Books Received

by M.A.D. Staff

These are thumbnail reviews of books recently sent to us. We have included ordering information for publishers that accept mail or phone orders. For other publishers, your local bookstore or mail-order house is the place to look.

The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren

by Jonathan Lopez (Harcourt, Inc., 2008, 340 pp., hardbound, $26).

Like many people, I have always had an odd fondness for Han van Meegeren. True, the Dutchman was a forger, but didn't he paint those fakes just to embarrass an egotistical art critic? Wasn't he a discouraged artist who, treated unfairly by the art establishment, demonstrated that he was talented enough to have his work mistaken for Vermeer's? Didn't he also sell a bogus painting to someone who is nobody's idea of a mensch, Hermann Göring? And wasn't he able to prove himself innocent of selling that purported treasure-and becoming a Nazi collaborator in the process-by painting another worthless canvas while authorities watched? Not exactly.

In a fascinating new book by Jonathan Lopez, van Meegeren is revealed to be not only a forger-for-hire of at least nine Vermeers (as well as works meant to be taken for ones by Frans Hals, Gerard Terborch, and Pieter de Hooch) but also a foister upon the world of a fraudulent life story. For all the years since his trial in 1945, he should not have been revered as a folk hero. Rather, he should have been seen as an ordinary crook conducting an underhanded business transaction when he sold his phony Christ and the Adulteress to the Luftwaffe's commander in chief.

What is morally more reprehensible, he actually was a Hitler enthusiast, Lopez shows in The Man Who Made Vermeers. "Van Meegeren truly believed in the fascist dream," declares Lopez, who credits Dutch doctoral student Marijke van den Brandhof with combing through the Dutch state archives in the 1970's to find the first "extensive documentary evidence of Van Meegeren's wartime collaborationist activities."

Lopez's self-described "liar's biography," however, is much more than a simple debunking. By showing how van Meegeren's gradual conversion to Hitlerism dovetails with his development as a forger, the writer (who is also an artist) tells a story with much more depth and interest than any of the previous, prettied-up accounts of van Meegeren's life. For what is a forger, Lopez asks, "if not a closeted Übermensch, an artist who secretly takes history itself for his canvas, who alters the past to suit his present needs?"

Forgers never work alone. Van Meegeren (1889-1947) was part of a vast art trade network of dealers and others capitalizing on recently enriched industrialists' taste for old masters. Besides a ready market, forgers also need front men and people willing to explain a newly "discovered" picture's origins. In van Meegeren's case, he wasn't even his own mastermind. According to Lopez, it was Theodore Ward, an English businessman of German extraction and an expert in the chemistry of paint. As for van Meegeren's unwitting accomplices, one was an elderly critic, Abraham Bredius, whose "certificate of expertise" pronounced van Meegeren's The Supper at Emmaus to be not only a masterpiece but "the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft."

Informed that Duveen Brothers literally wasn't buying it (despite having bought and sold two fake Vermeers from others), Bredius, with his professional reputation at stake, helped van Meegeren's go-between find a Dutch buyer for the painting. That buyer was Rotterdam's Boijmans Museum, which with much pomp exhibited it there in 1938.

The painting, one of seven van Meegeren Vermeers with religious themes, shows a risen Christ eating supper with two of his disciples—his appetite being proof that he was alive again, not merely a spirit. Why was the art-buying public (including Göring) so willing to believe the lie that Vermeer's career had a lengthy biblical period? Why didn't it matter that these works don't seem at all like authentic Vermeers?

According to Lopez's carefully argued theory, it was because the works echoed "the volkisch Aryan propaganda imagery of the era." The Supper at Emmaus, he goes so far as to say, is "a subtle homage to Nazi image making." And, of course, "excitement and hoopla…had kept a lot of people from seeing the scheming dictator in Berlin for what he was too."

Frauds and villains like these occur in a context, at a specific historical moment. That's the lesson that Lopez seems to want us most to learn from his book. Van Meegeren, Göring, Hitler, all were products of their time and place, just as today's frauds and villains are being revealed as products of ours.

