The Artifice of Art

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What is as fragile as originality? It’s why we prize it, right? The idea that something–say a piece of art–is the only one of its kind that exists.

But since that “originality” is what makes it valuable, it also makes it tempting. I mean–all you have to do is make one exactly like it–and who would ever know?

Or create one that seems to be from the same mind and hand. Tempting, huh?

Until Interpol comes to the door.

The oh-so-talented Katherine Reay has tapped in to that temptation–not by copying, of course, but by exploring the devious and manipulative minds of people who do.

The Artifice of Art

By Katherine Reay

After writing three spy novels, I delved into the world of art forgery for The English Masterpiece. At first, I was nervous — could forgers be as compelling as spies? Could the stakes, the intrigue, and the tension be as high? I quickly discovered the answer is an unequivocal YES! Though spies and forgers play on different fields and wield dissimilar “weapons of the trade,” they are both skilled, secretive, duplicitous, and fascinating masters of illusion. What you see is never what you get. Spies have changed world events in ways we will never know.

And all those “masterpieces” we swoon over while touring the world’s most storied museums? Picassos, Vermeers, Monets, and more… Experts estimate at least twenty percent of that art is faked and forged, with some experts taking that number as high as forty percent.

Conducting research for any novel is always fascinating for me. I love digging into the details and the history. And for this one I delved deep into paint composition, canvas, undertone, underpainting, and all the details behind the creation, curation, and insurance of art. But it was the forger, the psychology and motivation behind forgery, that intrigued me the most.


Let’s look at two of the world's most famous forgers and you’ll see what I mean.

Han van Meegeren, a Dutch painter who specialized in forging Johannes Vermeer during WWII and had the audacity to sell his works to the Nazis (the art-voracious Hermann Goering in particular), is often considered the world’s greatest forger. Biographer Jonathan Lopez called him a “talented Mr. Ripley with a paintbrush,” a conman famous for selling paintings that he himself declared “perfect forgeries.” And perhaps he was right.

During his trial for selling national treasures to the Nazis, van Meegeren actually had to prove his paintings were fakes and claimed, instead, that by tricking the Nazis he was a national hero. He still went to prison for a year for forgery, but the public loved him.

A contemporary forger, Wolfgang Beltracchi recently finished serving his prison term and is back to painting today, though under his own name now. He provides another example of the forger’s hubris. In the 2014 documentary, Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, he wonders aloud why his forgeries aren’t as acclaimed as true Campendonks or Ernsts — after all, they are as beautiful. He even goes on to imply he has improved upon their style and works.

But it’s not all about ego and hubris, it’s about money too. In this high-stakes world of art, deception, forgery, and greed, van Meegeren accrued about $30M in today’s terms and Beltracchi over $40M. That said, once a forger is caught collectors and insurance companies definitely work to claw back those gains. What they can’t rectify, however, is the permanent tainting of the world’s artistic archive — for most forgers won’t and don’t reveal the locations of their entire oeuvre.

My novel, The English Masterpiece, centers around a forged Picasso, as he was the twentieth century’s most famous artist and remains the world's most forged artist. I guess if your work spans five movements there is a huge scope for forgery. And forgers do have their favorite movements and artists.

A couple of genuine Picassos featured in The English Masterpiece — The Old Guitarist and Woman in a Red Armchair. You have probably seen them many times.

But here is also one “forgery” in honor of the story.

My daughter created the painting that comprises the novel’s focal point, the fictional Picasso’s Woman Laughing. It’s still work in progress and, as her mother, I promise she won’t dip into the dark side of the art world and try to sell it. But it was a fun project.

So the question is… Do you think you could make a painting or drawing that is”in the school of” a master? If we could wave a magic wand and let you do it perfectly, who would you like to emulate?


HANK: Wow, that is such a tricky question. I would like to emulate…ah, John Singer Sargent? I have no idea how he could paint fabric so gloriously that it seems real. Remember when I was in fifth grade–funny how this just came back to me!–I wrote an essay about how I would like to be able to paint like Rosa Bonheur. Aw. The Hank of the past emerges in art.

