Cue Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer"...

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art – Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo

            It wouldn’t be difficult to have described John Myatt as somewhat of a failure.  A promising artist in his youth, he preferred the masters to his contemporary, modern-artist peers who would become well known painting in a totally style style.  On top of that, he barely maded ends meet and was a recently divorced, single-parent of two.  So, in an attempt to make some money, he sent out an advertisement soliciting to make legal copies of artwork and pastiche paintings for people.

            His best client was a very well connected professor John Drewe.  Drewe kept asking for more and more paintings.  Eventually he started selling Myatt’s paintings, passing them off as newly-discovered masterpieces of 20^th century artists.  Drewe himself was a bit of a character: wealthy, his father helped build the atom bomb, knowledgeable in nuclear physics, a professor, a businessman, contacts with MI-5, etc.

            Like Myatt’s paintings, it was all an elaborate con and with the knowledge Drewe obtained, he was able to pass off hundreds of Myatt’s paintings as genuine masterpieces.  However, anyone can sell a piece of phony artwork…Drewe took it a step further.  He didn’t just sell the fake artwork, he elaborately falsified the artworks' provenance, the list of receipts, showings, and correspondence used by the artworld to verify the authenticity of pieces. 

            I picked this up after hearing an interview on NPR for a similar art-forging case (or possibly the same, I came in late to the story).  Salisbury and Sujo are able to make a really quite shocking case enjoyable with sometimes surprisingly sympathetic “villains.”  Along with that, having a love of art but having no idea about the entire idea of provenance and how art work is verified as the real article rather than a knockoff, the book was a quick education as well.  From the beginning of the book, you know that the con will one day unravel, but I found the suspense in when and how just as utterly rewarding. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.