed each meeting and relationship into a probable sale.
Eventually he was caught and convicted but it took hard work, chance and luck to bring him down. He was never repentant and was also not out to embarrass the art world. Rather his success was aided by the lax standards where greed is involved.
Although it is a tale related to the modern art world it seems more a story of the disintegration of moral and ethical standards in our world. The authors simply and clearly describe the facts and the events but the take away for me seems much more tragic and universal.
Wow! This is as good as any Tom Clancey or Grisham novel I have read!
Although I had heard this was non-fiction, I was compelled in the middle of reading this book, to go online to see if Drewe and Myatt were, indeed, real people! And--they are real people!
A fun and thought-provoking book!
Kim Burdick
Stanton, Delaware
A large number of books have been published in recent years on the subject of fraudulent art. A few are autobiographical accounts, some are biographies, and many are academic studies on what motivates fakers, their techniques, and how they inject their phony works into the market.
John Drewe, the central figure around whom the story of this book is built, is a uniquely clever and industrious con-man. As the title suggests, his complex swindle involved creating a bogus provenance for the fraudulent works he had commissioned. He insinuated himself into museum archives where he secretly inserted the forged documentation. It was a scheme that fooled much of the art establishment for years. Worse, he so debased the archives that they could never be entirely relied upon again.
Provenance is a real life thriller and detective yarn, a factual account of a singular and elaborate scam. It provides a knowledgeable glimpse into the shady machinations, the greed and dangers of a secretive art world in which huge amounts of money change hands daily. It also delves into the strange world of John Drewe, a highly intelligent, inventive, but totally corrupt figure, a sociopath and pathological liar whose life is driven by falsehoods and fantasy.
Provenance is a smoothly written and well researched book, a true account of remarkable events, one that is both instructive and pleasurable to read.
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