The Art Forger

by Barbara Shapiro

  Then I’m struck by the women’s faces, all in profile, yet each her own. Most of Degas’ bathers are either painted from behind, have an arm thrown over their faces, or are loosely sketched, but these women are clearly individuals. Françoise, with reddish hair and a sharp nose, sits to the right, her leg outstretched; Jacqueline, at the center, tall and powerful, looks over her shoulder at the raised knee Françoise is toweling; Simone, introverted, her features too small for her round face, dries her hair crouched at Jacqueline’s feet.

  There’s been an argument going on for decades among art historians with too much time on their hands: Was Degas really an Impressionist? Those who say no point out that Degas didn’t paint outdoors, plein air, as did most of the Impressionists, and that he didn’t boldly splash thick pigments on canvas to capture the moment in front of him. Instead, he did multitudes of sketches and detailed drawings and then worked on the piece slowly in his studio.

  But to me, the argument is just semantics, an exercise in mental masturbation. True, Degas painted neither plein air nor spontaneously, but he had his own way of bringing his impressions into the heart of the viewer: his focus on the movement of racehorses and ballet dancers, his depiction of the ordinary milliner or washer woman or bather, caught in a complete lack of self-consciousness.

  I turn from Bath and squat before the piles of books flanking the north wall. I have a couple of Degas piles: biographies and criticism; books of his drawings, prints, and paintings; diaries and collections of his letters; notebooks of scribbled lecture notes. I also have two books devoted to only his preliminary sketches. Not to mention all the library books, many overdue, on his contemporaries that I’ve been using for my book proposal.

  I pull out his sketchbooks and bring them back to the chair. I open the first one and flip through the bather sketches. Degas often used the same models in a number of different paintings. I’m searching for Simone, Jacqueline, and Françoise.

  I find a couple of Simone and turn back to the painting for a closer look at Jacqueline. Again, the power of Bath assaults me. Although I’m sure I can master the technical aspects needed to avoid detection—stripping the old Meissonier canvas down to the sizing, mixing the correct nineteenth-century paints and mediums, using the proper period brushes—I have no idea how I’ll master reproducing the commanding gestalt of Degas’ masterwork. But Bath reaches out to me, touches my heart, and I know I have to try.

  I’M WORKING DILIGENTLY on the Pissarro for Repro, but all I want to do is go through the Degas sketches and find my three French ladies, maybe even a compositional drawing for the whole painting. I make a deal with myself: one more hour on the Pissarro and then I can take a quick break with the books. Whatever else I’ve decided to do, Repro pays the rent. It also, as Markel so accurately pointed out, gives me a cover.

  I’m just settling back into the Pissarro when Markel shows up with a very expensive-looking bottle of champagne and a pair of crystal flutes. Obviously, he remembers the juice glasses from his first visit. We toast to our arrangement and the Gardner regaining its treasure. I pull the sheet from Bath.

  He takes a small step backward as the force of the painting hits him. It’s clear he feels the same way about her as I do. I motion him into the folding chair and pull the rocking chair over for myself. We sit in silence, sipping our champagne and looking at her.

  “Like two old folks watching a sunset,” he says.

  “Sometimes I cry when I look at it.”

  A pause, then, “Me, too.”

  “I was at the Gardner yesterday,” I tell him.

  “Looking at the empty frame?”

  I nod my head but don’t take my eyes from the painting.

  “Didn’t feel as guilty as you thought you were going to, did you?”

  I whip around. “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Of course not,” I say with conviction. “I did feel guilty. I even thought about bringing it back.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I shrug.

  Markel’s laugh is warm and rich, without a touch of condescension. “You’ve fallen in love with her.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  He touches his flute to mine, and our eyes lock. “Takes one to know one.”

  “The faces are so specific, so individual, not like most of his nudes.”

  Markel looks at the two books of sketches on the floor in front of him. “Find any of them?”

  “I just started looking, and although there are hardly any faces in the sketches, I think I’ve found a few of Simone.”

