Jennifer Gooch Hummer's Blog, page 2
February 17, 2024
Art Crimes: My Favorite Books
In researching for Veridian Sterling Fakes It, I read many books on art crime. Not only did I need to know the ins and outs of how to forge a painting, I also needed to understand the motivation behind doing so. Some artists forged great art for money. Some artists forged for vanity. Some artists never intended for their forgeries to be sold at all—but they got into the wrong hands.
If you’re as intrigued by art crime as much as I am, here are 3 superb books to read.
The Art Thief: A Novel by Noah Charney
Noah Charney has written dozens of brilliant books about art and art crime. He is a professor of art history specializing in art crime and is considered the leading authority on it.. He’s also super generous and gave Veridian Sterling Fakes It an incredible blurb. If you love art crime and art history, visit his website. You’ll be mesmerized by his wealth of knowledge.
Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Greatest Art Forger by Tony Tetro
A biography of Tony Tetro. Tetro writes about his life as an art forger in the 70’s and 80’s in this gripping book. He takes his readers behind the scenes (and behind the canvas), and details how he created his masterful forgeries, who he fooled into buying them, and what happened when he was eventually caught. Absolutely fascinating.
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman
Wittman writes about travelling the world over to rescue paintings by Monet, Rembrandt, Pissarro and Picasso, among other great works. As an undercover agent for the FBI Art Crime Team (which he also founded), Wittman details his dangerous rendezvous with scammers and art thieves and describes risking his life in so doing. I can’t say enough about how much this book helped me research art crimes.
https://www.robertwittmaninc.com
If you have some favorite books on art crime, please tell me!
February 12, 2024
Does it pay to be fake?
It depends on who you ask. If you’re cosplaying as a Disney character at one of their theme parks, yes, it does. Probably $18 to $25 an hour. If you’re a popular influencer on TikTok getting paid to tout products you would never actually use in real life, the answer might also be yes. And if you’re an art forger, the answer is probably — not always — but often, yes.
As it applies to art, making fakes and selling them as authentic is bad—morally and spiritually and legally. Forgers, however, have been copying art in plain sight for centuries. In the 1700’s, forgers were probably called “apprentices” and they weren’t even really forging. They were simply working for the artist and getting paid to help him (it was almost always a him) create his vision. The apprentice might even paint a large portion of the painting himself even though his name would be lost to history and the art would be attributed to his boss, the Old Master, who would get the big paycheck.
Being fake or making fakes can be a very lucrative business, but the payment isn’t always money. Sometimes the payment is revenge, as it was with Eric Hebborn.
After a troubled childhood, Eric Hebborn (1934-1996) started copying art to prove that a well-known painting wasn’t what it was claimed to be. He wanted to prove that a poorly executed drawing attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder (The Temples of Venus and Diana on the Bay of Baia) was a fake. To do so, he copied the copy by reverse engineering it back to how Brueghel would have drawn it. He layered his brushstrokes and chalk marks exactly how Brueghel would have drawn them in real time. With his improved version, Hebborn sealed it in an antique frame and sold it to a gallery in London as an authentic Brueghel. It was a thrill to fool the experts, most of whom had brushed Hebborn off as a mediocre painter. Hebborn got his revenge on the establishment. He also wrote two tremendous books about art and art crimes: The Art Forger’s Handbook and Drawn to Trouble, his autobiography.
If creating fake art isn’t for money or revenge, it might be for simple ego. German artist Wolfgang Beltracchi (b. 1951) not only created masterful fakes, but he also created the back stories, photographs, and provenances that went with them. With his wife, Helene, the two made upwards of $50 million and fooled even the most famous of dealers and authenticators. It was only in 2008 when the artist recreated Red Picture with Horses by Heinrich Campendonk (1889-1957), that he was finally caught. In studying the painting, experts detected a pigment in it, Titanium White, that did not exist before 1914, when Campendonk would have painted it. (Comedian Steve Martin was a victim of the forgery). Even though Beltracchi was caught, he later became the subject of an award-winning documentary Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery which propelled him to celebrity status. He’s still selling his artwork today.
