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.
The first piece of art Tetro forged was itself intended to be a fake: a Chagall signed by Elmyr de Hory
You needn’t have heard of Tetro to enjoy this book. Nor is any prior knowledge of the art world required.
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