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The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren
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..
Price: $16.38
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The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art. It was an almost perfect crime. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. But, as Edward Dolnick reveals, the reason for the forger's success was not his artistic skill. Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist. His true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling both the Nazis and the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life. ARTnews called Dolnick's previous book, the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist, "the best book ever written on art crime." In The Forger's Spell, the stage is bigger, the stakes are higher, and the villains are blacker. .
Price: $15.25
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Chasing Vermeer
When a book of unexplainable occurences brings Petra and Calder together, strange things start to happen: Seemingly unrelated events connect; an eccentric old woman seeks their company; an invaluable Vermeer painting disappears. Before they know it, the two find themselves at the center of an international art scandal, where no one is spared from suspicion. As Petra and Calder are drawn clue by clue into a mysterious labyrinth, they must draw on their powers of intuition, their problem solving skills, and their knowledge of Vermeer. Can they decipher a crime that has stumped even the FBI? .
Price: $2.89
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Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
“Elegant and quietly important…Brook does more than merely sketch the beginnings of globalization and highlight the forces that brought our modern world into being; rather, he offers a timely reminder of humanity’s interdependence.”—Seattle Times A painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. I n another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer’s images captivate us with their beauty and mystery: What stories lie behind these stunningly rendered moments? As T imothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. Moving outward from Vermeer’s studio, Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe. Vermeer’s Hat shows how the urge to acquire foreign goods was refashioning the world more powerfully than we have yet understood. .
Price: $10.50
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Vermeer: The Complete Works
Following the blockbuster exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., this book presents the complete works of the great Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Oversize, full-page color plates of each of Vermeer's 35 known masterpieces capture the luminosity and the remarkable originality of the paintings and make this the next best thing to actually having attended the sold-out show. 68 illustrations, including 44 in full color..
Price: $11.96
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Girl with a Pearl Earring
History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the story of sixteen-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius ... even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil..
Price: $1.38
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Girl in Hyacinth Blue
This luminous story begins in the present day, when a professor invites a colleague to his home to see a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer--but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of events that trace the ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration. As the painting moves through each owner's hands, what was long hidden quietly surfaces, illuminating poignant moments in multiple lives. Vreeland's characters remind us, through their love of this mysterious painting, how beauty transforms and why we reach for it, what lasts and what in our lives is singular and unforgettable. Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the Christian Science Monitor, and the San Francisco ChronicleNominated for the Book Sense Book of the Year.
Price: $1.50
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Vermeer: 2009 Wall Calendar
The late-Renaissance Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer created some of the most exquisite paintings ever put on canvas. He captured men and women transfixed in quiet, meditative moments using dramatic lighting and perspective to effect a moody and poetic ambience. Each luminous and beautifully detailed image in Vermeer 2009 invites serene reflection and continued appreciation. Featuring sumptuous reproductions of Vermeer paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Louvre, and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam..
Price: $11.19
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Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice
Johannes Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters and for some the single greatest painter of all, produced a remarkably small corpus of work. In Vermeer's Family Secrets, Benjamin Binstock revolutionizes how we think about Vermeer's work and life. Vermeer, The Sphinx of Delft, is famously a mystery in art: despite the common claim that little is known of his biography, there is actually an abundance of fascinating information about Vermeer's life that Binstock brings to bear on Vermeer's art for the first time; he also offers new interpretations of several key documents pertaining to Vermeer that have been misunderstood. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 black and white images and more than sixty color plates, the book also includes a remarkable color two-page spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer's oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating his gradual formal and conceptual development. No book on Vermeer has ever done this kind ofvisual comparison of his complete output. Like Poe's purloined letter, Vermeer's secrets are sometimes out in the open where everyone can see them. Benjamin Binstock shows us where to look. Piecing together evidence, the tools of art history, and his own intuitive skills, he gives us for the first time a history of Vermeer's work in light of Vermeer's life. On almost every page of Vermeer's Family Secrets, there is a perception or an adjustment that rethinks what we know about Vermeer, his oeuvre, Dutch painting, and Western Art. Perhaps the most arresting revelation of Vermeer's Family Secrets is the final one: In response to inconsistencies in technique, materials, and artistic level, Binstock posits that several of the paintings accepted as canonical works by Vermeer, are in fact not by Vermeer at all but by his eldest daughter, Maria. How he argues this is one of the book's many pleasures. .
Price: $27.00
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Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (The Classical Art Series)
Since his rediscovery in the later half of the 19th century, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) has been one of the most admired and influential European painters. His extremely private life, his supposed use of a camera obscura, and the fact that his teacher remains unidentified have, until recently, encouraged a view of the “Sphinx of Delft” as an isolated genius shrouded in an air of mystery. Walter Liedtke’s new monograph reveals Vermeer’s life to be well-documented and places his work in the context of the Delft school and of Delft society as a whole. Vermeer’s many admirers will relish Liedtke’s exploration of subtleties of meaning and refinements of technique and style. Alongside the most historical approach to Vermeer to date, the annotated color catalogue of Vermeer’s complete paintings reveals a master whose rare sensibility may be described but not explained. .
Price: $78.75
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