The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

Age Level: Adult
Format: Book

In 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, and stole thirteen art pieces. The thieves were never caught, and the paintings were never recovered.

Nearly twenty-five years later, struggling young artist Claire Roth agrees to paint a forgery of a Degas painting in exchange for a one-woman show at a local prestigious art gallery. This is an opportunity for her to regain status in the art world, a world that has named her "The Great Pretender," thanks to an ill-conceived idea of hers three years prior to the novel's opening. When she sees the Degas painting, it pains her to realize that this is one of the thirteen stolen from the Gardner Museum. With her career on the line, she continues to work on the forgery, only to discover that this stolen painting may have some secrets of its own. Told in the first person by Claire, with flashbacks to three years prior and letter excerpts from Isabella Stewart Gardner to her niece Amelia, Shapiro's narrative is based on the real unsolved Gardner Museum art heist.

This novel is perfect for art enthusiasts and for history lovers. Shapiro weaves the facts and the fictional storyline very well, creating a very interesting and hard-to-put-down novel. Shapiro shares her extensive research with readers by describing the techniques forgers use to make authentic-looking paintings. As for Claire, Shapiro creates a character who has made regrettable choices in the past, knows the dangers of her current path, but yet sees this as the only way to rectifying her reputation. Claire also refuses to back down on the search for the truth, even if her investigation leads to danger. Overall, The Art Forger is a fast-paced read that may just make the reader look twice at a painting the next time he or she visits an art museum.

Reviewed by Jessica