The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro

Summary

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

Claire makes her living reproducing famous works of art for a popular online retailer. Desperate to improve her situation, she lets herself be lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting—one of the Degas masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when the long-missing Degas painting—the one that had been hanging for one hundred years at the Gardner—is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.

Here’s a quote that inspires:

“Our capacity for intimacy is built on deep respect, a presence that allows what is true to express itself, to be discovered. Intimacy can arise in any moment; it is an act of surrender, a gift that excludes nothing.”  (Jack Kornfield)

It’s really cool that this story takes place in Boston and anchors with a real event – the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, which included works by Manet, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas. But what if Rembrandt didn't paint Storm of Galilee? What if an unknown artist did instead? Would the painting be any less beautiful? Would it no longer be admired? Would it suddenly be worthless? What is it that gives an object value?
- After reading this book, and knowing how complicated and how much energy goes into making an excellent forgery, why should we even think that ocean painting IS by Rembrandt?  It could easily have been by someone else. 

- In either way, we kept coming back to art being art.  It’s beauty remains no matter who the artist is.

It is estimated that 40 percent of all artworks put up for sale in any given year are forgeries. Theodore Rousseau, an expert from the Metropolitan Museum, said, "We can only talk about the bad forgeries, the ones that have been detected. The good ones are still hanging on museum walls." Does knowing this affect the way you view great art? How can we tell the difference between what is inauthentic and what is real?  The novel explores the idea that we often only see what we want to see. If an expert is told a painting is a masterpiece, she sees one. If an artist desires recognition, she convinces herself that her deal with the devil is for good. How are people complicit in missing the truth?
- 40% is an astounding number.  It’s hard to imagine that collectors keep them in their private homes/collections and look at them a few times a year.

- Again, if art moves you, it is still art, forgery or not.  Beauty is beauty. 

- We want to see a painting whether or not it is the “truth.”

- We talked a bit about how “Made in America” should be “Assembled in America.”  We are all living in a world where we already can’t be sure of what is what.  (he he he… What is the What by Dave Eggers also came up next in our discussions).
- We appreciated when What is the What stated something like, “these things happened to someone, somewhere, even if they didn’t all happen to me in particular.”  That is sort of like our last book, The Invention of Wings – the experiences of enslaved people happened to someone, even if they didn’t happen to the same someone.  

- We would like fiction identified as fiction, and if it’s a fact, then attributed as such.  A historian might write a novel, but then say something like, “Research says” or “This is where the story is unknown so I have made up…”   

- We discussed Memoir vs. Fiction, as when Betty Smith was told to market A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as fiction because it would sell more copies.

What do the meetings between Edgar Degas and Isabella Stewart Gardner show about the relationship between a collector and an artist?
- This relationship isn’t real.  Some of us couldn't get by the “letters” that were used as a technique to tell the story.  They didn’t seem believable.  The language was too modern.  History says that they never existed, so this relationship between artist and collector was hard to buy as well.

UPDATE:
In October, 2014, I saw B.A. Shapiro speak at Middlesex Community College.  Here are some notes about what she said.

• She is 60 years old.
• A novel, above all else, is a story.
• The Art Forger is not more than 20 pages of anything that fits into a genre category.  It is not a historical novel, a mystery, or an art book.
• Her agent couldn't pitch it. 
• Her favorite rejection, "I love the book.  It breaks my heart not to buy it, but it will get lost without a genre."
• Large publishers publish 500 books per month and only their "big writers" get the support.  466 books get no support, like her own first 5 books.
• Algonquin Press only accepts 12 books per year and promotes all of them.  
• She now has a 2 more book contract.
• After 25 years, she is an overnight sucess.
• Her next book will be about a mural painter at the WPA working to help Jews in WWII.
• B.A. Shapiro didn't have a past history, but Barbara did, so she the publisher asked her to change to initials.
• She used index cards to keep track of her notes.  Different colors for different topics: letters, art duplication/repair process, and Isabella Stewart Gardner's life.  When she had enough cards, she shuffled them and sorted them into a book.
• She wrote 15 fictional letters to a fictional niece, but only used 8 in the book.  
• As a writer, you can't go off on a tangent that is too long.
• Sometimes, her writing group would tell her, "Your research is showing."
• Each page was rewritten 20 times and it took about 3 years.
• It has been almost 25 years since the Gardener Museum heist.  And, no, no one knows anything about it.