John Drewe was a very smart man, but he wasn’t a nuclear physicist, a professor, or an international armaments consultant. He wasn’t even John Drewe. But he had something of a Midas touch, turning everything into fool’s gold. His own Provenance (Penguin, $16) was as phony as that of the paintings he passed off as original Giacomettis and Dubuffets. Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo reconstruct the fascinating story of how Drewe, aka John Cockett, aka Rickard Cockcraft, manipulated a talented but unexceptional--and broke--artist into creating works in the style of great painters, and how through the 1990s he charmed and duped art dealers, archivists, curators, collectors, and a world of art experts. The thriller pace, the amazing feats of a criminal mind, the tour of galleries and studios, and that nagging question of what is real make this book hard to put down.
