A Forger's Tale: Confessions of the Bolton Forger
384
A Forger's Tale: Confessions of the Bolton Forger
384Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781760295288 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Atlantic Books |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2018 |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A knock at the door
FOR DRAMATIC PURPOSES, I'll start with a knock at the door – 8.30am, the 15th of March, 2006. That date, the 15th, was already in my mind. Then I remembered – the Ides of March! A most inauspicious date for the ancients and a bloody awful one for me as things turned out.
By this time, I'd been back at my mum and dad's for some years. They were into their eighties and I was their paid carer. Well, 40-odd pounds a week doesn't really cover the effort, does it? Not much more than a kid's paper round. But it's the government's going rate for a stressful and full-time occupation for legions of relatives and friends of the sick and vulnerable in what passes for society these days. I'd better climb down from my soapbox for now and get back to the story of my Waterloo. Please forgive me if I occasionally climb up on it again and feel free to skip those rants if you wish, with my blessing. I've been talking to myself on such things for years, so doing so in print will carry on the tradition.
To continue. Standing there at the door, peering past me whilst shouting loudly, was a little fat man with a red face, dressed like a downmarket stockbroker, but doing his best impression of a TV cop – hooking his foot around the door, as if resistance was expected. The next thing, he, his foot and his followers were all crowded into the lounge, all speaking at once, so I couldn't make out a single word. What followed during the day is still a pretty vivid memory for me, even though that experience is now all of four years ago. Looking back, much of it seems a bit Laurel and Hardy and would, but for its consequences, be quite amusing, even to me.
The detective in charge introduced himself and informed me that they were from Scotland Yard's Serious Organised Crime Unit, and that their bit of it was known as the Art & Antiques Squad. Whilst offering this information, the others dispersed all about, upstairs and down, going through drawers, cupboards, scattering everything as they went.
A particular memory is of a detective sitting cross-legged on the floor, with the contents of my dad's glass-topped fossil cabinet scattered all about him, a hobby my father took particular interest in. There was nothing particularly valuable in it. All the specimens were always neatly laid out with handwritten descriptions, something he would get out and show to his grandchildren whenever they called, showing his latest pieces and explaining all about them and their place in the great scheme of things to enchanted little faces. The detective was now sat in the midst of them like a monkey sorting nuts. What he was looking for still isn't apparent to me. When he'd finished, he simply scooped up handfuls of them and dumped them in a heap in the drawer. Others were trod underfoot. I decided there and then that co-operation was, for the time being, out of the question.
The day dragged on, searching and more questions, occasionally finding various items, some greeted with a squeal of delight. Another peculiar incident occurred when my sister arrived to help out Mum and Dad whilst I was, for want of a better word, 'helping' the police with their enquiries. My sis had just put a chicken in the oven to cook for teatime and was closing the oven door as a female DC came into the kitchen from the garden. The DC suddenly took it into her head that this was something sinister and proceeded to unwrap the bird from its foil, probing it in a most unladylike manner. Raking through the drawers for a pair of scissors, she proceeded to cut the suspect chicken in half, almost mincing it in the process. What she thought to find is a mystery.
By now various detectives were busy looking for and collecting all sorts of materials, equipment and discarded work. Some things came from the loft, including a bust of the second president of the US, John Adams, which had been sold in auction some years earlier for £100,000. Finding he couldn't sell it on, the purchaser had later requested a refund. Never wanting to draw attention, I was quite willing to refund the discontents and move on to the next project. The bust joined a growing collection in the back of a police van, one of many parked outside. I think the neighbours were expecting bodies in the garden or something, such was the hive of activity. I thought then, as now, that it was all a bit over the top for an amateur artist armed with a paintbrush and chisel.
Next on the scene were the firearms experts who arrived to great effect in two large vans – all blue lights and wire grills – and in marched several large gents in jumpsuits and body armour. The police had discovered a deactivated old revolver and a toy rifle, left by my six-year-old nephew some weeks earlier. One of the firearms officers took up the revolver, looked under his eyebrows at the detective proffering up the deadly weapon and dismissed it as a 'wreck'. The toy gun was picked up with a loud sigh and a despairing sideways glance at me. Then, 'Out lads, there's nothing for us here.' And off they went, much to my relief.
As I stood there looking about me, I noticed several DCs rooting around outside, all in animated conversation. They were handling some pieces of alabaster, cut into slices, sawn off the back of a large panel that I had been carving into a copy of an Assyrian relief of a winged deity from the Palace of Ashurbanipal, one-time king of the seventh century BC Assyrians. These relief panels, depicting scenes from palace life, were mostly about half life-size and originally lined the walls of the king's mud brick palaces in a place called Nineveh that's now in Iraq. They were mostly dug up in the mid-nineteenth century by British explorers, the British Museum being the main repository of them. Others were taken by members of the expedition and are now in museum collections worldwide. My effort purported to be just such a piece.
