Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art |  | Authors: Laney Salisbury, Aly Sujo
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
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Rating:  26 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
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Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 1594202206
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781594202209
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Product Description
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 two hundred 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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
An exciting look at the darker side of the art world July 28, 2009
Deborah Verlen (Chicago, IL USA)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
Provenance is a finely paced, tense look at the art world and one of the most massive art frauds perpetuated in recent history on reputable galleries and museums. The story runs from 1986 to 1995 and spans several countries. It reads with the flavor of a mystery and recounts how con man John Drewe's efforts resulted in over 200 forged paintings--some of which evidently are still hanging!
Salisbury and Sujo have meticulously researched their subject and the book is like a fast paced thriller as we watch John Drewe manipulate and draw into the hoax, a struggling artist and parent to become a master forger. And then we follow Drewe as he cons galleries into accepting the works as genuine with an authentic provenance. One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is how Drewe faked the provenances from fabricating restoration records and receipts to manufacturing fake catalogues for art shows that never took place!
This intricate story is truly an interesting look at the world of art and forgery and provenance!
Thrilling read, I couldn't put it down! July 27, 2009
Kiki (New York, NY)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I picked this book up because I enjoy reading non-fiction and know little about the art world-- and my knowledge of "provenance" is limited to the explanations given on antiques roadshow. After reading the editorial review on how well researched the book is, I expected this to be a weighty, but rewarding read. But after the first few pages I was surprised how hooked I was-- the story is utterly compelling, a real page turner. I love how the authors described the characters, not only through the documents they consulted and interviews they conducted, but also through a fascinating pyschological analysis on what may have driven their behavior. The book also provided a glimpse of how galleries, dealers, collectors and museums really operate-- I was surprised at the behavior of the "experts" in the art world-- all of which was detailed in a matter fact manner that led the reader to draw their own conclusion. I started this book on Saturday, read it straight through Sat night and finished Sunday because I just had to know what happened next, it's that kind of book.
Thrilling art hoax story July 22, 2009
Olivia Dryfuss (Reno, NV)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I just loved this story about the most amazing hoax pulled off in the art world, with John Drewe, the con man you love to hate, hatching and actually implementing the most fantastical schemes to make even the staff of the world's fanciest museums believe in the authenticity of the phony works he was peddling. A great thriller, and the personalities of the leading characters really come through: brilliant, ruthless Drewe, and the tragic figure of the talented but unsuccessful painter John Myatt who got roped into his schemes. Go Scotland Yard!
Fake Paintings and Their Fake Histories September 9, 2009
R. Hardy (Columbus, Mississippi USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
In his writing about fakes fifteen years ago, Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, introduced me to a word I had not previously encountered: provenance. The word is one that has become more commonly used in the art world, partially because Hoving emphasized that the genuineness of an artwork needed documentation, and provenance provided it. Forty percent of artworks that he had examined for the Met, Hoving said, were fake or misattributed, so authenticity is no small issue. Provenance is the documentation of the history of ownership of a piece of art; a perfect provenance would include the first bill of sale from the artist to the first owner, and every change of ownership thereafter. Museums do not just hang the art on their walls, but they are vitally involved in documenting provenance in their archives, so that if a work's authenticity is suspect, its provenance can be researched. But what if the forgers are not only forging the art, but forging the provenance, too? That's what had been going on for years, as told in _Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art_ (The Penguin Press) by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo. The con man was John Drewe, and the forger he seduced into his game was John Myatt, and Scotland Yard called their scheme the biggest art fraud of the 20th century. The history of the fraud as told here is detailed and exciting, and the intelligence and seductiveness of the ingenious Drewe, well chronicled here, make him one of the most interesting of criminals.
Myatt, Drewe's forger, was a skilled artist in his own right, but was failing to make money at it. Myatt could get a better living turning out paintings that looked like the work of Monet or Turner, but which were clearly reproductions and did not pretend to be the real thing. He was a single father, trying to get by, and was delighted to come to the attention of John Drewe in 1985. Drewe originally contracted with Myatt for a "small Matisse" and then he asked for a Klee, and then others, and soon he was Myatt's biggest customer. Drewe was chatty and complimentary. Before long, he told Myatt that he had sold one of Myatt's reproductions, of a cubist painting supposedly by Albert Gleizes, as genuine, and had gotten £25,000 for it. Drewe offered half the money to Myatt, who accepted and was hooked. Drewe ingratiated himself into the Institute of Contemporary Arts, persuading the staff that he knew just how essential archiving was, and that he knew how it was hard to get money for the behind-the-scenes work of the archivists, and that he was just the hero to rescue the institute's disorganized records. He proceeded to organize the dusty shelves and file boxes, kindly getting them out of everyone's way by taking them home so he could do the work there. He thus had a treasure trove of stationery, receipts, handwriting, and catalogues which he could collage together to invent a provenance for Myatt's paintings. He arranged to have pictures of the works inserted into the binders that documented previous exhibits. He dreamed up a connection with a religious order that supposedly had held some of the artworks and had sold them off, and he documented the sales. In fact, sometimes Drewe did his job too well; the artist Alberto Giacometti was informal about his business practices, but Drewe's documentation of provenance for one of his paintings was perfect, and in this case, perfection was suspect.
In his trial, Drewe represented himself and pictured himself the victim of various conspiracies and mysterious dirty tricks by the government he had tried to serve in his imaginary capacity as consultant. He served four years in prison, and still swears he was innocent, although he failed to supply to the authors the documentation that he said would prove it. Myatt cooperated with the investigation, served four months, and had a far more satisfactory outcome. He returned to his previous career of making his fakes, but signing them with his own name; some clients have asked him not to put his indelible stamp "Genuine Fakes" on the back of his works, but he has declined. His notoriety in this case has only added to the value of his works, proving that sometimes crime does (eventually) pay. Among the more startling facts within this gripping true-crime book is that not all the forgeries are found. There were around 200 forged paintings sold, and only 80 have been rounded up and kept off the market as fakes. The rest are out there somewhere, still ready for the next buyer. They look pretty close to the real thing, and they all have papers to prove they are genuine.
I couldn't put this book down! August 30, 2009
Patricia H. Wolford (WV)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I rarely write a review. I downloaded this book on my Kindle, and found it to be totally intriguing and even superior to many of the books on con artists, art fraud, and true crime. Truly, it would make a good movie, the personalities are so well revealed, interesting and fascinating. I couldn't put it down, and rarely does a book hold my interest to such a degree.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
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