The Art Forger (17 page)

“She owned a number of Degas’ pieces.”

“If you note, there isn’t a single work by Edgar Degas in her museum that would be considered part of his Impressionist period. Almost everything she bought of his was created far earlier than any of her European visits. Even
After the Bath,
which was a later work, was painted in his traditional, pre-Impressionist style.”

“Now that you mention it,” I say, with admiration in my voice, “that’s really true, isn’t it? You know, it might be an interesting angle. Her friendships in terms of her personal feelings about the style of the artists’ work.” I begin to scribble again. “It would be just great for my book if it turned out that she and Degas were friends. And it’s possible, isn’t it? They moved in the same circles, had the same interests . . .”

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard or read anything about her knowing him,” she says. “And, unfortunately for you, I’ve been told more than once that I know more about Belle Gardner than anyone else in the world. Including her biographers and those who work at the museum, I might add.”

I struggle to keep the disappointment from my face.

“I’m sorry.” Sandra leans toward me. “I see this book means a lot to you.”

I shrug. “Just trying something new.”

“So you’re not painting?”

“Ah, no. I’m . . . I still paint.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“I’m actually working on some new pieces for a show this winter.”

“Well, that’s wonderful, Claire.” Sandra seems genuinely pleased. “Good for you. Where’s it going to be?”

“Markel G.”

The lines in her forehead deepen. “Aiden Markel is including your work in one of his shows?”

I nod.

“Well, well,” Sandra says, collecting herself. “Well, that’s good to hear. No point in harboring old grudges. No point at all.” She eyes me shrewdly. “But then isn’t this an odd time for you to be researching a book?”

“Keeping my options open. A show’s just a show.”

She nods her approval and stands. The interview is over.

I shove my notebook in my backpack and stand also. She has no information, and I have many paintings to paint. “Thanks for seeing me. I really appreciate your time.”

“Again, I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help.” Sandra says. “There are some boxes of old family memorabilia in storage I can check through for you. The museum took everything Aunt Belle owned that was in the building at the time of her death, but maybe there’s something my grandmother managed to keep out of their greedy hands.”

“Thanks, that would be great,” I say, as I walk out the door, but I’m thinking that it’s time to let go of this whole Belle-Degas thing and get to work.

I
’VE BEEN HOLED
up in my studio for almost a week now, talking to no one, working in stretches of up to fourteen hours, subsisting on take-out Thai and orange juice. I haven’t been to Jake’s, Al’s, or even the convenience store. Rik, Markel, and my mother have called, but I blew them all off with promises of seeing them “soon.” This is easier than it may seem. An artist feverishly at work to the exclusion of life’s mundane routines is a romantic notion people love to embrace. “I’m in a frenzy of work,” I say, and they’re gone.

The truth is, it’s not romantic at all. It’s tough and exhausting, yet satisfying. I’m making good progress, thanks to my research and classes, Han van Meegeren, and Markel’s top-of-the-line oven. Without these, this project would take up to two years and even then, the final product probably wouldn’t pass muster.

Van Meegeren, who worked in the first half of the twentieth century, is considered the most ingenious art forger of his time, maybe of all time. A Dutch painter who felt his own work to be grossly misjudged by the critics, he devised a plan to make fools of his detractors as well as establish his own genius: He would produce such high-quality forgeries that the critics who denigrated his paintings would declare his fakes priceless masterpieces by the likes of de Hooch, ter Borch, and Vermeer. Which, after six years of experimentation, is exactly what happened.

To this end, Han invented the processes of stripping an old painting down to its sizing and painting the new one over it to maintain the craquelure, of using phenol formaldehyde as an additive to harden the paint, of baking each layer to desiccate the paint so it’s as dry as it would be after centuries, of further aging the painting with a final wash of India ink and tinted varnish.

