"CAVEAT EMPTOR: The Secret [Ghostwritten] Life of an [Unethical, Dishonest] American 'Art' (scare quotes intended) Forger"
Book Preview: Pub date: August 20
Unconvicted because never charged yet fully admitting his past, American art forger Ken Perenyi's ghostwritten "memoir" (scare quotes intended) titled "CAVEAT EMPTOR: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger", the ghostwritten confessional tell-all of how a "tune in, turn on, drop out" high school kid from 1960s New Jersey learned to forge the great 19th century American artists and dupe the biggest auction houses and galleries in New York and London for 30 years without getting caught, was edited by Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus Books and agented by Don Fehr at Trident Media Group.
Unfortunately, he never presents the reader with an authentic depiction of the mind of a pathological fraud, which is really what the book should have been all about. Wait for the movie, with Leonardo DeCaprio reprising his role as Frank, er, Ken Perenyi?
Perenyi, a Hungarian-American most likely, given his noble surname, barely finished ninth grade, but his ghostwriter (name withheld but mentioned in the book's acknowledgements page, ''Allan Smithee'' - scare quotes intended) illustrates how he became one of America’s top unethical dishonest art forgers. Why the culture that spawned him in now celebrating him as culture hero and celebrity, with a movie option on the table as well, is beyond words. But this is America, and "catch me if you can" is the going motto, Madoff to Perenyi. Thing is Madoff got caught and charged (and sentenced), while Perenyi walked scot free.
Born in 1949 in Hoboken, New Jersey, Ken Perenyi is a self-taught artist who painted his first pictures during the Summer of Love in 1967, having discovered an uncanny ability to intuitively grasp the aesthetic and technical aspects of the Old Masters. A series of fateful events resulted in what was to become a 30 year "career' as a professional and dishonest and unethical art forger. Today he operates his own studio in Madeira Beach, Florida.
The New York Times, the New York Post and the Guardian in the UK all gushed over this conman and are trying to make him into a culture crowd celebrity hero artist, celebrating him for his dishonesty and unethical behavior. Only a few critics are realizing how sad this is that America makes heros out of cads and ignores the real heroes of this nation.
And even before PUB DATe, they sold movie OPTION already to Ron Howard at RKO Pictures
for movie deal. another CATCH ME IF YOU CAN movie.
But doesn't anybody else object to a publisher and the enabling mainstream media like the NYT and the Post and the Guardian with their fawning, unquestioning news stories giving the book and the [con] man behind the book a free pass? What's wrong with the UK and the USA today? Yuck!
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Readers wanted to know. The reporter, Ms Cohen, being in the NYT culture beat department, gets scores of books from publishers and she also regularly scans book catalogues looking for titles that look interesting and that she might want to write about one day. Lately, she's been writing a lot about art forgery and one day she saw a book galley -- ARC? -- of Ken Perenyi’s book “Caveat Emptor,” which mentioned he was now selling “genuine fakes.” Patti noticed a few other references to similar practices and she proabably thought it would make a good news story, so she most likely discussed it with her NYT editor. Reporters in culture, as well as other sections like style and science, frequently travel to other places to do stories that are on their beat. That is why the fashion writers cover the catwalks in Paris even though the NYT has a bureau there, and NYT art writers go to Basel, Miami and Swtizerland, and their music reporter went with the Philharmonic to North Korea and so on. So this forger story was her beat, so she was the one to cover the story. The UK Guardian beat her to the scoop a full 10 days earlier, btw. Yes, the same story appeared in the UK on July 7. Patti most likely did what all good reporters do and called Pegasus Books to inquire, for her story, what kind of fact-checking measures their lawyers took to verify the author’s account. As in vetting. As for the timing of the story, a month before pub date, which means the PR coup by having a pre-publication story in the NYT about an upcoming book a full 30 days before pub date is priceless in terms of PR and book publicity, mind you. But bear in mind that stories about the book were beginning to appear in the British press, a good piece in the Guardian among others, and if Cohen waited any longer, until the real official pub date, August 20, the Times would have been late with the story instead of first. Well, the first in the USA. In fact, the Guardian did the story first, got the scoop, and it appeared online for worldwide readers a full 2 weeks before the Times late entry.
And now you know ...the rest of the story!
***(said someone to me the other day, and for reasons I cannot fathom. Putting me up to what? I am just a mere blogger with good radar. Sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong. Cover up? WTF? Who is covering anything up? If anything, this blog is exposing something.)
called the “Castle” near the author’s hometown of Fort Lee, N.J., he
was a young uneducated and untutored guy, a blank slate just waiting
for someone with chalk. The Castle was a center of cosmic energy where
dozens of people showed up for Masaccio’s parties and long, lost
weekends in the 1960s. When he discovered his talent for art, Tom
Daly, a local artist, took Perenyi under his wing, sharing his
artistic knowledge and encouraging his eager student to learn by
copying great works. A book about Han van Meegeren, a Dutch art
forger, taught the author the basic principles of forgery, and a job
working for a conservator allowed him to hone his talents. Visits with
Daly and Masaccio to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the auction
rooms of New York City gave Perenyi all he needed to begin producing
his “Flemish” paintings. He began with Dutch paintings and moved on to
American art and then British sporting pictures. He never copied known
works, but he developed an eye for what inspired the artists and
created paintings that they could very well have done, always using
authentic materials. His eager buyers ranged from local shops to the
great auction houses of New York and London.
Some readers who don't care about ethics or honesty in America might
be be captivated as they follow the development of this remarkable yet
flawed talent over a 40-year career. Ghostwtitten by Allan Smithee
be be captivated as they follow the development of this remarkable yet
flawed talent over a 40-year career.
