Pei-Shen Qian: Qian Peichen hua ji 钱培琛画集 de Qian, Pei-Shen 钱培琛 - 2006

Beijing: BB Gallery BB画廊, 2006. Hardcover. 164p., very good hardcover, clothbound boards titled in gilt in a dustjacket with two spots of abrasion on the rear panel, some scuffing and rising of the laminate on the spine. Thoroughly illustrated in color, with text in Chinese and English. Published in an edition of 1500 copies. At the time this collection of Qian's paintings was published, he was a little-known Chinese immigrant toiling in artistic obscurity in a New York apartment. In 2013, however, it emerged that he had been the artist behind a series of forged works attributed to prominent 20th century painters that had netted some $80 million on the international art market. The infamous works in question were not imitations of known paintings, but new creations so convincingly channeling the style and method of the original artists that they were accepted as genuine by authenticators and collectors. (Qian holds that he never meant for the paintings to be mistaken for or marketed as genuine articles). Now that the full story has come to light, critics have turned to Qian's previously published works in search of stylistic and thematic connections to his forgeries.