But the most intriguing part of the van Meegeren story is how his success as a forger got him arrested as a war criminal. During the German occupation of the Netherlands, Han—he was also an art dealer—sold one of his Vermeer forgeries,
Christ with the Adulteress,
to a German banker, who then sold it to Hermann Goering, number two in Hitler’s command. When the painting was discovered hidden in an Austrian salt mine after the war, it was traced back to Han. On the assumption that he had sold a Dutch national treasure to the enemy during wartime, van Meegeren was charged as a Nazi collaborator and thrown into jail.

Han was then faced with a choice: Confess to forging the painting or spend the rest of his life in prison. After a week in solitary confinement, he told his jailers that the painting was not a masterpiece by Vermeer, just a forgery by van Meegeren. But, to both his dismay and gratification, no one believed him. So, under the vigilant eyes of reporters and court-appointed witnesses, he repainted the forgery while a prisoner at the Headquarters of Military Command. Both of his works were “authenticated” as forgeries, and the war crime charges were dropped.

Brush, palette, phenol formaldehyde, canvas. Brush, palette, phenol formaldehyde, canvas. It’s a new rhythm for me, but after a few layers, I’m getting the hang of it. Which is good, as I plan to complete this first phase tomorrow, and I have two or three more glazings to go.

In this initial stage, I’ve been confined to a limited palette, to creating a base of layers in medium tones, no greens, yellows, or reds, from which the rest of the piece will grow. In order to build depth and luminosity in the rich, subtle ways of Degas, I have to work outward from the middle color range to the darkest darks and lightest lights.

This is because light travels through the transparent layers of glaze, bounces off the canvas, and reflects back at the viewer, whose eyes mix the layers of translucent pigment to “see” the final colors in a brilliant intensity not possible using any other method. This is also why the layers have to be so thin and so many. And why each must be devoid of surface moisture—wet-on-dry—before the next can be applied. To do anything else would muddy the tones.

I approach the gleaming stainless-steel behemoth that crouches in the southeast corner of the studio and set it to preheat. As it takes up to seventy-five years for the liquids in oil paint to completely dry, a contemporary forgery can easily be detected through the alcohol test I used on both
Bath
and the Meissonier. But van Meegeren’s recipe of phenol formaldehyde as an additive baked for ninety-five minutes at 248 degrees absorbs the remaining fluids so thoroughly that the paint is as dry and hard as if Degas himself had applied it in 1897.

When the oven’s preheated, I slide the canvas dead center on a rack sitting dead center, set the automatic timer, and close the door. The baking must be closely monitored, as lots of things can go wrong: blistering paint, melting paint, singed canvas, fire. Despite my earlier decision to drop the Belle-Degas issue, I grab a few books on Degas, click on the oven light, and settle into a chair in front of the glass window to watch, read, and wait.

T
HE ONE COMMITMENT
I’ve been keeping throughout my voluntary incarceration is juvy. If I don’t show up, the boys spend that time in their cells, and I don’t want to be the cause of any additional confinement. Plus, today the boys are applying the final coat of varnish to the mural and then, if Kimberly can pull it off, we’re having a small celebration. It won’t be much—the kids aren’t supposed to be having fun—but she figured she could scare up some cookies or brownies and maybe a bottle or two of apple juice. It’s amazing how happy and childlike these hardened criminals become at the prospect of a treat.

The mural came out really well, even better than I expected, and the boys are justly proud of their work, joking and horsing around as much as they’re able under the steely stares of the guards. Undeterred by the small brushes they’re forced to use—the larger the brush, the more easily it can be used as a weapon—each boy stands in front of the space I’ve allotted him, seemingly happy to be varnishing. Kimberly brought in a couple of boxes of Munchkins from Dunkin’ Donuts, and the boys keep stealing glances at the bright pink cartons.

Even Manuel and Xavier aren’t sending daggers at each other, although I made sure to put them at opposite ends of the mural. The spiky smell of the varnish permeates the room, and I wonder if it reminds the boys of glue or some other drug, and that’s why they’re all so congenial.

