Warhol After Warhol
Secrets, Lies, & Corruption in the Art World
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Long-time art critic Richard Dorment reveals the corruption and lies of the art world and its mystifying authentication process.
Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003, art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbour in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help.
This call would mark the beginning of an extraordinary story that would play out over the next ten years and would involve a cast of characters straight out of a n novel. From rock icons and film stars; art dealers and art forgers; to a murdered Russian oligarch and a lawyer for the mob; from courtrooms to auction houses: all took part in a bitter struggle debating the authenticity of a series of paintings by the most famous American artist of the twentieth century.
Part detective story, part art history, part memoir, and part courtroom drama, Warhol After Warhol is a spellbinding account of the dark connection between money, power, and art.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former Daily Telegraph art critic Dorment's fascinating debut chronicles his yearslong investigation into the Andy Warhol Foundation's certification process. Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector, was livid when the foundation's board stamped "denied" on the back of his Red Self-Portrait in 2002, a work he bought from Warhol's executor shortly after the artist's death. Dragging his friend Dorment into the fight, Simon came to believe that the foundation was bent on controlling the market for Warhols. Among other accusations, Dorment claims the foundation used intimidation tactics—including hiring investigators to follow Simon and attacking Dorment's character in the press—to maintain their power, and deliberately denied authentication to legitimate Warhol works so they could prioritize their own holdings in the market, even though some of those pieces were inauthentic. Nearly broke, Simon eventually gave up his lawsuit against the board in 2010, but Dorment's muckraking articles from 2009 to 2013 alleging fraud and cover-ups eventually led the foundation to change its authentication processes. Dorment nimbly balances an entertaining account of Warhol's late-'60s Factory days with a gripping, well-researched true crime narrative about the art world's shady dealings. This is an entertaining eye-opener.
