Weekend Reads: Provenance

I know I’m reading a good book when, at the car wash, I don’t hear three attendants hollering at me that my car is ready. In Provenance, husband-and-wife writing team Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo unravel the story of  one of Britain’s largest art frauds. The scam starts in 1986 when struggling painter John Myatt meets the charming, charismatic physicist and art collector John Drewe who commissions Myatt to paint works in the style of masters like Giacometti, Turner and Ben Nicholson and passes them off as genuine works. As Drewe finds himself pressed to prove the origins of the works he’s selling, the scheme becomes increasingly elaborate. He falsifies documents to support the fake works’ provenances, including receipts to show previous ownership, catalogs of exhibits that never took place and he even inserts fake documents into the archives of the Tate Gallery. It’s easy to dislike the smooth-talking Drewe and at the same time, hard not to admire how he pulled off this decade-long scam in which an estimated 200 fake paintings traded hands. What I find most fascinating about this story is how dealers, auction houses, archivists and collectors allowed this scam to go on for so long. After all, they believed in the authenticity of the fake works Drewe was selling.

I haven’t yet finished the story; I’ve just reached the point where Drewe’s long-time collaborator Myatta has been arrested and happily cooperates with detectives at Scotland Yard. So far, Provenance reads like a great mystery, and I’m looking forward to its conclusion. What are you reading this weekend?

Tagged as: art fraud, Provenance, Salisbury, Sujo, weekend reading