Product Description

It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: a lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering, making a mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it just isn't true.

Jonathan Lopez has done what no other writer could--tracking down primary sources in four countries and five languages to tell for the first time the real story of the world's most famous forger. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges in The Man Who Made Vermeers as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook--a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush, who worked virtually his entire adult life making and selling fake Old Masters. Drawing upon extensive interviews with descendents of Van Meegeren's partners in crime, Lopez also explores the networks of illicit commerce that operated across Europe between the wars. Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game during the 1920s, landing fakes with powerful dealers and famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon (including two pseudo-Vermeers that Mellon donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.), but the forger and his associates later offered a case study in wartime opportunism as they cashed in on the Nazi occupation.

The Man Who Made Vermeers is a long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren's legend and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12414 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this engaging study, art historian Lopez examines—as did Edward Dolnick's Forger's Spell, published in June—the fascinating case of Han van Meegeren, a notorious Dutch art forger. Van Meegeren, who sold Hermann Goering a fake Vermeer, was convicted of collaboration; he became a folk hero for duping the Nazi leader. But according to Lopez, van Meegeren was a successful forger long before WWII, and contrary to van Meegeren's claim that he was avenging himself on the art critics who had scorned his own work, Lopez says he was motivated by financial gain and Nazi sympathies: What is a forger if not a closeted Übermensch, an artist who secretly takes history itself for his canvas? Lopez asks provocatively. The author gives a vivid portrait of the 1920s Hague, a stylish place of mischief and artifice where van Meegeren learned his trade, and brilliantly examines the influence of Nazi Volksgeist imagery on van Meegeren's The Supper at Emmaus, part of his forged biblical Vermeer series. Lopez's writing is witty, crisp and vigorous, his research scrupulous and his pacing dynamic. 88 b&w photos. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Lopez’s astute portrait of forger Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) testifies that a practiced deceiver inspires drastically diverging interpretations. Edward Dolnick’s Forger’s Spell (2008) revels in the stratagems of van Meegeren’s capers in the art world, Frank Wynne’s I Was Vermeer (2006) accepts van Meegeren’s claimed motive for painting fakes as vengeance against a Dutch art establishment that ignored his talent, but Lopez ascribes the fraud to simple avarice. More innovatively, Lopez detects the vocabulary of fascistic artwork in certain of van Meegeren’s bogus Old Masters, which relates his political sympathies and connections with functionaries of the Nazi art-looting operation. While duping Hermann Göring with an imitation Vermeer has its comedic aspect, Lopez shows how dangerous the swindle was, revealing in van Meegeren’s escape from that episode, as well as in evidence of his Nazi enthusiasm, the loathsome, clever chameleon van Meegeren was. Lopez’s wise historical context to van Meegeren’s imposture is perfect for readers of Lynn Nicholas’ Rape of Europa (1994). --Gilbert Taylor

Review
Re-spins the van Meegeren saga...in profoundly researched, focused, absorbing depth. -- The New Yorker, October 27, 2008

My advice: Get a copy of Jonathan Lopez's terrific new book, "The Man Who Made Vermeers." It's so jam-packed and nicely written that you'll burn right through it. -- The Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2008

In his thoughtful and elegantly written account -- which he calls "a liar's biography" -- Jonathan Lopez gives the story unexpected depth. Van Meegeren is exposed not merely as an unprincipled peddler of phony masterpieces but as an opportunist with Nazi convictions....Mr. Lopez is steeped in the literature of the period and it shows to fine effect. -- The New York Sun, August 26, 2008

One of the most audacious careers in the annals of art fraud -- a journey superbly etched by Jonathan Lopez in his absorbing history "The Man Who Made Vermeers." -- Salon.com, August 14, 2008

Adds greatly to our understanding of the subject. -- The New York Review of Books, November 6, 2008

I can say with authority that Jonathan Lopez's "The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren" makes for a terrific read, even by flashlight as you lay on top of sweat-soaked sheets wishing you'd thought to buy a battery-operated fan before Hurricane Ike struck. -- The Houston Chronicle, September 24, 2008

A wonderful book and perfectly done. -- The Compulsive Reader, August 9, 2008

First-rate research and narrative skill propel this tale of greed, war and skillful manipulation of the popular imagination. -- Kirkus, July 1, 2008

Jonathan Lopez deftly reveals that the man who made the fake Vermeers was quite a fake himself. -- The Newark Star-Ledger, November 4, 2008

A rich trove of reference not only for van Meegeren, but also for the art world between the wars and the forces that shaped opinions and destinies during that troubled period. -- The New Criterion, November 2008

