B.A.
Shapiro: The Art Forger, Algonquin Books, 9781616203160, US paperback
“The Art
Forger” is not a new publication, it came out in 2013 but a friend pointed the novel out to me recently knowing my interest in art and my love for mysteries. B.A.
Shapiro’s “The Art Forger” combines both.
“The Art
Forger” provides one with a lot of insight into why art is stolen , ( not only
for the love of looking at a beautiful painting I learned) about art history, prominent forgers, painting techniques and
the incredible skills and talents art forgers have to master. What has always fascinated me is how someone
with so much talent gets sucked into doing this for a living accepting the
danger going along with the job. Money
is an obvious incentive.
See Claire Roth,
a young talented Boston based painter whose own art career was cut short by an
unfortunate incident and relationship with a much older successful painter,
Isaac Cullion. What happened in her past
with Isaac and why it still affects her to the present day is one of three
storylines Shapiro has running throughout the novel. Claire makes a living
reproducing famous artists work for a reproduction company specializing in
Degas. When Aiden Markel, owner of the prestigious
Markel G gallery, looks her up offering her an exceptionally amount of money
for a reproduction job which would free
her of debt, she accepts. To her utter
shock she is looking at Degas “After the Bath” when Aiden brings her the
canvas, a painting stolen some 25 years ago from the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum, an art heist still unresolved.
The Faustian plot tightens when against all scruples she agrees to paint
the forgery for her very own show at Markel G gallery. As she starts her work, an uneasy feeling
comes up that she might be looking at a master forgery herself instead of the
original.
The second story line in the book , apart from
the third current story, are the
letters exchanged between Isabelle Stewart Gardner, a wealthy US
art collector and her niece Amelia during the Nineteenth Century, recounting stories
of times spent with famous European
artists and Edgar Degas in particular. The three parallel stories in the book, who all come together in the end,
are cleverly set in different typesetting .
I enjoyed
“The Art Forgery”, the plot is a little stretched at times but it is a
good solid thriller. Would say however, you
definitely need to be interested in art and paintings, otherwise you get bored,
I learned a lot about painting techniques used forging old masters.