Jeanne Schinto

A Legacy of Art: Paintings and Sculptures by Artist Life Members of the National Arts Club

by Carol Lowrey (The National Arts Club, in association with Hudson Hills Press, 2007, 215 pp., hardbound, $60).

The National Arts Club, a private organization with a long pedigree, was founded in 1898 by Charles de Kay to provide sponsors, critics, and creators of the arts a place to share their enthusiasms. Since 1906 its clubhouse has been the Tilden Mansion, a landmark in Manhattan. This is a catalog of the club's paintings and sculptures by artist life members between 1910 and 1950. Some of the art is displayed in the rooms of the club and familiar to members and visitors. Some of it is in storage or in rooms not frequented by visitors. Carol Lowrey, curator of the collection, has thoroughly researched the stories about this nucleus of the club's permanent collection.

For appreciators of early 20th-century art, this catalog provides a look at the artworks in color and gives brief but well-researched biographies of the artists, which results in a valuable compilation and shows some of the interrelationships of the artists of that period. For instance, there is a striking torso sculptural portrait of George Bellows by Alexander Stirling Calder, father of his more famous son. "…Calder pays homage to Bellows by showing him as a heroic nude holding a paintbrush—an artist in his prime. According to the sculptor's daughter, it was executed after Bellows's death and was intended to express her father's 'feelings for his friend's quality and character.'"

The book's layout and binding are of high quality, making it a fine reference book. Current club members, especially, will want this elegantly presented history.

Rags to Rugs: Hooked and Handsewn Rugs of Pennsylvania

by Patricia T. Herr (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2008, 160 pp., softbound, $29.99 from Schiffer Publishing, [www.schifferbooks.com] or [610] 593-1777).

This book was written after the Heritage Center Museum of Lancaster County conducted a Rug Harvest, a two-year documentation project of southeastern Pennsylvania hooked and handsewn rugs. The ensuing exhibition, Rags to Rugs: Pennsylvania Hooked and Handsewn Rugs, ran from November 2007 to December 2008. The designs that were popular with Amish makers from Lancaster County and makers of cross-stitched styles in Dauphin County were abstract, geometric, botanical, pictorial, and figural, and examples of all are included here. Contemporary hooked and handsewn rugs, although they were a part of the Rug Harvest, are not included.

An introduction and short chapter about the tools, materials, and methods used to make rugs begins the main text, and a bibliography and short index complete it. In between are about 170 large color pictures of rugs and coverlets, along with explanatory text about the designs and stories about individual makers. This is a good pick for collectors, dealers, and aficionados of handmade rugs.

All Aboard: The Life and Work of Marjorie Reed

by Gary Fillmore (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2009, 264 pp., hardbound, $79.99 from Schiffer Publishing, [www.schifferbooks.com] or [610] 593-1777).

A feisty woman became well known in the Southwest for painting stagecoaches and desert scenes. Her vivacious, impressionistic illustrations continue to sell. This biography is heavily illustrated in color, as it should be, and brings her into focus. Marjorie Reed (1915-1996) was a feminist before her time, an ardent lover of the desert, and an artist with a sure hand for color and vivid figures, especially horses and burros.

Reed suppressed the prices of her artworks during her life, being averse to the influence of Midas, as she said. Now her artworks are increasing in value. There are thousands of them, since she painted so quickly and used them as currency during her life. An independent spirit, she stayed true to her vision, and this story about her life and art is charming and engaging.

Practical Watch Repairing

by Donald de Carle, FBHI (Skyhorse Publishing, distributed by W.W. Norton, 2008, 328 pp., softbound, $14.95 ).

According to the information provided by the publisher, Donald de Carle was "a Fellow and Medallist of the British Horological Institute and a Freeman of the City of London by virtue of being a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. He contributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica and was the author of many other horological works."

This book is his textbook for fixing old timepieces. First published in 1946 and updated twice before de Carle died in 1989, this handbook is all you need to learn how to set up a workbench, have the proper tools, and clean and repair watches. Every aspect is explained thoroughly and illustrated minutely (there are 550 black-and-white line drawing illustrations). It may be the most complete textbook on watch repairing that one can find, even teaching how to create broken or missing parts and how to make and repair the tools to do it.

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