I had first looked at these Assyrian scenes, so full of life, when I was about 10. Horses and men, fighting lions, kings and gods, all presided over by the great god of the Assyrians, Ashur. In the guidebooks I'd found an even better-sounding name – Ahura Mazda. I hope what springs to your mind isn't what I pictured as a 10-year-old reading this name in a British Museum guide – Lieutenant Ahura of the Starship Enterprise driving a shiny Mazda sports car through the desert sands, with lions in pursuit! Perhaps I should have been a surrealist back then.
Those alabaster pieces were particularly damning as they had been cut from the back of a panel presented for inspection just four months earlier to the Keeper of the Middle East collections at the British Museum. I originally intended to dispose of them, but, due to the cost of the original block, I had decided to keep the offcuts with a view to doing some fragmentary pieces at a later date to sell through the trade. I never liked to discard materials which are all the while becoming more difficult to source. Even in my own time, some things still available 30 years ago can no longer be found. So off to the ever-growing pile in the back of a police van they went. And on to the garden shed went the DCs.
'Shaun, can you come upstairs and tell us something about this?' Another half-forgotten object had been found at the back of a cupboard. Then in came the detective in the stockbroker's pinstripe suit, now partly coloured orange. He'd picked up a bag of iron oxide that I used in my glass and ceramic work, without putting his hand under the old paper bag in which it had come from Stoke-on-Trent, a few years before. Now he looked as though he'd been Tangoed! I said something bland to the effect that he'll probably need to get his suit steamed, but he seemed upset at this and retorted that he could get another one on expenses – the implication being that it might be a while before I had the opportunity to acquire another suit myself!
The old shed proved to be a goldmine of finds. Over the years I'd produced some of my best work in that place, which seemed to amuse the detectives. One of them gave it the title of 'the northern annex of the British Museum'. That got a laugh all round and even squeezed a smile out of me on a decidedly unsmiley day. Some of the stuff in there had been kicking around for years – a sandstone head of the pharaoh Akhenaten in a white crown, a red sandstone female figure in the Hepworth style, an old kiln in which I'd fired the Gauguin Faun, marble blocks, marble points, chisels and mallets, enamels and glass, diamond saws and burrs. All of it was being carried through the kitchen and out into the aforementioned vans, which were now rapidly filling up with enough to hang me for sure. Gulp!
The day turned into the afternoon. More questions, more comments, but very little from me. These people come in here storming about, I thought, making the place look like it had been ransacked by burglars – and, incidentally, overlooking a great deal that might have been of interest to them, if only they had possessed a better understanding of the materials and methods used to make art! I say this not to poke fun at anyone. I'm sure the detectives are very good at what they do. After all, one doesn't get to work for Scotland Yard, whose reputation speaks for itself, without being the best! At that time, and still now, I'm of the opinion that if they had come in peace, sat down and talked to me calmly, explained their presence and asked to be shown what I might have in the way of 'fakes', and the means of their production, they would have had my co-operation from the start. It would have sorted things out 12 months earlier than was the case. Some high-placed collars might have been thrown in as well.
By now I was getting a bit concerned for my mum and dad. They had been sat in the midst of all this for hours, so I told the Tango man that I needed to get them something to eat and drink, both being diabetic. Off I went to the kitchen with a DC following. What they expected me to do, I can't say. 'Drinks only,' the DC ordered, 'we've got some more questions for you yet.' I protested, to no avail. It just served to harden my attitude.
Not until 4pm, or thereabouts, did they decide to call it a day. I returned to the living room to see a man who didn't introduce himself, but who I took to be the boss, putting the sofa cushions back and generally attempting to tidy up what his underlings had scattered throughout the day. I made it clear to him that we'd had nothing to eat and no time or opportunity to do so. At this, he reached for a plastic bag and handed it to me with a mumbled apology. He seemed genuinely upset. The plastic bag held the remains of their lunch – two scotch eggs and a partly eaten chocolate bar. I've heard rumours that police suffer more than most from piles and ulcers. If that's what they live on most days, no bloody wonder! I just put their actions down to bad manners and left it at that.
