The Art Forger

What’s the difference between a fake and a copy? Is a copy of a copy a forgery? Based on the famous 1990 Gardner Museum heist, still unsolved, Shapiro’s story peels back layers of duplicity to reveal a shocking deception.

As someone asked to authenticate paintings (which I don’t do!), I appreciated the author’s analysis of the subtleties involved. I sympathized with Claire Roth, her neurotic protagonist, and enjoyed the skewering of art-world pretensions, media-driven reputations, and marketing strategies. Still, I couldn’t help rooting for Claire and her dealer, hoping their clever scheme would succeed.

Art forgery has always fascinated me. The idea that you can create a 'new' work by an old master and then, maybe, get away with it. Claire is a struggling artist whose one chance at fame had been stolen by a lover. Reduced to painting reproductions of famous paintings for clients to hang in their home she is approached by an art dealer to secretly forge a Degas painting. The money is good enough to silence her scruples and when the painting arrives she immediately recognizes that it is one of the paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum.… show more.

This intoxicating art history mystery was so good, I wanted to read it all over again the moment I finished it! The story follows an artist hired to make a perfect copy of a painting her client delivers to her studio, one she recognizes as having been stolen from the Gardner Museum years earlier. Yet is it really the lost Degas, or is it also a copy? This novel follows the artist’s descent into madness as she tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the painting’s origins and the unsolved theft. As a mystery fan, I was captivated by the twists… show more.