How about you, Reds and readers?



ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Bozeman, MT, with her husband and three children.

Follow Katherine on Instagram, Facebook, X, and her personal website here.


ADVANCE BOOK PRAISE

“[A] fascinating look behind the scenes of art dealings and the workings of the museum.” —Booklist


“Crackling with tension from the very start, Reay’s latest is a twisty, smart read infused with the heady atmosphere of the 1970s London art world. The novel deftly explores the nature of artistic genius, the ethics of deception, and the cost of speaking up for what is true. A gem of a read!”
—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Queen


“Art… London… Seventies Glam… Yes, please. The English Masterpiece has ALL the goodies—especially for historical fiction lovers and art aficionados. Readers will relish Reay’s stylish prose and rich, unforgettable characters amid a propulsive cat and mouse chase into the opulent and obsessive world of multi-million-dollar art and deception.”
—Lisa Barr, New York Times bestselling author of The Goddess of Warsaw

My Problem With Books--Do You Have It, Too?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: No no no, my problem is not with reading books, I love reading books! And no no no, my problem is not with writing books, I love writing books! (Usually.) And you know that ONE WRONG WORD is just out in mass market paperback, hooray, more on that in a minute. (And ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS comes out September 9, very excited, and more of that in a minute too.)

My problem is: having books. Having them. Having way too many of them. Way way way too many of them.

Here is an actual pile. This is in the exercise room. No one sees it but us, luckily.

And no, way too many books is not an oxymoron or a paradox. It is a question of shelf space versus things on the shelf. 

There are bookshelves, often floor to ceiling, throughout our house. We have a library! And I love seeing the books. But I am in the shelfspace red, Reds and Readers. Way way way in the red.

Some of these books have to go. I know exactly where to take them to be best for the community.

But to which ones will I bid farewell?

Here is another actual pile. (This is on the stairway to the third floor--no one sees it but us...)

Here are the categories:

Books I love? (I keep.)

Signed books. (Keep. Yes. Mostly. Argh. Well, maybe.)

What about a signed a book by someone I don’t know? Or don’t care about?

Books by people I love that are not signed.

Books I could get any minute of any day if I wanted them.

Books that someone gave me but I don’t know who.

Books I did not or would not enjoy.

Advance reader copies.

How do you decide what books to keep? Which categories do you have?

And I know I said more on the mass market paperback issue. So, apparently those are vanishing from the publishing landscape. They’re not selling enough, so the answer is simply to stop trying to sell them. What do you think about that?

So: mass-market books, yes or no? And how do you decide what of your accumulated stash to keep?

RHYS BOWEN: I already did a big purge and decided:

Keep lovely illustrated books, reference books I need for my writing, antique books, books signed by friends or writers who mean something to me.

All other books can go.

If I wanted to read fiction again I’d get it on Kindle. Many reference books can now be looked up online.

The rest went to Friends of the Library.

As for paperbacks: I always felt mm were hard to read. Small print. They don’t stay open easily. But… new paperbacks are expensive and thus out of reach for some readers. Books have become too expensive for impulse buys. And $14.99 for Kindle is way too much but that’s another discussion!

LUCY BURDETTE: I too, am deeply in the red on this books issue. Don't get John started on how I still keep ordering and buying more. I keep books by my friends, books I have loved, and books that I might possibly read in the future. That last category is where there can be a little wiggle room.

 As my tastes change, maybe I can cull a few out. As you might expect, I find it much easier to pick out which of John’s books can be donated to the library lol. (Ooh, that might be a good topic for a future chat – does your partner share your reading taste?)

I’m not paying too much attention to the mass market question because every couple of years, the publishing industry makes another decision about those books or what sells or what will never sell again. My career was launched by mass market paperback, so I do feel fondness and loyalty for them. And I do have boxes and box of them stored up for some event in the future.

