Vermeer & the Millionaire Forger
Book Review: I Was Vermeer by Frank Wynne
Dutch painter Han von Meegeren had a big talent accompanied by a bigger ego, and the combination lead him into the shadowy and ultimately deadly world or art forgery. In his thoroughly engaging book, I Was Vermeer: The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Forger, journalist Frank Wynne tells van Meegeren’s story. Born in Holland in 1889, van Meegeren loved to draw to the dismay of his autocratic father who considered art the domain of idlers and dreamers. Still van Meegeren sketched; his mother covered for him, and his father ultimately agreed to a compromise with his education: Han would be permitted to study architecture. Van Meegeren had a talent for art that was unfortunately, unmatched by timing.
Good Painting, Bad Timing
Born at least 50 years too late for the Golden Age of Dutch painting, Han’s heroes were Reubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer while critics were hailing the art of process over product of Matisse, Picasso, Seurat and du Champ. After a long and circuitous route, Han received his fine Arts Degree in 1914, on the very day Germany invaded Belgium. With his degree and a gold medal won in a prestigious competition, van Meegeren began his painting career in earnest. However, art was considered frivolous in wartime, so the commissions he hoped for never materialized. He tried to enlist to portray the horrors of war with his paintbrush, but the widespread use of the camera made that unnecessary.
A Master Forger is Born
Though unlucky in timing, van Meegeren was talented and smart. Introduced to art restoration as a way to pay bills, forgery was simply a small step from there. Van Meegeren had learned of the enormous power of the experts and critics in determining the value of a work; how the right words from the right person could turn an unsigned painting into a masterpiece. Han did his homework. He studied his hero, Jan Vermeer and taught himself to mix pigment the way Vermeer did. He invented an oven for drying his paint that would provide the craquelure of an authentic Vermeer. He spent years in experimentation refining the forger’s art, until his Vermeers found their way into museums and the hands of wealthy collectors including Nazi Commander Hermann Goring, and van Meegeren found himself charged with treason.
The So-Called Experts
Van Meegeren was a talented artist, but a fairly awful human being. Vain, egotistical, greedy, selfish, he was a drug and alcohol addicted con artist who managed to fool the experts. Wynne’s captivating book is as much about uncertainty masquerading as expertise in the ego-driven art world as it is about its most successful forger.
I Was Vermeer The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Forger by Frank Wynne Bloomsbury 2006
