Portrait Of An Unknown Lady La Luz Negra Maria Gainza Thomas Bunstead Translation by Maria Gainza, Thomas Bunstead (translation) 9781646220335, 1646220331 instant download after payment.

In the Buenos Aires art world, a master forger has achieved legendary status. Rumored to be a woman, she specializes in canvases by the painter Mariette Lydis, a portraitist of Argentinean high society. But who is this absurdly gifted creator of counterfeits? What motivates her? And what is her link to the community of artists who congregate, night after night, in a strange establishment called the Hotel Melancólico?

 
On the trail of this mysterious forger is our narrator, an art critic & auction house employee through whose hands counterfeit works have passed. As she begins to take on the role of art-world detective, adopting her own methods of deception & manipulation, she warns us “not to proceed in expectation of names, numbers or dates . . . My techniques are those of the impressionist.”
 
Driven by obsession & full of subtle surprise, Portrait of an Unknown Lady is a highly seductive & enveloping meditation on what we mean by “authenticity” in art, & a captivating exploration of the gap between what is lived & what is told.

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“Argentine art critic & novelist María Gainza’s Portrait of an Unknown Lady takes an unorthodox perspective on the modern-art market, offering a kind of homage to the underworld of forgery . . . Ms. Gainza proves herself a dab hand at concisely digesting artists’ lives, finding delight in idiosyncrasy & social rebellion.” — Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Intelligent & tensile . . . A loose investigation into the nature of art & of memory, scattered with gems of intrigue & insight.” — Emily Temple, Lit Hub, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year