  “Simone?”

  “Françoise, Jacqueline, and Simone,” I say pointing to each in turn. “Hard to be in love with someone whose name you don’t know.”

  Nine

  THREE YEARS EARLIER

  Markel and Karen Sinsheimer, a senior curator at the Museum of Modern Art, stood in front of 4D, which rested on an easel in Isaac’s studio. Isaac and I hung back.

  Tall and sleek, wearing an outfit that probably cost more than my monthly rent, Karen moved closer to the painting. She took a few photos with her phone, typed in a few notes. The slick, white-blond hair against her youthful face and the taut, lean body came together to create the message she clearly worked hard to send: the no-nonsense, powerful New York professional woman.

  No one said anything. We just stared at the canvas. Wine and nuts sat untouched on the coffee table. Isaac shifted from foot to foot. I tried to look only marginally interested, as if 4D were just another one of Isaac’s paintings, this studio visit no more important than any other.

  This was the first time anyone beside the two of us had seen 4D. Karen was here to decide whether it would be accepted for the MoMA show, and by doing so, give the painting its authenticity. Markel was there in his role as Isaac’s dealer, but his opinion mattered to us almost as much as Karen’s. Markel knew Isaac’s work better than anyone. If he was fooled, we were home free.

  I wished we’d put out water. I needed some but didn’t want to move. Isaac and I had been fitful and edgy before they showed up. We knew what we had done, what we were doing, and we didn’t know how it was going to turn out. I glanced over at Karen, who was taking a photograph of my hourglasses, and at Markel, who was also inspecting them, and thought I might faint. I assumed Isaac was in a similar state.

  I had tried to get him to talk about how he felt. But, of course, in true Isaac fashion, he evaded, joked around, then evaded some more. Maybe he didn’t want to talk or maybe he didn’t know how he felt.

  For me, it was simple. I had painted 4D as a gift, to help him when he needed help, to get him through a bad patch. As far as I was concerned, 4D was a bridge I helped build to carry him to his next piece. And I wanted more than anything for Karen and Markel to buy into the painting, for it to hang in the show, and for Isaac to move on and do the kind of work only he could do.

  Karen turned and held out her hand to Isaac. “Congratulations, Isaac. It’s wonderful. Better than wonderful. Better than any of your previous work that I’ve seen. We’ll take it.”

  I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I heard it come out in a long hiss. I threw my arms around Isaac and squeezed long and hard. He barely responded. Shock. Shock and relief. I stepped away, grinning.

  “Great. Fabulous.” Markel pummeled Isaac on the back. “I agree. It could be your best.” I knew that this wasn’t just “agent speak.” Markel truly agreed.

  “Thanks,” Isaac said stiffly, almost trancelike. “Thanks both of you.” Then he looked over at me. “And a tremendous thanks to you.”

  While the three of them clustered around the painting, I went to the freezer and pulled out the bottle of champagne I’d hidden behind the ice cream. “Champagne, anyone?” I called.

  Markel came over and took it from me. “May I do the honors?”

  I scrounged around the cabinets for wine glasses and handed them to Markel. “Let the festivities begin.”


  When we finished off the champagne and moved on to wine, Isaac began to loosen up. In fact, he became positively loquacious.

  “Yes, it was really eye opening to work with time in a completely different way. The series has always been about time as linear, flat, a speck of our experience. But this opened it all up, pulled it out in all directions, gave it depth.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I can’t even remember when I came up with the idea.” Then his eyes lit on mine, and he grinned. “It was Claire.” He raised his glass to me. “Let’s drink to my brilliant, talented, beautiful Claire.”

  We all toasted, and then he leaned over and kissed me. “Who’s a great talent in her own right. It won’t be many more years, Karen, before you’re showing her work.”

  “I’d love to see some,” Karen said.

  “You’ll be sorry you said that,” I warned. “I have your number.” Maybe there was such a thing as karma, as Small was always insisting. Maybe this was my payback for helping Isaac.

