| Author: | Wendy Lee | ISBN: | 9781617734908 |
| Publisher: | Kensington | Publication: | November 29, 2016 |
| Imprint: | Kensington | Language: | English |
| Author: | Wendy Lee |
| ISBN: | 9781617734908 |
| Publisher: | Kensington |
| Publication: | November 29, 2016 |
| Imprint: | Kensington |
| Language: | English |
From a Chinese immigrant to a Chelsea art dealer, multiple lives are altered by one act of forgery in this “captivating” novel (Library Journal).
Liu Qingwu doesn’t set out to commit a crime. He only wants to sell a painting—something more substantial than the Impressionist knockoffs he flogs to tourists outside New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the lucrative commission he receives from a Chelsea art dealer is more complicated than he initially realizes. Liu has been hired to create not an homage to Andrew Cantrell’s modernist masterpiece, Elegy, but a forgery that will sell for millions.
The painting will change the lives of everyone associated with it—Liu, a Chinese immigrant still reeling from his wife’s recent departure; Caroline, a gallery owner intent on saving her aunt’s legacy; Molly, her perceptive assistant; and Harold, a Taiwanese businessman with a moral dilemma on his hands. Weaving their stories with that of Cantrell and the inspiration for his masterpiece, this novel “delves into what propels people to do the right or wrong thing . . . Lee focuses on four vastly different story lines, each revolving around the painting” (Publishers Weekly).
“While I was working on The Wangs, which goes deep into the art world, news broke of an art forgery scandal involving an elderly Chinese painter in Queens who was expertly recreating paintings by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn, and other Modernist masters that were eventually sold for about $80 million. I was riveted. Wendy Lee’s The Art of Confidence was inspired by the case and I really admire her layered and unexpected take on the story.” —Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World, in The Millions
From a Chinese immigrant to a Chelsea art dealer, multiple lives are altered by one act of forgery in this “captivating” novel (Library Journal).
Liu Qingwu doesn’t set out to commit a crime. He only wants to sell a painting—something more substantial than the Impressionist knockoffs he flogs to tourists outside New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the lucrative commission he receives from a Chelsea art dealer is more complicated than he initially realizes. Liu has been hired to create not an homage to Andrew Cantrell’s modernist masterpiece, Elegy, but a forgery that will sell for millions.
The painting will change the lives of everyone associated with it—Liu, a Chinese immigrant still reeling from his wife’s recent departure; Caroline, a gallery owner intent on saving her aunt’s legacy; Molly, her perceptive assistant; and Harold, a Taiwanese businessman with a moral dilemma on his hands. Weaving their stories with that of Cantrell and the inspiration for his masterpiece, this novel “delves into what propels people to do the right or wrong thing . . . Lee focuses on four vastly different story lines, each revolving around the painting” (Publishers Weekly).
“While I was working on The Wangs, which goes deep into the art world, news broke of an art forgery scandal involving an elderly Chinese painter in Queens who was expertly recreating paintings by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn, and other Modernist masters that were eventually sold for about $80 million. I was riveted. Wendy Lee’s The Art of Confidence was inspired by the case and I really admire her layered and unexpected take on the story.” —Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World, in The Millions
