'NAT TATE' ARTWORK AT SOTHEBY'S
16th November 2011
(2011.11.16)
You might recall the NAT TATE April Fool's Day joke that WILLIAM BOYD and DAVID BOWIE concocted back in 1998.
Well today a drawing by the fake artist entitled 'Bridge No. 114', is up for auction and is expected to realise somewhere between £3,000 and £5,000 GBP in the sale.
Nathwell Tate was the creation of novelist William Boyd, who invented the character to trick the art world. Boyd wrote a fictional biography of the artist in 1998 and is said to have come up with the name as a combination of the National and Tate galleries.
On David Jones' thirteenth birthday, Nate contrived to round up and burn almost his entire output of Abstract Expressionism. Then four days later on 12th January 1960 he killed himself.
The story, Nat Tate: An American Artist: 1928-1960, was the second book from David Bowie's publishing house 21 PUBLISHING and was launched on April Fool's Day at artist Jeff Koon's New York studio.
"All I was trying to show was how something fictitious could be as real as something real," said Boyd. The writer recalled how a few people at the launch were in on the hoax. They included Bowie, who read extracts from the book. One of the other conspirators asked the guests leading questions about the fictional artist.
Afraid of not knowing who he was, many told anecdotes about meeting him and said how sad they were about his premature death. Days after the launch, the story was revealed as a hoax that had been conceived down to the tiniest detail.
The proceeds from today's sale in the Modern and Post-War British Art auction (lot 214) at Sotheby's in London will go directly to the Artists' General Benevolent Institution.
Boyd said he created a "benign Frankenstein's monster" when he conceived the hoax. "I'm being run by my fictional creation and I hope to bring some kind of closure." he stated.
Update: The price realised was a very impressive £7,250 GBP.
(2011.11.16)
You might recall the NAT TATE April Fool's Day joke that WILLIAM BOYD and DAVID BOWIE concocted back in 1998.
Well today a drawing by the fake artist entitled 'Bridge No. 114', is up for auction and is expected to realise somewhere between £3,000 and £5,000 GBP in the sale.
Nathwell Tate was the creation of novelist William Boyd, who invented the character to trick the art world. Boyd wrote a fictional biography of the artist in 1998 and is said to have come up with the name as a combination of the National and Tate galleries.
On David Jones' thirteenth birthday, Nate contrived to round up and burn almost his entire output of Abstract Expressionism. Then four days later on 12th January 1960 he killed himself.
The story, Nat Tate: An American Artist: 1928-1960, was the second book from David Bowie's publishing house 21 PUBLISHING and was launched on April Fool's Day at artist Jeff Koon's New York studio.
"All I was trying to show was how something fictitious could be as real as something real," said Boyd. The writer recalled how a few people at the launch were in on the hoax. They included Bowie, who read extracts from the book. One of the other conspirators asked the guests leading questions about the fictional artist.
Afraid of not knowing who he was, many told anecdotes about meeting him and said how sad they were about his premature death. Days after the launch, the story was revealed as a hoax that had been conceived down to the tiniest detail.
The proceeds from today's sale in the Modern and Post-War British Art auction (lot 214) at Sotheby's in London will go directly to the Artists' General Benevolent Institution.
Boyd said he created a "benign Frankenstein's monster" when he conceived the hoax. "I'm being run by my fictional creation and I hope to bring some kind of closure." he stated.
Update: The price realised was a very impressive £7,250 GBP.
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