| Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 | |
|---|---|
1st edition |
|
| Author(s) | William Boyd |
| Publisher | Edition Stemmle |
| Publication date | June 1998 |
| ISBN | 1901785017 |
| OCLC Number | 38934333 |
Nat Tate - An American Artist 1928-1960 is a 1998 fictional (hoax) biography by William Boyd.
Contents |
Nat Tate was an imaginary person, invented by Boyd and created as "an abstract expressionist who destroyed '99%' of his work and leapt to his death from the Staten Island ferry. His body was never found."[1]
Boyd published the book as a hoax, presented as a real biography. Gore Vidal, John Richardson (Picasso's biographer), Karen Wright (the then editor of the influential Modern Painters magazine) and David Bowie (a board member of Modern Painters magazine and co-director (with Karen Wright) of 21 Publishing, which published the book) were all participants in the hoax. Nat Tate's name is a combination of two London art galleries, the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. Boyd and his co-conspirators set about convincing the New York glitterati (social elites) that the reputation of this influential abstract expressionist needed to be re-evaluated.[2]
Bowie held a launch party on April Fool's Day eve, 1998,[1] and read extracts from the book, while Richardson talked about Tate's friendships with both Picasso and Braque.
About a week later, a man named David Lister wrote The Independent of London and claimed that "some of the biggest names in the art world have been the victims of a literary hoax", and the story was picked up by other news papers, including The New York Times.[1]
In reality, it appears that few were fooled and most of the big names in the arts world (including artists, collectors, art historian, art dealers, New York based writers like Paul Auster, and editors of literary journals) quickly realized that Nat Tate was a complete fake and that they had been the victims of an elaborate set up.[3][1] Some of the paintings featured in the book were reportedly painted by Boyd and the hoax was made more believable by Gore Vidal's endorsement on the book's dust cover. Also, the photographs of Nat Tate that feature in the 'biography' are of unknown people from Boyd's own photographic collection.
The literary editor of The Independent, who was at the New York launch, said that no one he spoke to claimed to know Tate well, but no one claimed not to have heard of him. Lister stated that he sniffed something fishy, since he appeared to be the only person in the room who had never heard of Tate. His suspicions were confirmed when he discovered that none of the galleries mentioned in the book actually existed.[4]
Karen Wright, one of Bowie's co-directors at 21 Publishing said the hoax was not meant to be malicious: "Part of it was, we were very amused that people kept saying 'Yes, I've heard of him'. There is a willingness not to appear foolish. Critics are too proud for that."[3] Boyd, the main perpetrator of the hoax, agreed, saying "the doubts were meant to set in very quickly."[1]
Newsweek magazine attempted to contact David Lister, the man who had written The Independent, but could not find him, leading them to suggest that perhaps Lister, too, didn't really exist.[1] Dave Lister is the main character of the British comedy Red Dwarf.