Benoit Landais

Quatre Faux Van Gogh D'arles Parlent Benoit Landais

Publisher Marketing: C'est du haut du panier d'Arles qu'il est ici question: Les Tournesols, tableau le plus cher du monde en 1987; Le Portrait a la pipe et a l'oreille bandee icone partout rencontree; L'Arlesienne dont le Musee d'Orsay et le Metropolitan se partagent l'effigie, La Berceuse enfin, seul Van Gogh cinq fois peint par Vincent. Voila le carre d'as: quatre toiles, quatre joyaux... Quatre faux! Chacun de ces tableaux est une replique et tous sont apparus a la meme periode et au meme endroit, a Paris entre 1893 et 1904 chez Emile Schuffenecker ou dans son cercle etroit. Les provenances qui les tenaient jusqu'ici a l'abri des soupcons sont des fictions. La Correspondance les ignore ou les ecarte quand elle evoque et celebre leurs modeles. Schuff, l'ami de Gauguin, le professeur de dessin, un faussaire de genie ? Meme pas ! Juste un laisse pour compte de la gloire, un besogneux qui se trouvait la au bon moment. Un jaloux neglige par la critique avide de vengeance. Les copies ne resistent pas a l'examen et les differences entre originaux et repliques les accusent. Ces pages les deshabillent patiemment et rendent caducs les raisonnements qui avaient conduit a les garantir, a les designer a l'admiration. Les toiles parlent, il suffit d'entendre ce qu'elles ont a dire." Contributor Bio:  Landais, Benoit Hanspeter Born is a Swiss investigative reporter and author. As chief foreign correspondent for the Zurich Weltwoche he covered major stories like the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos, the civil war in Nicaragua, the fall of the Berlin wall, the wars in former Yugoslavia and the American presidential campaigns since 1980. In the book Fur die Richtigkeit Kurt Waldheim examined the former UN-secretary general's wartime past (Schneekluth, 1987). Born's account of a Swiss murder case Mord in Kehrsatz (ABC-Weltwoche Verlag1989) led to a retrial and made it to the top of the Swiss Bestseller List. With Benoit Landais, he wrote Die verschwundene Katze, an investigation into the forging of van Gogh's Jardin de Daubigny (Echtzeit, Basel 2009). His essay "Why Greene was Angry at Shakespeare" was published by Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England (2012). Benoit Landais is a French writer and van Gogh specialist. As the son of Hubert Landais, the former Director of the French National Museums, he grew up steeped in art. Landais dropped out of university to become a labourer in a factory in Grenoble and to engage in political activities. He also built a 14 meter steel-boat and in 1986 he sailed a catamaran around the world. In the award winning book J'essaie la Mer (Editions Ecole des Loisirs, 1989) he wrote about his 16 months voyage following up with a seafaring novel Delire a bord (Ancre de Marine, 1996). By 1990 he had settled down in Holland to devote his time to the full-time study of the life and works of Vincent van Gogh. His research convinced him that many of the paintings attributed to Vincent were not by the Dutchman's own hand. In 1999 he published his ground-breaking book on one of the first van Gogh forgers, L'audace des bandits - L'affaire Gachet (Editions du Layeur). Another of Landais' books Van Gogh: Original oder Falschung? Der Streit um die Sammlung Marijnissen was published in June 2004 by Rogner und Bernhard in Hamburg.