It’s ten o’clock, and the party’s going full force, with more people coming in than there are leaving. The whole thing’s surreal: the sales, the attention, the people popping up from odd corners of my life. Kimberly from Beverly Arms. Ms. Santo, my high school art teacher. Shelley McRae, my childhood babysitter. The optometrist from my neighborhood eyeglass store. Even Helene, a third cousin from Providence. It’s so bizarre that at times it feels as if I’m not actually here. That I’m just a façade, smiling the smile, talking the talk, while my real self is off somewhere else being regular Claire.
Kristi and Chantal draw me into a corner. “The Whitney scored Nighttime T,” Kristi cries.
Now I know for sure I’m not really Claire, that I’ve assumed the persona of some other artist. The Whitney.
“It’s true.” Chantal claps her hands together.
Kristi points to a chair, and I sit, stunned, dazed, not able to believe. She glances at her watch and says to Chantal, “Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll go down first thing in the morning and tell Markel.” Then she throws me a guilty glance. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to mention.”
“Not necessary,” I say, but the truth is, I’d just as soon not be reminded of Aiden.
He’s still in jail, held without bail, awaiting a trial that probably won’t start for another six months, maybe a year. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since our last conversation, and that’s the way I plan to keep it. Whatever my feelings may be for Aiden, complete disassociation from him is a penance I accept.
The FBI finally allowed the gallery to reopen just last month, and in a concession I almost didn’t make, I accepted Kristi’s offer to hold the show here. Rik said I had to, that I shouldn’t allow misplaced guilt to inhibit my career. But he’s wrong about the misplaced part. A woman who makes a Faustian bargain is not without responsibility.
Finding After the Bath also saved Aiden’s finger. He was released on bail long enough to pay off the sellers. But after the painting he turned over to the FBI was determined to be Virgil Rendell’s forgery, it was also determined to have been the painting stolen in the Gardner heist, and bail was revoked. Aiden’s the only link the authorities have to the Gardner thieves, and even though he keeps telling them he has no idea who robbed the museum, they’re hoping fear of a long prison term will jog his memory. For all I know, it just might.
Kristi drops a hand to my shoulder. I look around me, at all the people, at all the red dots. I think about the life stretching ahead of me, filled with such promise. But, just desserts, it’s impossible to know if this newfound fortune is due to my talent or to my infamy in a world of instant celebrity. Whether I’m a great artist or just a great forger. And no matter what happens to me or to my work, no matter how big the commissions or how great the museums, I suppose I’ll never know.
A NOTE ON THE RESEARCH
Although The Art Forger is based on extensive research and interviews with painters, dealers, and curators, it is a work of fiction. All the characters, and most of the situations and places in the current-day story, are creatures of my imagination: There is no Markel G, no Jake’s, no Beverly Arms, no Al’s Art Supply, no Reproductions.com, and the Boston Globe article that opens the book never appeared in that newspaper. There is, on the other hand, an Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—although no sub-basement—a Museum of Fine Arts, a Museum of Modern Art, a Mandarin Oriental Hotel/Boston, the South End, and Newbury Street. I have attempted to describe these places accurately.
The painting techniques Claire uses for both her forgery and her own work are consistent with current practices, as are the descriptions of the struggles of a young artist. The forgers and dealers she discovers through her Internet research were/are actual people, including John Myatt, Ely Sakhai, and Han van Meegeren, and the specifics of their crimes, methods, inventions, and punishments are also accurate. Virgil Rendell is a fictional character.
The details of the 1990 robbery of the Gardner Museum are factual—it remains the largest unsolved art heist in history—with the exception of the inclusion of Degas’ fifth After the Bath, which neither was stolen nor exists, although it is a composite based on his other four After the Bath works. Three of Degas’ drawings, Program for an Artistic Soiree, La Sortie du Pelage, and Cortege aux Environs de Florence, were taken that night and remain unaccounted for.
The letters Belle Gardner writes to her niece, Amelia, are an amalgam of fact and fiction. Belle was in the places cited at the dated times, pursuing paintings for her collection. Her relationships with John “Jack” Gardner, John Sargent, Henry James, James Whistler, and Bernard Berenson are based on historical fact, although the actual events she describes, dinner parties, Long-champs races, travels, illnesses, and so on, are not. She did walk two lion cubs down the streets of Boston, and she did wear a headband with the words oh you red sox to the symphony. Her only child, Jackie, did die at age two, and she did raise Jack Gardner’s three nephews after the deaths of their parents, although one nephew died in childhood. But there was never an Amelia, nor, obviously, a Sandra Stoneham.
