Long-time art critic Richard Dorment reveals the corruption and lies of the art world and its mystifying authentication process.

One winter afternoon in 2003, art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector, ringing at the suggestion of his neighbour, David Hockney. The Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in Simon’s collection to be fake, and he thought Dorment could help.

So began a ten-year saga to prove the authenticity of a series of paintings by one of the most famous American artists of all time. Film stars, art forgers, a murdered Russian oligarch and a Mob lawyer would be swept up in the pursuit.

Part detective story, part art history, part memoir, part courtroom drama, Warhol After Warhol is a spellbinding account of the dark connection between money, power and art.

Long-time art critic Richard Dorment reveals the corruption and lies of the art world and its mystifying authentication process. Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003 art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbour in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help. This call would mark the beginning of an extraordinary story that would play out over the next ten years and would involve a cast of characters straight out of fiction. From rock icons and film stars; art dealers and art forgers; to a murdered Russian oligarch and a lawyer for the mob; from courtrooms to auction houses: all took part in a bitter struggle to prove the authenticity of a series of paintings by the most famous American artist of the twentieth century. Part detective story, part art history, part memoir, part courtroom drama, Warhol After Warhol is a spellbinding account of the dark connection between money, power and art.

Long-time art critic Richard Dorment reveals the corruption and lies of the art world, and its mystifying authentication process Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003 art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbour in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help. This call would mark the beginning of an extraordinary story that would play out over the next ten years and would involve a cast of characters straight out of fiction. From rock icons and film stars; art dealers and art forgers; to a murdered Russian oligarch and a lawyer for the mob; from courtrooms to auction houses: all took part in a bitter struggle to prove the authenticity of a series of paintings by the most famous American artist of the 20th century. Part detective story, part art history, part memoir, part courtroom drama, Warhol After Warhol is a spellbinding account of the dark connection between money, power and art.

For thirty years, until 2015, Richard Dorment was the art critic of the Daily Telegraph. Writing almost every week it was his job to introduce, to explain and to criticise for a popular newspaper the most significant current art exhibitions, mainly in London, but ranging throughout the UK, and frequently in Paris, Amsterdam and in New York and Washington. The result is an extraordinary collection of around a thousand essays, of which he has selected 106, and which distil and commemorate in terms appropriate to a serious but unscholarly audience, some of the finest and most memorable cultural events of the last three decades. Ranging from early prehistoric art of the Ice Age to the performance art of today, and taking in nearly all the significant art in between, the book is an astonishingly readable and accessible introduction to the work of the world's finest artists.