Provenance_ How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art - Laney Salisbury [12]
Something wasn’t right. Drewe had already placed orders for more works than could possibly fit on the walls of his house. It didn’t elude Myatt that Drewe might be passing them off as originals and selling them, but he quickly developed a rationale: Most likely the paintings had been given away and were hanging in someone’s vacation home. Drewe was a generous fellow, after all, a man of character. He was at the height of his career, and married to a woman who was also earning a good salary.
Myatt struggled with his suspicions. He feared losing Drewe as a steady client, and this was no time for a confrontation. It was really none of his business.
3
ART FOR SALE
On a busy thoroughfare in Golders Green, in the converted garage of a mews house that had served as a stable a century earlier, Danny Berger set up a small office and a temporary home for himself and his girlfriend. A middle-aged Israeli salesman with a heavy accent, Berger had been trolling the neighborhood for the past two decades with varying degrees of success. He dealt in whatever came through the marketplace: luggage, fixtures, appliances, “a full product line,” as he put it, anything that could be imported or exported and marked up. Most often he did business through handshake deals with friends of friends.
The garage faced Finchley Road, which ran straight to the bustling center of Golders Green, a thriving Jewish community since the early 1900s, filled with synagogues, bakeries, delicatessens, and coffeehouses. Berger had installed cheap wall-to-wall carpeting and a battered desk with a phone that was nearly buried by the car parts strewn around. Behind the main room was a bed he could use while he finished renovating a house he’d bought in Greenwich, on the south bank of the Thames.
Quite by accident, he had recently found himself in a whole new line of business. He’d become a “runner,” a mobile art dealer without a gallery or a private collection. Traditionally, runners were part of a small squadron of professional go-betweens who worked to match buyers with sellers. Runners tended to be energetic, refined, and well connected. Part of their job was to scour homes, attics, antique shops, and auction houses in search of pristine and unique works that would appeal to collectors. At any given moment there might be several dozen runners crisscrossing the globe with their little jewels: a small Magritte to Paris, a Hockney to Rome, a Duchamp to Dallas.
Berger didn’t exactly fit the profile. His new sideline had begun unexpectedly one day at the Costa Café, a Golders Green hangout popular with émigrés, where he liked to sit nursing a double espresso, watching the street, and chain-smoking his Time cigarettes, an Israeli brand. Here at the Costa, Berger could chat comfortably with fellow Israelis and read his Haaretz newspaper. The other Britain—characterized by Benny Hill, cricket, and marmalade—sometimes felt like a neighboring republic. The Costa, a chummy and informal place, felt like Tel Aviv. It was filled with a nice mix of entrepreneurs, chatterboxes, and the occasional philosopher, and had served for years as Berger’s de facto office and a place to catch up on local gossip. It was close enough to his garage that he could walk home to follow up on a business lead or take a nap and get back to the café before it closed.
Late one morning in mid-1988, Berger was sitting in the Costa going through some papers when a man wearing a nice brown suit and carrying a leather briefcase introduced himself and asked whether Berger would mind sharing the table. The café was crowded, so Berger moved his stack of papers over and gestured for him to sit.
“Are you Israeli?” asked Drewe, noticing Berger’s accent. “So is my wife.”
Drewe bought espressos for them and started up a conversation about Tel Aviv. Berger told him he had an Israeli girlfriend, and they talked briefly about their work. Drewe said he