Born in New Jersey some 63 years ago to a Hungarian-American factory machinist name Mr Perenyi and his wife Katya, Ken stil single after all these years, now lives in Florida and worries about getting old and hearing Death's sad knocking on his door. But for now, there's the book and Hollywood is calling! So there IS redemption in America, and Ken is living proof. Sort of.
s be honest! -- art forgers.
Somewhere, Elmyr de Hory is smiling. WHO?
----------------Elmyr (pronounced el-meer) de Hory was a notorious art forger of the 20th century. The flamboyant Hungarian claimed to have sold more than 1,000 fakes to galleries and museums around the world during his career. His insistence that he had passed off paintings by such artists as Picasso, Modigliani and Matisse caused a scandal in the world of art and its experts. After serving a jail sentence in Spain, De Hory was kicked out of the country and later told his story with Clifford Irving in the 1969 book Fake! He apparently committed suicide in 1976, although some believe he faked that, too. De Hory is featured in the Orson Welles film F for Fake (1974) and the documentary Masterpiece or Forgery? (1997).
Extra credit:During the making of F For Fake, Irving was discovered to be a fraud as well, having faked his "authorized" biography of billionaire Howard Hughes.
Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Forger
Ken Perenyi. Pegasus (Norton, dist.), $27.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-60598-360-8
Painter, draft dodger, and art world huckster Perenyi offers a facile account of the glory days of his 30-year career as an art forger. His story begins in “the Castle,” a dilapidated New Jersey estate inhabited by two beatnik artists who take in the younger Perenyi as one of their own. With his new mentors, Perenyi pays frequent visits to Max’s Kansas City and rubs shoulders with Warhol acolytes, inspiring him to try his hand at painting. Soon enough, he’s replicating 16th-century Flemish portraits, which he sells to antique dealers and galleries. As his exploits grow in value and range, the threat of being caught rises and the FBI draws near. In theory, there’s enough to this story to pique a discerning reader’s interest; on the page, however, Perenyi’s tale unravels with vacuous prose and a lack of self-awareness or genuine insight; he offers little more than rote, blow-by-blow accounts of his scandals. Most interesting is Perenyi’s description of aging and distressing his forgeries so that they might appear authentically weathered. Unfortunately, he never presents the reader with an authentic depiction of the mind of a pathological fraud. Illus. Agent: Don Fehr, Trident Media Group. (Aug
Review: Caveat Emptor
Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger by Ken Perenyi (Pegasus Books, $27.95 hardcover, 9781605983608, August 1, 2012)
To read Ken Perenyi's account of his 30 years peddling art forgeries in the most prestigious auction houses of London and New York, one would think anybody could do it. Perenyi dropped out of his Hoboken, N.J., high school and took up with some bohemian young artists in the 1960s. When he gravitated to the galleries, lofts and art restoration shops of Manhattan, Perenyi found that he could live a footloose, job-free life by faking Old Master paintings, complete with distressed frames and markings, and selling them through Sotheby's, Christie's and the like. Caveat Emptor is a detailed confession of how he did it and how he got away with it for three decades before the FBI closed in--a confession he can make now that the criminal investigation of his activities has been sealed without any charges filed and the statute of limitations has expired.
Perenyi's book includes illustrations of his fakes and countless how-tos of his trade, including his most valuable discovery: a filtered mix of solvent and old varnish that, when covering a painting, could fool an authentication expert's ultraviolet scan. Focusing on mid-value, prolific 19th-century British and American artists whose works were frequently repetitive, he usually claimed to have inherited or "just found" the many copies he sold to auction houses. Because these artists were relatively low priced, his $1,000 and $2,000 forgeries stayed out of the limelight. Perenyi's work was so good he never had to produce a fake provenance, never had to create a paper trail of his decades of subterfuge.
Caveat Emptor provides a fascinating look into the world of antique paintings and the contemporary process of their vetting and selling. What it doesn't much explore are Perenyi's motivations. Did he just want to prove to the art world that a Hoboken kid raised on fixing old cars could fool them all? Or was he in it only for the money? The closest we come to uncovering his reasons is when he describes closing down his Florida shop before the feds can make their case: "Everything I owned was paid for, and I hadn't a nickel of debt," he writes. "I had around a million, all cash, and that didn't include my stock portfolio." Perhaps the answer indeed just falls back to the frequently true adage: follow the money. --Bruce Jacobs
Shelf Talker: Master forger Ken Perenyi reveals the tricks of his trade in this lively account of his 30 years of duping the art world.
Review: Caveat Emptor
Caveat Emptor by Ken Perenyi
My rating: Non-Fiction Memoir
I wanted so much to enjoy this book. The story of how someone develops a career as a master art forger really should be an interesting one, but it never quite engaged me.
The book starts with the background, telling the tale of how the author went from being a failure at school to developing friends in the worlds of fine art and petty criminality, by way of endless sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. This should be fertile ground for anecdote, but unfortunately it's all told in a dry style that left me completely cold. The start of one love affair is even presented as bullet points.
Once Perenyi gets into his artistic stride, there is plenty of detail about the mechanics of faking it, from gesso to varnish, composition to framing. These technical parts were the most interesting to me, as he "discovers" long-lost works by various Dutch, British, and American painters. The sales come easily, almost too easily, and when there's drama it's down to Perenyi's less-competent colleagues. In fact, overall, the forger himself develops into a likeable and down-to-earth businessman - it's just the nature of his business that's unethical.
There were some good parts to this book, but overall, I was disappointed and frequently bored. I wish Perenyi had dedicated as much effort to mimicking literary genius as he did to perfecting the style of the painters he copied.