Published within three months of each other, these two wildly contrasting books about Dutch forger Han van Meegeren strikingly demonstrate that attitude indelibly shapes content... Art historian Jonathan Lopez takes the sterner approach. "The Man Who Made Vermeers" depicts Van Meegeren as a talented, albeit second-rate, painter who turned to forgeries for easy money in the 1920s, much earlier than he ever admitted. Lopez also identifies the artist as an admirer of Hitler as far back as 1928, when Van Meegeren founded a reactionary magazine (unmentioned by Dolnick) that denounced modern painting as the degenerate output of Bolsheviks, "negro-lovers" and Jews in terms quite similar to those Hitler employed in "Mein Kampf." Van Meegeren was an outright collaborator during the Nazi occupation of Holland, charges Lopez, pointing to paintings he did in the 1940s under his own name replete with heroic images of the Volksgeist, "the essential spirit of the German people" touted by the Nazis. This same imagery, Lopez persuasively argues, pervaded Van Meegeren's most successful forgeries. Lopez...extensively discusses Van Meegeren's 1920s apprenticeship with restorer/forger Theo van Wijngaarden (skated over by Dolnick, who prefers to see the artist as a buccaneering individual). Lopez delves into the interactions among shady art dealers, crooked businessmen and experts who were sometimes betrayed by corrupt associates coaching the forgers to appeal to their preconceptions. He shows the wealthy American collectors and dealers who were their initial marks becoming increasingly wary as some of Van Meegeren's 1920s fakes were exposed... Those with a more serious interest in the subject...will close Dolnick's book with an uneasy feeling that it leaves out a lot, an impression amply justified by perusal of Lopez's more detailed and thoughtful work in "The Man Who Made Vermeers." -- The Chicago Tribune, August 23, 2008

Customer Reviews

An Engrossing Story of Painterly Intrigue
Jonathan Lopez has written a stunning book that sweeps the reader up into the peculiar world of Han Van Meegeren, who spent years creating supposedly "missing" masterpieces by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Van Meegeren managed to dupe not only wealthy financiers, such as Andrew Mellon, and important political figures like Hermann Goering, but also major museums, such as the National Gallery in Washington DC. Remarkably Mellon's faux Vermeers hung in Washington until the 1960s, when their questionable and more modern provenance came to the fore. Lopez has deftly managed to write a page turner that also provides the reader with copious amounts of original research. Especially fascinating is the portrait he gives of life in Holland under the Nazi occupation. As Lopez traces out the forger's odd and extravagant life, he also provides insightful conclusions, including the connections he makes between Van Meegeren's strange wartime fake Vermeers and the forger's sinister fascist beliefs. I loved this book and recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in art or history. It's a great read.

Elegant and Authoritative
"The Man Who Made Vermeers" tells the story of Dutch art forger Han van Meegeren in greater detail, with deeper insight, and providing a more compelling sense of historical context than any other treatment I have seen of this subject. The author, Jonathan Lopez, is an elegant prose stylist, and he manages to synthesize an extraordinary amount of original research into a tight and extremely entertaining narrative that combines elements of a real-life mystery story with a wide range of thought-provoking ideas.

At the heart of "The Man Who Made Vermeers" is the notion that forgeries are always in some way "about" the way the present looks at the past. In the case of Van Meegeren, who was an ardent fascist sympathizer, it seems that the forger incorporated, either consciously or unconsciously, the visual repertoire of Nazi culture into the fake Vermeers that he created from 1936 onwards, after his visit to the Berlin summer Olympics. (He had faked other Vermeers in a more 1920s-influenced style before that.) In particular Lopez's discussion of the effect of Nazi Volksgeist painting on these post-1936 "Vermeers" is a tour de force - completely riveting to read and extremely convincing. The way that he ties Van Meegeren's practice as a forger to larger questions of fascist ideology is also quite impressive.

In general, the author's understanding of the historical and culture trends of the era is very solid, as is his knowledge of Dutch art history and of the history of Holland in general (According to the information in the back of the book, he apparently also writes in Dutch, so maybe he is of partly Dutch background.)

As a work of narrative story telling, "The Man Who Vermeers" holds together beautifully. The straightforward structure, swift pacing, and reader-friendly, non-academic tone make for a pleasurable experience from beginning to end. Personally, I found the descriptions of life in Nazi-occupied Holland particularly gripping and really well done. This is an excellent book, highly recommended for readers with an interest in art, criminal enterprises, or World War II history. It is likely to be the definitive book on the subject for many years to come.

A Scholarly Book That's Fun to Read
There are a lot of fun books out there that use artworks as a sort of McGuffin for an elaborate or at least distracting plot. Books like The DaVinci Code or The Girl with the Pearl Earring, for instance, give the impression of being based on art historical research, but they take gross liberties with the historical record (or lack thereof). In a way, this ultimately devalues the artworks such books use as plot devices because readers come to see the art as mere accessories to a fantastical tale.

In The Man Who Made Vermeers, the artworks (or, rather, "artworks") remain at the center of a fascinating history. As objects of aesthetic pleasure, economic gain, or social status, the paintings at the heart of Lopez's story exert exactly the sort of power we have come to expect from art. Their status as fakes only complicates our understanding of the real value of art in society.

The Man Who Made Vermeers proves that it is possible to combine lively prose, an intriguing plot AND original research to create a wonderfully engaging yet scholarly narrative. Because the book's prose is so effortless, the painstaking archival research that the author must have undertaken is not as evident as it might be if the book were written in a more conventionally academic style.

Highly recommended!