Neither Claire nor I were able to discover any mention of Isabella Stewart Gardner and Edgar Degas meeting each other, although they traveled in the same circles, in the same locations, at the same times. Therefore, the entire portion of the novel concerned with the relationship between Belle and Edgar is a fabrication, as are all the story events that result from this imagined pairing. Yet, the personalities of the two are based on historical fact and biographers’ speculations, so how are we to know, 150 years later, what might or might not have occurred?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the “without whom this wouldn’t have been possible” category, one person stands out: Jan Brogan, my dear friend, my colleague, my biggest fan, and my fiercest critic. Thanks are not enough. Nor are thanks enough to the other members of my writers’ group, Linda Barnes and Hallie Ephron, nor to my family, Dan, Robin, Scott, and Ben. Your encouragement and belief pulled me through the rough patches.
For their professional expertise and patience with my questions, thanks are due to Jamie Elizabeth Crockett, Jane Little Forman, James Kennedy, Edwina Kluender, Kimberle Konover, Victoria Monroe, Roberta Paul, Rob Sinsheimer, and Carol Tovar. Thanks to my readers: Dan Fleishman, Scott Fleishman, Ronnie Fuchs, Gary Goshgarian, Vicki Konover, Sandra Shapiro, Alice Stone, and Robin Zimmern. Special thanks to my smart, supportive editor, Amy Gash, and very special thanks to my agent, Ann Collette, whose tireless efforts and faith in my work made it all come together.
About the Author
B. A. SHAPIRO lives in Boston and teaches fiction writing at Northeastern University. Visit her online at www.bashapirobooks.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
THE ART FORGER
“B. A. Shapiro’s engaging journey into the world of art forgery will not only keep you as entertained as any thriller, but leave you with a new appreciation of how paintings are made and evaluated and understood–not to mention how they’re copied.”
–ARTHUR GOLDEN, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
“Blazingly good. Shapiro drops you where you’ve never been before–into the whole, crackingly alive world of art galleries, art forgeries, and the unexpected recesses of the human heart. As original as a real Degas, it’s also as unforgettable.”
–CAROLINE LEAVITT, author of Pictures of You
“Do we see beauty when we look at a copy of a masterpiece? Does a work of art have its own aura of authenticity? As the world continues to wait for news of the thirteen paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, The Art Forger offers an imaginative alternate history of the collection and a captivating glimpse into the shadowy possibilities that surround the story of the inexplicable and audacious heist.”
–KATHARINE WEBER, author of The Memory of All That and True Confections
“Entrancingly visual, historically rich,
deliciously witty, sensuous, and smart…. Shapiro artfully turns a clever caper into a provocative meditation on what we value most.”
–BOOKLIST
“Filled with delightful twists, turns, and ruminations on what constitutes truth in art.”
–PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
GARDNER HEIST 21st ANNIVERSARY
Largest Art Theft in History Remains Unsolved
Boston, MA—In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers bound and gagged two guards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and stole thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million.
The cache included priceless masterpieces such as Rembrandt’s “Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Vermeer’s “The Concert” and Degas’ “After the Bath.” Despite thousands of hours of police work, a lapsed statute of limitations and a $5 million reward, the artwork has not been recovered.
Over the last two decades, the FBI investigated known art thieves and suspects connected to organized crime, international terrorism and the Catholic Church. Agents followed leads across the United States, Europe and Asia. Suspects included the son of a police officer, the Irish Republican Army, Whitey Bulger and the Boston mob, an antiques dealer, a Scotland Yard informant and a New York City auction house employee. No arrests have been made.
The Gardner Museum asks that anyone who has any information on the whereabouts of the lost artworks contact the Boston office of the FBI.
Boston Globe
March 17, 2011
Credits
Cover design: Anne Winslow
Cover photograph: Chris Simpson/Getty Images
Copyright
The Art Forger
Copyright © 2012 by Barbara A. Shapiro.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 978-1-443-41805-8
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, by arrangement with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc., New York.
FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
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