Edward Dolnick
Masterworks from the Garden Shed
A Forger’s Tale: Confessions of the Bolton Forger
By Shaun Greenhalgh
Allen & Unwin 369pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
Forgers, you might think, are the cool kids in the world of art crime: smart, cynical conmen with scads of stories to tell. Who could be better company? But it isn’t so. Most forgers are sour and sullen, for theirs is a hard fate. For starters, their work forces them to lurk in the shadows, forbidden ever to step into the open and bask in praise and prizes. Worse, they are victims of a cosmic prank. Although blessed with technical flair – the great exception was the notoriously inept Dutch forger Han van Meegeren – they have not been granted creativity. This is a kind of fairytale curse, like having a gift for languages but nothing to say.
Such, Shaun Greenhalgh tells us, is his own predicament. Although he was able convincingly to fake artworks spanning a remarkable range – from paintings supposedly found in ancient Egyptian tombs to sculptures ‘by’ Barbara Hepworth and Gauguin – his own work went unheeded. ‘So much for being an artist,’ Greenhalgh
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'As we examined more and more data from the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters ... we were amazed to find that there is almost never a case for permanently moving people out of the contaminated area after a big nuclear accident.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying
'This problem has dogged Labour’s efforts to become the "natural party of government", a sobriquet which the Conservatives have acquired over decades, despite their far less compelling record of achievement.'
Charles Clarke on Labour's civil wars.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/comrade-versus-comrade
'Lamb has always attracted admirers ... Yet, as Eric G Wilson observes, "Dream-Child" is the first full-scale biography in over a century.'
Edward Weech on the life and work of Charles Lamb.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-man-with-the-golden-pun