I kneel and inspect X’s silver cans.

“Yo, Ms. Roth,” Reggie calls. “Tell this fuc—, this guy here,” he points to Xavier, “that my needles are way better than his fuc—, than his stupid beer cans. Best in the whole mural. Mine. No contest. So why don’t you stop hanging with that loser and come help someone with real talent.”

Xavier and Reggie are buds. Rumor has it they’re in the same gang, so I say, “Hang on there, Michelangelo. You’re next.”

Michelangelo he’s not. His work is so bad it questions my assumption about all the boys having art inside them. But Reggie’s defense mechanism is humor—or what he considers humor—which is a rare commodity here among the rage and hopelessness. I’m more than glad to have him around.

“But you gotta admit mine are way better than his,” Reggie persists.

“I’m not going there.” I hold my hands up, palms flat, and bring an affected tone to my voice. “But I must say, Mr. Martinez, that the juxtaposition of that needle to the vial of white power makes an extremely powerful artistic statement. Meaty. Meaty and true.”

Reggie laughs loudly, but Xavier just looks perplexed.

“Don’t worry, X,” I tell him. “You’ve got great juxtaposition, too.”

He smiles shyly. “Thanks for the silver.”

“Anytime,” I say, pleased. These boys find it difficult to express gratitude, they view it as weakness, and I’m proud to have broken down even this small barrier.

Kimberly catches my eye and winks.

I step behind Christian, whose basketball player and pizza maker really are the best in the mural. Not to mention, much more appropriate yearned-for objects than needles and beer cans. “These really are great,” I tell him. “Did you ever do any drawing or painting before?”

He shrugs and keeps varnishing.

“I mean it, Christian. You’re really good.” The boys aren’t much better at taking compliments than they are at gratitude. “You’ve got a natural talent for this.”

His brush doesn’t slow and he doesn’t look at me, but it’s clear from the stiffness of his shoulders that he’s listening, and I think I can detect the tweak of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe next project we can work more closely together, see what you can do when—”

I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye and stop speaking. By the time I turn, both Xavier and Reggie are face down on the floor, hands cuffed behind their backs, a guard with a knee on each. A third guard holds a vial of white powder in his hand. Kimberly’s already yelling into her walkie-talkie.

“Hands up!” the fourth guard orders the remaining boys. “To the wall. Hands above your heads. Legs spread. Now!”

“Where’d the stuff come from?” Xavier’s guard growls, yanking the handcuffs and jerking him to his feet. Xavier struggles to get his balance and glares at the guard. He says nothing.

Reggie’s guard does the same. “You tell us where you got this or you’re both gonna be at Walpole into the next century.” He wrenches the handcuffs, and Reggie cries out in pain. “You ain’t seen nothin’, kid. Nothin’ like what you’ll be seeing if you don’t tell us who you copped from.”

“In or out, shithead?” Xavier’s guard demands. “Who is he?”

I back up, but not before I see a look of mutual panic and fear pass between the boys. If I were a betting person, I’d bet that whomever they got it from is scarier than the guards, scarier than years at Walpole. Stupid, stupid, stupid kids.

“Her,” Reggie says loudly, jutting his elbow at me. “She brought it in. Does every week.”

“Me?” I demand. “You’re saying I bring you drugs?” I look at Xavier.

Xavier turns to his guard. “Yeah. Every week.”

I stare at him in disbelief.

Two more guards barge into the room. Reggie’s guard says something to the older one, and the new guards march toward me, stone-faced and menacing.

Kimberly steps in front of me. “Ms. Roth’s a volunteer who’s been coming here for years. This is a misunderstanding, a false accusation, and needs to be treated that way until proven otherwise.”

I can’t believe this. Until proven otherwise? I turn to Kimberly. “You can’t possibly think—”

“Please go with the guards, Ms. Roth,” Kimberly says, as if she’s speaking to someone she just met. “I’m sure that this will all be cleared up quickly.”