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Framed
by Tod Volpe
A star-struck thief tells all.
When Tod Volpe was young, his father used to pound the walls of their apartment with his fists and his mother covered the dents in the wall with her son's artwork. This wouldn't be the only art cover-up in Volpe's life; in 1997 he was convicted of art fraud after an illustrious career as an art dealer to the stars.
His trial threatened to expose a scandalous art world characterized by shady dealings, but instead he remained silent, pled guilty and served two years in a federal U.S. prison. Now he has broken that silence by writing a tell-all book.
Volpe calls the art world “one of the most corrupt arenas in society.” News of his arrest spread quickly, not because of who he was, but because of who he knew – his celebrity clients, including Jack Nicholson, Barry Manilow, Harvey Keitel, Richard Gere, Bruce Willis, Penny Marshall, Andy Warhol and Barbra Streisand.
Growing up in poverty, he started taking what he wasn't given, stealing lunch money from the other kids at school. When his school's vice principal told him, “Your kind doesn't belong,” he vowed to find a way to prove him wrong.
After studying art history at New York University, he got his start in the art world by rescuing antiques and collectibles in need of repair from flea markets, then rising to notoriety by opening a store in New York that featured Mission pieces.
In the seedy world of art dealing, peopled by unscrupulous buyers who routinely undervalue items they wish to purchase for resale, and outright thieves, Volpe fit right in. Often he was in collusion with other art dealers, with the shared goal of inflating the price of various objects at auction. Once he had put his store on the map, the rich and famous started coming through its doors.
Bloated with success, Volpe says, “To reward myself, I spent money like it was going out of style, snorted the best cocaine, dined in the finest restaurants and almost drank myself to death.”
When movie producer Joel Silver took him under his wing, Volpe moved to Hollywood. There he lived the good life, driving a Porsche Cabriolet, wearing $2,000 alligator shoes and using embossed stationery, costing $8,000 for a year's supply.
Granted access to Hollywood royalty, he found their appetites for art to be insatiable, as they continually tried to best one another with their constantly changing collections.
Volpe was star struck. Of meeting Jack Nicholson, he writes, “I honestly couldn't believe that he had originated from this solar system with the cosmic energy he's been known to exhibit.”
But soon he found being among celebrities wasn't enough – he wanted to become one himself by getting involved in the film industry, writing screenplays that he hoped his celebrity pals would star in or produce.
When he failed to gain the celebrity he felt he deserved, he turned on those who had it, most notably Nicholson, using art objects, belonging to Nicholson and others, to try to barter his way out of debt.
Oddly enough, almost everyone but Nicholson pressed charges. After an extensive investigation, the FBI charged Volpe with 37 counts of fraud.
Volpe's book infects with the contagion of the art world. It makes one want to rush out and buy beautiful things at any cost, and it is easy to see how he would have had the same effect on his celebrity clients. His tale of fortunes almost-won and lost is compelling reading.
Title: Framed
Author: Tod Volpe
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1550226150
Review written by: Marc Duane Anderson
Reviewer's Rating:8.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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