Shaun Greenhalgh

For art geeks. Greenhalgh was a breathtakingly gifted forger of art works of all kinds, from all periods, in most media. His pieces passed muster with the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Bill Clinton - or whoever bought his stuff for him. A working-class kid from the north of England, he was ensnared by art from childhood, faking Victorian pot lids to flog at local antiques markets. Local dealers took note, bought some of his stuff and sold it on.. as... what? A teenager's kiln project or, um, an actual 19th century ceramic? Not that he really noticed, you know? Or cared. It was the work itself that enthralled him: what kind of clay? How to make the right glaze. What the lettering should say and how it looked. And buyers ate it up. He made medieval jewelry, reverse-engineering the raw metals and minerals in his dad's garage. He dashed off pretty watercolor landscapes "in the style of" various popular painters. His skill, knowledge, and craft make your head spin. There's more than a bit of the "savant" about Shaun, and a severe brain injury in a motorcycle accident as a teenager probably had its own effects - as did the heartbreaking death of his one serious girlfriend a few years after that. So he just did his art, till Scotland Yard came knocking and he did nearly five years in prison, where he wrote this memoir.

"Self-justificatory," said dubious publishers. Yes, it is. He did what he did because he wanted to, and he repeatedly denies deliberate intent to deceive, selling his pieces for modest (though often handsome) sums to dealers "as seen," and after that... what they did with them or what they told buyers they were - not his problem. But he was on his way down the slope, aided and abetted by the shysters, and began to truly "forge." An ersatz Ming vase, the fake Gauguin ceramic faun, the celebrated "Principessa" drawing supposedly by Leonardo... all his. And he tells us how he did it. The details can get arcane, and even he gets bored once he has mastered a medium, and skips on to something else. But as a portrait of a phenomenally gifted craftsman, and an insight - intended or not - into the mind of someone who pulled off what he did, it's fascinating. And as Shaun points out: it may be best to simply look at the work in front of you. Don't put too much credence in the wall label and the auction catalog - they have their own agendas - and you never know. What should matter is the thing itself, and what it says to you.

juliestielstra.com… (altro)