In the end, being fake might pay, but does it keep you alive and/or out of jail?
Not really. Hebborn fooled plenty of experts and made a good life for himself making fakes, but he collected a whole lot of enemies along the way. He was murdered by blunt force to the head on January 11, 1996, and his murderer was never found. Elmyr de Hory committed suicide in 1996 to avoid extradition to France after his art was discovered to be fake. And finally, in 2011, Beltracchi and his wife, Helene, went to jail for a few years.
And of course, we all know what happened to Milli Vanilli. (If you don’t, watch the documentary Milli Vanilli.)
So, does it pay to be fake? You decide.
July 8, 2023
FAKES
I am thrilled to announce that my forthcoming novel, FAKES, will be published by Lake Union summer 2024. Art Crime; easy to get into and impossible to leave!
Please check back for details.
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April 16, 2023
Art Crime
Easy to get into. Impossible to leave.
My next novel tells the story of someone who discovers this lesson the hard way. Stay tuned.
December 18, 2017
Operation Tenley – a Kirkus Best of 2017
Thrilled to see Operation Tenley on the Kirkus Best Books of 2017
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May 16, 2017
Thank you WeScreenplay!
Thank you @WeScreenplay for advancing Girl Unmoored into the semi-finals screenplay contest. love emoji to you.
— JenniferGoochHummer (@JGoochHummer) May 16, 2017 “>
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April 20, 2017
Come visit me at the LA Festival of Books.
Come see Tobie Easton (Author of EMERGE) and me, Booth #368, Mysterious Galaxy, 1pm-2pm this Sunday. 
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April 13, 2017
April 4, 2017
YASH Spring 2017 + Lisa Maxwell
Hello YASHers,
I am very happy to be hosting Lisa Maxwell for YASH 2017. She’s the author of UNHOOKED, among others. While I’m sure you could find 77 other reviews about this great adventure, this is what Sarah Raasch has to say about it:
“Perfect for fans of AG Howard’s Splintered trilogy and ABC’s Once Upon A Time, this twisted Peter Pan retelling isn’t the Neverland of your dreams — it’s the Neverland of your nightmares.”
~Sara Raasch, NY Times Best-Selling author of Snow Like Ashes
So you know it’s great.
Here’s a bit more about Lisa:
Lisa Maxwell is the author of Sweet Unrest, Gathering Deep, and Unhooked. When she’s not writing books, she’s an English professor at a local college. She lives near DC with her very patient husband and two not-so patient boys.
Here’s a bit more about Unhooked:
For as long as she can remember, Gwendolyn Allister has never had a place to call home. Her mother believes they are being hunted by brutal monsters, and those delusions have brought them to London, far from the life Gwen had finally started to build for herself. Gwen’s only saving grace is that her best friend, Olivia, is with her for the summer.
But shortly after their arrival, the girls are kidnapped by shadowy creatures and dragged to a world of flesh-eating sea hags and dangerous Fey. And Gwen begins to realize that maybe her mother isn’t so crazy after all…
Gwen discovers that this new world she inhabits is called Neverland, but it’s nothing like the Neverland you’ve heard about in stories. Here, good and evil lose their meaning and memories slip like water through your fingers. As Gwen struggles to remember where she came from and tries to find a way home, she must choose between trusting the charming fairy-tale hero who says all the right things and the captivating pirate who promises to keep her safe.
Caught in the ultimate battle between good and evil, with time running out and her enemies closing in, Gwen is forced to finally face the truths she’s been hiding from all along. But can she save Neverland without losing herself?
Sounds amazing, right? She even made this Wallpaper for you: 
Which you can download here.
When you’re done ordering Unhooked, go to straight to check out Barbara Drake‘s page for the next clue. Good luck.
And if you want to win my book, GIRL UNMOORED, please enter my rafflecopter giveaway.
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March 27, 2017
YASH is back.
YASH is back. This time, GIRL UNMOORED is on the hunt. I’m hosting Lisa Maxwell and her spine-chilling adventure UNHOOKED. So get ready… April 4th – April 9th.
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