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Provenance
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art | Laney Salisbury, Aly Sujo
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 todayProvenance 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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blurb
jenniferw88
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🎵 And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake 🎵

#shakeitoff #FearlessFebruary

shanaqui Hmm! This sounds like the kind of book that might appease my random curiosity for stuff I don't normally read about. 2y
58 likes3 stack adds1 comment
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Lillie
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So much of art snobbery has to do with how much you paid for something!

12 likes1 stack add
review
kdwinchester
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Pickpick

Art forgery! Con men! Mystery! And it's all true--can you get better than that? This month's book club pick shows that there are books that I love that I would never have picked up myself without my bookish group of friends. Go pick a copy and enjoy this art world episode Law & Order. | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

shawnmooney Awesome! I'm designing a lesson for my ESL students here in Tokyo on this exact topic! 8y
kdwinchester @shawnmooney I bet they will love it! #coolestlessonever 8y
youngreadrshelf True story? 8y
kdwinchester @youngreadrshelf It is, yeah. And a good one. 8y
60 likes28 stack adds4 comments
review
autumnprivett
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Pickpick

Loved this. I have a special affinity for art crime procedural drama anyway, so this was a perfect read for me. The story blew my mind and I learned tons about how the art world works. That being said, I will never look at a museum painting the same way again.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

AmyWrites I loved this book! Such a great read. 8y
23 likes15 stack adds1 comment
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kdwinchester
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My book club's pick for the month. 👍🏾

bookendmylife Great pick! - Fascinating read 8y
Orbeck33 Let us know what you think! 8y
34 likes6 stack adds2 comments