Cheats never prosper; well... (I Was Vermeer: The Legend of the Forger Who Swindled the Nazis - Frank Wynne)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	I Was Vermeer: The Legend of the Forger Who Swindled the Nazis - Frank Wynne
Date:	19/05/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superbly written biography of one of the world's greatest art forgers

Disadvantages: Book may be difficult to find

What is it about fraudsters that fascinates us? Is it that they seem to be capable of getting away with things that we wouldn't dream of trying? Of course, it does depend upon who is on the receiving end. If it is us then our sneaking admiration may be somewhat limited. There are those though, who just ask to be duped and, secretly, when they are we probably give up a little cheer.

Fraud is probably nowhere so prevalent as it is in the Art World. Some art forgers, such as Eric Hebborn and Tom Keating, have become worldwide celebrities; some, such as Han van Meegeren, the subject of this book, are virtually unknown, except within the art community. And yet they have been hugely successful in duping not just gullible art collectors but also the so called experts, who have been keen to associate themselves with a "newly discovered masterpiece", ultimately at the expense of their much prized reputations.

One quotation in the book, from a 1940 edition of Newsweek, that I just love and which admirably sums up the whole murky business is that, "...of the 2,500 authentic works painted by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, 7,800 are in American collections alone...". But it isn't just old masters which are forged: even very modern artists such as Picasso have been targeted. However, faking old masters is very much more difficult to do successfully. Notwithstanding the whole issue of provenance, acquiring materials that will pass the tests of antiquity and using them successfully is a daunting challenge. Of this "art", van Meegeren made himself the supreme master.

Han van Meegeren is the Dutch artist who will be remembered for successfully carrying out probably the most dangerous of frauds: he duped no less a person than Hermann Goering, and did it during WWII when Holland was under Nazi occupation. He traded on the understanding that Goering was desperate to add a genuine Vermeer to his private collection, so van Meegeren created one for him! Goering only learned of the deception in his death cell at Nurenberg, at the end of the war. For van Meegeren though, his skill at duping the Nazis almost lead to him being executed as a collaborator.

Frank Wynne's engrossing book takes you through van Meegeren's life from his early family life under a domineering father, who had the lives of his sons laid out for them and would brook no dissent, to his death ultimately brought about by his dissolute life, the result of the squandering of the unbelievable wealth that he accumulated as a result of his talent in producing credible fakes.

Wynne paints a picture of van Meegeren that portrays him as a person who it is very hard to like. Somehow, though, Wynne brings together in an enthralling book the events and influences that caused van Meegeren to change from being a hugely talented but unknown artist to one of the best art faker in the World, a specialist in the works of Johannes Vermeer of Delft. He shows how van Meegeren was eternally torn between the secrecy that was essential in order to be able to enjoy the profits of his skills and the desire to destroy the reputations of the art experts who were so ready to endorse his fakes.

Wynne's book covers in some detail the ground-breaking techniques that van Meegeren developed in order to produce works that could successfully be passed off as genuine and of the period to which they would have had to have been attributed. He talks about the initial dedication to his "art" that van Meegeren devoted in order to get it absolutely right, a dedication that more and more fell by the wayside as he became less and less interested in the art and more in the proceeds of his endeavours.

Wynne doesn't make any attempt to enable us to feel any sympathy for van Meegeren. He paints him as he is, a deeply flawed individual. Nevertheless, it is even more difficult to feel any sympathy for those duped by him. All of them were motivated by self-aggrandisement and/or profit. So long as art remains motivated by artificial value and not by aesthetic value, this will probably always be the case; "Art for Art's sake" as Gautier meant it rather than 10cc!

There are undoubtedly many more van Meegerens yet to be exposed, those who aspire to follow in his footsteps. Undoubtedly many will be the subject of fascinating biographies yet to come. Let's hope that Frank Wynne gets to write them.

The version of the book which I read was the hardback one. It's cover price is a pretty standard £14.99 but I got it new in our local discount bookshop for around a third of that price. It is available on Amazon in both hardback and paperback, used, at less than £2.

Summary: The story of Han van Meegeren and how he fooled Goering and the art world in general