#ambrosi giampiero

[cinesludge]

Movie #23 of 2022: Waiting for the Barbarians

[beautifulscreaminglady]

"I saw the Sistine Chapel before they cleaned it, with it's patina of age and human presence. I learned that for four hundred years, kilos of sweat evaporated into the ceiling every day, giving it its color, the bodies of worshippers literally becoming part of the painting itself. I went back many years later and hated that they cleaned it. Now I've grown to accept it, though I can't help feeling something important has been lost."

- Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger by Tony Tetro and Giampiero Ambrosi

[arts-dance]

The secrets of a master art forger

Tony Tetro fooled many connoisseurs with his canvases – aged by mixing coffee and cigarette butts or baking them in a pizza oven

Tony Tetro’s memoir starts with a bang – or, rather, a bust. On 18 April 1989, 25 policemen spilled into his condo in Claremont, California, confiscated the $8,000 he had just been paid in cash and proceeded to search the place, slicing through wallpaper, pulling up carpets and emptying drawers. The scene is pacy, thrilling, a bit silly. It reads like a Hollywood film script; which, if I’m being cynical, is probably the point. The pièce de résistance:

If you pressed #* on the cordless phone, a full-length mirror would pop open and reveal my secret stash of special papers, pigments, collector stamps, light tables, vintage typewriters, certificates of authenticity, notebooks with signatures – everything a professional art forger might need.

You needn’t have heard of Tetro to enjoy this book. Nor is any prior knowledge of the art world required. With all the cocaine and the fast cars, Con/Artist has more than a whiff of bad boy memoir about it, and the chapter titles (‘The Last Laugh’, ‘The Wild West’, ‘Things Go Bad’) read like the names of pop songs. But beneath the grit and the glamour is a fascinating tale of a diligent, self-taught artist with a good work ethic and a great natural talent. Co-authored with Giampiero Ambrosi, the investigative journalist involved in uncovering Tetro’s connection to the Prince Charles art forgery scandal in 2019, this is the story of his life and art.

The first piece of art Tetro forged was itself intended to be a fake: a Chagall signed by Elmyr de Hory

Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Greatest Art Forger Tony Tetro and Giampiero Ambrosi Hachette, pp. 288, £25

[fredhandbag]

Con/Artist is the nonfiction account of the art forgery crimes by Tony Tetro. The subtitle is "The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger". The book is co-written by Giampiero Ambrosi. The story covers Tetro's early life - him becoming a young father and discovering a talent for art. There are stories of him initially selling forgeries to dealers and realizing how much money he could make by faking paintings and other art. There's a lot of name dropping - lots of stories about the exotic sports cars he drove - how important he was in the trendy restaurant scene - and how smart he was at getting away with his crimes. One funny story was when an artist who's art Tetro had forged, walked past a gallery that was displaying the forged piece - the artist lost his mind. The process he used to age paintings was interesting as well as the ways he built provenance for the different fakes. Tetro claimed credit for many of the fakes that were discovered in Prince Charles residence. What's missing in this book is any remorse from Tetro for his crimes. This book glorifies his crimes - "Look at how important I am" "Look at this expensive car I drive" He painted fakes and dealers sold them as genuine, for thousands of dollars. (many times with a big commission.) Many collectors were misled and ripped off. After reading this book, I would be hesitant as a collector to buy any art that I hadn't seen the artist paint themselves. This is a well-written true crime book. Ambrosi does a great job pulling these stories together. It's reads quickly. If you're lookiing for True-Crime where no one is murdered this is a good option. #conartist #tonytetro #giampieroambrosi #hachettebooks #novelsuspectsinsiders #truecrime #nonfictionnovember #bookstagram #bookshelves #booknerd #readinglife #bookphotography #bookcommunity #bookblogger #sodacityreads #suspensebook #bookhaul #homelibrary #bookrecs #arthistory https://www.instagram.com/p/ClEEq7tLnWP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=