HALLIE EPHRON: Most books I don't keep. Our local library (Go Milton Public Library!) has a wonderful bookstore packed with donated books and I donate my giveaways there. It's easier to do it when I know it's going to someone else who'll read it.

For me to keep a book it needs to be a reference (like Phillip Lopate's "To Show and To Tell" about writing personal essays or "The Business of Being a Writer" by Jane Friedman). Or a book that I flat-out loved ("Water for Elephants"). Or a classic (I've got all of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimseys, and all of the Sherlock Holmes novels.

JENN McKINLAY: I keep nothing. Well, almost nothing. One copy of each of my books, books signed by author friends or authors I admire, of course, and the very small collection of foreign pop-up books (whenever I travel I buy a children’s pop-up book published in the language of the country I am visiting). And then I do have my reference collection, lots of witchcraft books for the Witches of Dubious Origin, milliner books for the Hat Shop Mysteries, etc.

Why do I keep nothing? Because the Hub is a book hoarder! I have one floor to ceiling shelving unit in our library while the Hub has FIVE. *sigh* I force him to purge twice a year just so the library remains manageable. Oy.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, this is hard. But I’m less sentimental than I used to be. I keep research books, books by friends and books signed by friends, and some favorite hardbacks. I also have a couple of shelves of childhood books, and a couple of shelves of by now very vintage sci-fi/fantasy mass markets. These should probably go to Half Price Books where perhaps they will be snapped up by a collector. But I’m not going to reread them, or any of the paperback favorite mysteries I’ve hung on to over the years. The paper’s yellowed and the font too small to read comfortably.

My bigger problem is the towering to-read piles, but that is another subject…

I don’t know how I feel about the (supposed) demise of the mass market paperback. On the one hand I hate to see a more affordable means of reading bite the dust, but on the other hand I very seldom buy them myself, so I get the thinking. I’ll spend a few more dollars for trade paper or for an ebook, so…

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Apparently, I’m keeping all the books everyone else is donating! I mean, I do try to be reasonably prompt about passing hardcovers on. And ARCs often go to the Swap Shop, so hopefully some other reader can discover a new-to-them author. But honestly, this is where having a big ‘ole house does me wrong. I have bookcases in the family room. I have small built-in shelves in the kitchen for cookbooks, etc. The library has multiple bookshelves. My office has bookcases. The living room has book cases. Every. Single. Bedroom. Has bookshelves, and I have slim ones in each of the hallway landings!
At this point, I justify the overabundance of books as decor. Who can argue with that?

HANK: How about you, Reds and readers? Do you have a system for what you keep and what you donate? Let us in on your secrets!

And here is another actual pile! Again, the exercise room.

Don't let the pigeons fly the plane

HALLIE EPHRON: Earlier this week we devoted time to birds, noting how they seemed to be having their moment, popping up in the news feeds and detective dramas.

This week, it happened again. Pigeons -- this time, a pair of them in the news -- causing chaos trying to stow away on a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Madison, Wisconsin.

The plane was delayed almost an hour while passengers and flight crew and finally a baggage handler managed to corral the pigeons and remove them from the plane. Quite the drama.

I'm guessing they were a pair, looking for a place to nest. It's that time of year. Or maybe they climbed aboard hoping for a bag of pretzels. Sadly those short hop flights no longer have snacks.

I hope they were set free together to continue their quest. 

Had my Jerry been on that plane, or even heard about the drama, he'd have been inspired to immortalize those pigeons in cartoons. 

So I leave you this week with some of Jerry's birdiest handiwork.

First, from a series he called, "Hair Club for Penguins"...

AND more Hair Club for Penguins--

And a startled parakeet...

He also had a series, Hair Club for Chihuahuas and Hair Club for Slugs and Hair Club for Rabid Raccoons.  Also Hair Club for Aardvarks and Hair Club for Philodendrens and Hair Club for 6-week-old Whoppers. (Jerry himself was nearly bald but handsome as ever.)

And, of course, all of that inspired Hare Club for Men. (He was a big punner.)

He had a very bizarre sense of humor. For the birds, you might say.