Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger

(Paperback)

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Featured on CBS SUNDAY MORNING and NBC's TODAY For over thirty years, Ken Perenyi raked in riches by forging masterpieces, convincing even the most discerning experts that his works were authentic. Growing up as a working-class kid in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Perenyi never dreamed of becoming an art forger. However, when he stumbled upon The Castle, a large crumbling estate in his neighborhood, he found himself in the middle of the New York avant-garde art scene. Under their mentorship, he discovered he possessed a preternatural ability to imitate the works of old masters, an ability that confounded even the most qualified experts and catapulted him to a life of riches. Honest, gripping, and astounding, Caveat Emptor reveals the ironies latent to the art world, while telling the dramatic story of how Perenyi managed to pull it off.

Reviews

"Ken Perenyi lived an extravagant lifestyle off his faked works of the finest masters. Then two F.B.I. agents showed up on his doorstep, curious about a couple of paintings sold at Christie's and Sotheby's, but actually his own meticulous creations." -- Patricia Cohen - The New York Times

Author Bio

Born in 1949 in Hoboken, New Jersey, Ken Perenyi is a self-taught artist who painted his first pictures during the Summer of Love in 1967, having discovered an uncanny ability to intuitively grasp the aesthetic and technical aspects of the Old Masters. A series of fateful events resulted in what was to become a thirty-year career as a professional art forger. Today he operates his own studio in Madeira Beach, Florida.