The most curious incident that first day was the disappearance of an old business ledger I'd had since I was a kid – the type used for bookkeeping in times past. Made in 1921, it was backed in calfskin and had beautifully marbled paper. I'd got it from a dealer at the Last Drop Antiques Fair in 1971, swapped for several of my bottle digging finds. From the age of 11 or so, I had used it to keep a record of every single thing I'd ever made. Even the destroyed or recycled ones. How and with what I'd made them, kiln firing times, mould burnout cycles, alloy recipes, paints and all sorts of other things. I last saw it on the kitchen table that afternoon, obviously put there by one of the detectives, and presumed they'd taken it with them when they left. This can't have been the case, for if they had, why so many questions ? All the answers were in that book. So that's a bit of a mystery.
As they left the house, they informed me I would be required to attend Bolton Police Station the next day, but that my mum and dad could be interviewed at home on account of their age. I thought that was very decent of them. They said I should get my solicitor to come along and off they went. I duly rang the solicitors used by several family members over the years, only to be informed that due to the nature of the case I needed the services of a good criminal lawyer. A couple were suggested. The first one was in court that day. The next one turned out to be the gentleman who was to act on my behalf, for better or worse, for the next two years.
I don't think he would mind me saying that he was definitely of the old school – softly spoken, obviously well educated, clever and cultured, with an interest in and knowledge of art to boot. Much later, long after the court appearances, and even after the completion of a substantial part of my sentence, I would receive letters from various media people who had been in contact with him about some projects in which they wanted me to participate. Most had been sent from his office with a flea in their ears. All I can think is that he had either had quite enough of the whole affair, lengthy as it was, or, as I prefer to imagine, he was looking after my best interests.
Before going on with what happened after that day, I would like to say something about how I first came to the attention of Scotland Yard. I mentioned earlier some fragments of alabaster from the back of a fake copy of an Assyrian bas-relief panel. This was the object that proved to be the 'one too many'.
This Assyrian relief was my main project for 2005. Over the previous few years, I'd started to do considerably fewer pieces of work than before. Money had never really been the driving force for my artwork and, in any case, by this time I was secure enough financially to do pretty much as I pleased. Quite a lot has been said in the media about my motives for doing the fakes. Things like me wishing to expose and deride a particular art expert's abilities or have a go at the art establishment in general. Others have claimed it was some kind of one-man crusade against the supposed art snobbery of the south, as if art had regional loyalties and traits. It doesn't. In common with music, art is one of those rare things that speaks to all people, and includes and involves all. Somehow it found me. And from the time I was a kid, it just seemed to be what I was interested in. Whenever I tried to walk away from it, it would search me out and wind me in again, like a puppet on a string.
It was a visit to the Manchester Museum, in late 2004, that had brought the Assyrian thing to mind. I had gone to look at this great collection with nothing particular planned, just an afternoon's wander through the galleries. Whilst walking around, I saw this particular stone relief of an Assyrian figure. It was pretty standard stuff – a standing figure in side profile, walking to the right, with wings and the head of an eagle, carrying a libation pail and a palm leaf. I had seen many such figures at the British Museum years earlier and, through my wide-ranging amateur art interests, I was quite familiar with all things Assyrian.
Apparently, these winged deities were actually priests of the court in costume and not, as I had presumed as a child, something mythological like you see in classical art – hippocamps, centaurs, satyrs and the like. Across the bottom was a band of cuneiform inscription. This script was used at various times across Assyria – modern-day Iraq – and usually consists of the king's titles and his achievements in war and lion hunting, a particularly popular pastime of kings and widely illustrated in the art of Assyria. These inscriptions consist of groups of what look like, for want of a better description, little paper darts.
Having never cut such a thing in stone before, I spent a long time perfecting the manner of their appearance, even going to the trouble of taking an impression in white Plasticine from a panel at another location, so I could look under high magnification at the direction of cut used by the ancient craftsmen. Such small details can prove decisive in attributions. After several attempts at copying a plaster cast of that impression, I was confident enough to have a go.
In making a successful copy of any artwork, no matter in which medium you are working, fluency of line is everything. Also, it's best to keep in mind that the artists and craftsmen who made the originals did these things every day of their working lives, and that only the finest work would be acceptable to their patrons. So being up to scratch, without the job looking laboured, is a must before setting about the copy.
You may have noticed that I refer to it as a 'copy', when, considering my past, you might think 'fake' would be a better description. Copying in art is as old as art itself, something most artists, and certainly all of the most proficient ones, have done throughout art's history. Buonarroti after the Laocoön. Rodin in the manner of Bernini. Moran after Turner, and so on. A 'copy' only becomes a 'fake' when it is knowingly misrepresented as being a work by a particular artist or age, when, in fact, it is no such thing. Misrepresentation is something I mean to cover later, so for now, if I may, I'll call it a 'copy'.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Forger's Tale"
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Copyright © 2015 Shaun Greenhalgh, Waldemar Januszczak.
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