  “Please do call. Send some slides. I should be in Boston again in a month or so, and if I like what I see, I’ll pop over for a studio visit.” Karen Sinsheimer was nothing if not politic, and I understood it might mean little. But it also might mean much.

  “Oh, you’ll want to make a visit,” Markel said. “Claire’s work is different from Isaac’s.” He waved at 4D. “In some ways, night and day from this. But she’s got a sure eye and an even surer brush. The quality of her colors is quite remarkable.”

  “Amen to that.” Isaac gave my shoulders a squeeze, then turned to Karen and resumed his musings. “You know, 4D’s got me thinking about a series within a series, time in many dimensions. First dots, then lines, then our world, then across space, black holes. Who knows where it might take me.”

  “That sounds like it could be interesting,” Karen said.

  But Isaac knew as well as the rest of us that “interesting” was a euphemism for boring. “Or maybe I’ll just stick with the fourth dimension for a while,” he amended. “Time as a river, always flowing, always there.” He threw some cashews into his mouth. “Upstream to the future, downstream to the past. All of it, along with the present, existing simultaneously. You just have to float high enough above it, perhaps in the fifth dimension, to see what it really is. To see where to step in. And where to step out.”

  “Now that sounds very cool,” Karen said with real enthusiasm. “Keep talking.”

  Isaac leaned back in his chair, hooked his hands behind his neck, and looked at the ceiling. “I see movement. Thick paint flowing, always flowing, over and under itself, forward and back. Wet-on-wet. Scraping through the layers of paint to reveal what’s underneath, scraping through the layers of time. All there, but above and beneath each other, some seen, some almost seen, some overwhelmed and hidden by another layer of time.”

  I tried to catch his eye as he spoke my words, claimed my ideas, but he was fixated on the ceiling.

  “Now that concept’s got legs.” Karen waved at 4D. “And 4D is a great beginning, your starting point for the real exploration of—”

  “Who we are,” Isaac interrupted. “Where we stand in relation to the cosmos. How it all might fit together.”

  “Let me know when you’ve got something to show. But think about including more of this.” Karen pointed to the crescents. “I just love the layering of meanings. The play with painting styles across time.”

  “Already on it,” Isaac assured her.

  She checked her watch, stood, and placed her glass on the table. “Well, this was a delightful afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.” She turned to Markel. “I’ve got to catch the next shuttle, but if you want to take a cab with me out to the airport we can talk. Start to make the arrangements.”

  Markel was, of course, amenable. We all shook hands and congratulated each other; there were hugs and kisses and lots of laughing. As she walked out the door, Karen reminded me to call. I promised her I would.

  When they were gone, Isaac drew me into a deep hug. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough,” he whispered into my ear.

  “Hey, Karen Sinsheimer’s willing to take a look at my stuff. That’s thanks enough in my book.”

  He buried his head in my hair. “Never, never, ever be able to repay you.”

  “I’m not looking for repayment, Saac. Just for you to move forward.” But the praise for 4D reverberated in my ears.

  Better than any of your previous work that I’ve seen, Karen had said.

  It could be your best, Markel had echoed.

  Ten

  I do as Markel suggests and open three accounts at three different banks: two savings and a money market. I also buy a couple certificates of deposit, on the advice of the woman setting up one of the accounts, and put the check in my checking/debit card account at yet another bank; I have no separate business account as Markel had assumed. I write one check to the landlord, drop one in the mail to pay down my student loan, and head for Al’s Art Supply with a blank one because I can’t remember how much I owe. All of this feels really, really good. I’m thinking how great it’s going to be to have a working camera on my phone.

  Al’s is on Shawmut Avenue, not far from my studio, and it’s everything one would expect from an urban “little box” art store: a cramped, tiny footprint chock full of overstuffed racks, shelves, and row upon row of narrow paint drawers—all wrapped in the delicious aroma of turpentine, paint, and dust. A writer friend once told me that when she walks into a library anywhere in the world, the smell makes her feel instantly at home. That’s what Al’s does for me.

