Provenance_ How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art - Laney Salisbury [130]
AUTHORS’ NOTE
When we first decided to chronicle John Drewe’s nine-year-long “performance piece”—as it was dubbed by one of his associates—we realized that we would have to rely to some degree on the testimony of convicted criminals and an experienced fabricator. Therefore, we also gathered much of our information from dozens of interviews with the runners, dealers, archivists, researchers, art experts, and police officers who found themselves embroiled in the case. As with any investigation, documents also played a large role in our research. We reviewed thousands of pages of police evidence, testimony, and court transcripts. As part of the narrative, we have included passages of dialogue that are not necessarily direct quotations from interviews with us but are recollections of others who were present. The reader should not infer that all the speakers were our direct sources.
The forger John Myatt offered an extraordinary degree of cooperation and spent months with us discussing his decade-long personal and professional relationship with Drewe. We found Myatt to be open, and his memory of events consistent throughout our interviews with him.
We also spoke with John Drewe by telephone. A decade after his conviction, he continues to claim both his innocence and the complicity of the British government—“those lying, conniving bastards”—in the convoluted scheme. “At the end of the day,” he told us, “what we have is a story of many millions of pounds of deceit and murder . . . a political game of cat and mouse. . . . Is it provable? Absolutely.”
Attempts to meet Drewe in person in London, where he promised to show us “stunning” documentation, were met with increasingly convoluted excuses.
We did have the advantage of access to a rich lode of material describing his actions and words throughout his career as the mastermind of the forgery scam. He was a compulsive writer and loved corresponding with members of the art world’s aristocracy, either under his own name or under one of his many aliases. He wrote often to London newspapers, and several of his letters on various topics were printed in the London Times.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There was an understandable reluctance by some to supply information about John Drewe. Thus, we truly appreciate those who did come forward and entrust us with their experiences and time. Drewe’s path through the art world was labyrinthine, with illogical turns and sudden dead ends, and finding our way through it not only took longer than we expected but required many follow-up calls and e-mails over the years. This book would not have been possible without their help, and we are grateful for the many and repeated reality checks.
We are particularly grateful to John Myatt, who greeted every scheduled and nonscheduled interview with enthusiasm, warmth, and openness. His continued cooperation, and the help of his wife, Rosemary, was instrumental to the project.
We also appreciate the help from runners Clive Belman, Paul Redfern, and Andrew Wechsler, who provided detailed accounts of their foreshortened art marketing careers. Each is a natural storyteller.
The art dealers Armand Bartos, Rene Gimpel, Adrian Mibus, and Peter Nahum were essential to our understanding the many characters and provenances Drewe created to sell forgeries. Their passion for art is palpable and infectious, and we appreciate the access they gave us.
Jennifer Booth, former Tate Gallery archivist, was also a tremendous resource, whose discussion of archives and review of parts of the manuscript were invaluable. We also thank Sir Alan Bowness, former director of the Tate Gallery, and Mary Lisa Palmer, director of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Association. Palmer spent several days with us poring over the association’s files on the