Warhol After Warhol

Long-time art critic Richard Dorment reveals the corruption and lies of the art world and its mystifying authentication process.

Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003 art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbour in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help.

This call would mark the beginning of an extraordinary story that would play out over the next ten years and would involve a cast of characters straight out of fiction. From rock icons and film stars; art dealers and art forgers; to a murdered Russian oligarch and a lawyer for the mob; from courtrooms to auction houses: all took part in a bitter struggle to prove the authenticity of a series of paintings by the most famous American artist of the twentieth century.

Part detective story, part art history, part memoir, part courtroom drama, Warhol After Warhol is a spellbinding account of the dark connection between money, power and art.

Author Biography

Richard Dorment has had a distinguished career as historian, scholar, journalist and exhibition curator. He was the Chief Art Critic at the Daily Telegraph from 1986 until his retirement in 2015. Among his many publications are catalogues of exhibitions that have been seen in London, Paris and Washington DC. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, his work has appeared in the Burlington Magazine, the Times Literary Supplement, and Literary Review. In 2014 he was awarded a CBE for Services to the Arts.