  What is unexpected is Al. The first few times I came in, I thought Al was a clerk, that the real Al, the owner, who I pictured as an elderly, grizzly type, was off checking inventory in the back room. Even when she told me her name was Al, it took me a while to make the connection. Al as in Alvina. On the outside, she’s a chic, handsome woman, and on the inside, she’s a mother hen.

  “Beautiful Claire!” she cries as I walk in the door. She steps from around her high counter and gives me a hug. “I figured you’d be in this week. That you must be getting short on supplies.” She stands back. “I think you’ve lost weight. Are you forgetting to eat again? Do you want to blow away in the wind?” She sighs. “Of course, on you it looks fabulous.”

  “And on you it doesn’t?”

  Al’s deep-coppery skin, extraordinary cheekbones, and willowy grace bring to mind those Kenyan runners who always win the Boston Marathon, although she claims to be the scion of American slaves. She has close-cropped hair and at least a half-dozen piercings in each ear, from which hang all manner of wondrous earrings.

  After I settle up my account, I head toward the back of the store to pick up a few things I need to begin working on Bath. I’m nowhere near ready to start in on the actual painting, but as I study and prepare, I can be stripping the Meissonier, which, depending on the condition of the canvas, could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

  I grab some acetone for solvent and rectified petroleum for restrainer as well as a bunch of packages of cotton wool; Meissonier’s painting is large, and I’m going to need to change cloths frequently to keep the canvas clean. I add a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some blotting paper, figuring the old sizing will be yellowed and need bleaching. Who would have ever thought that Ellen Bonanno’s authenticity obsession would come in so handy? During her Repro classes, we all rolled our eyes when she made us strip a canvas, knowing there was no way Repro would ever spring for such an expensive process.

  When I actually start painting my version of Bath, I’m going to need everything from brushes to paint to varnish, but I haven’t figured out exactly what kinds Degas used, so these will have to wait for a later trip. But I do pick up plenty of silver paint for Xavier before I head home.

  When I get back to the studio, instead of starting to strip the Meissonier, I sit down in the chair in front of Bath. I lift the two books of Degas’ sketches from their pile on the fl
oor and begin to browse through them. But even as I switch from casual surfing to close examination, I don’t see what I’m looking for. It’s very weird. I’ve found a number of sketches of Bath’s Simone and Jacqueline, but I can’t find any of Françoise. Degas was obsessive about his drawings, renowned for doing twenty or thirty studies for a single painting. So where are the studies for Françoise?

  Of course, they must exist somewhere, or at least have existed at one time. Neither of my books claims to include every sketch Degas ever made, but one is called, Edgar Degas: Sketches and Drawings, 1875–1900, which is when Degas did his bather series. Degas is also well known for using the same models, even the same sketches, in multiple paintings. And while he would change the composition of each work, the same model, often in quite similar poses, would show up from one painting to the next. This constancy gives his series paintings an extraordinary cohesiveness.

  I find what appear to be a few compositional drawings for Bath, but while Simone and Jacqueline are identical to the women in the painting in front of me, Françoise is not. In the sketch, Not-Françoise has a different body, and she’s standing rather than sitting, creating an asymmetrical composition, which is how the vast majority of Degas’ paintings are balanced. I wish the sketch had more than just a few lines for a face.

  Could there be a sixth After the Bath? It’s not unheard of to discover an original painting stuffed in someone’s attic hundreds of years after it was painted. Or, more likely, Degas may have planned to do a sixth but never did. I focus on finding more differences between the two women. In the painting in front of me, Françoise is sturdy and coarse-looking, as are almost all of Degas’ bathers, but his sketches of Not-Françoise depict a smaller and more delicate woman with a tiny waist. Although I can’t be sure as the face is only roughed in, the model in the sketches doesn’t appear to be as pretty as the model in the painting, so it’s possible Degas just replaced her with someone more attractive. But then, where are the sketches for the final Françoise?