Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury; Aly Sujo

Author:Laney Salisbury; Aly Sujo
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Art, True Crime, Contemporary (1945-), General, Impostors and imposture, Art forgers, Criminals & Outlaws, Biography & Autobiography, England, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780143117407
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc
Published: 2010-05-25T01:18:54.256515+00:00

Now a cloud hung over their friendship, such as it had been. Whenever they got together, Drewe went on for hours about his problems with Goudsmid and various art dealers, and endlessly repeated his stories about MI5, his weapons training, and his expertise in methods of interrogation, assassination, and political reprisal. Myatt could no longer follow these increasingly obsessive monologues.

One night, as they were walking through the city, Drewe pulled Myatt into an alley, opened his overcoat, and showed him a pair of handguns tucked into leather holsters. He drew one, pointed it directly at Myatt’s face, and smiled, and then laughed. He repacked the weapon and walked on as if nothing had happened.

That was the last straw for Myatt. Drewe was definitely crazy, and it was no longer a question of scaling back the business. Myatt wanted out. There was just one problem. If he quit now, he was sure Drewe would go after him, and maybe even his children. He thought the professor was quite capable of killing him. Drewe, in his paranoia, would build a case against Myatt in his head and then try to eliminate him. The two men had worked together for nearly a decade, and Myatt knew nearly every angle of the con. He knew about the professor’s larcenous visits to the Tate and the V&A and the British Council, and he had met several of Drewe’s runners. He knew too much.

Back in Sugnall, Myatt sat down on the sofa and had a stiff drink. What a bloody great fall from grace, he thought. From the beginning the scam had been a huge and soul-devouring mistake. He had been deceiving himself for years, ignoring the sharp end of what he was doing. He needed to talk to someone, but there was no one he could trust. He contemplated calling the police.

The phone rang. It was Drewe, calling from a service area on the highway.

“I can’t talk on your private line,” he said. “It’s not safe. Go down to the old phone box down the lane and I’ll ring you there.”

Myatt put on his coat and went outside to wait for the call.

“We’re in a jam, John,” Drewe said. He claimed that someone was trying to blackmail him and he’d been forced to take extreme measures. “Incriminating evidence” linked them both to the scam, and he’d had no choice but to break into the blackmailer’s house and “take steps.”

“What steps?” Myatt asked.

“Let’s just say there was a very smoky experience.”

A chill ran through Myatt’s bones.

“You do realize that you’re part of this as well?” Drewe said.

Myatt felt sick. He thought about turning himself in, but who would care for the kids if he went to prison? He wondered whether Drewe was bluffing again in order to keep the paintings coming in. Had there really been a fire? Was this another of Drewe’s extended theatrical pieces?

Myatt had painted more than 240 works for him, and Drewe must still have plenty of them. He didn’t really need Myatt; he could stay in business for years without him.

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