What do you think?
Rate this book
Nat Tate: An American Artist: 1928-1960
When William Boyd published his biography of New York modern artist Nat Tate, a huge reception of critics and artists arrived for the launch party, hosted by David Bowie, to toast the late artist's life. Little did they know that the painter Nat Tate, a depressive genius who burned almost all his output before his suicide, never existed. The book was a hoax, and the art world had fallen for it.
Nat Tate is a work of art unto itself-an investigation of the blurry line between the invented and the authentic, and a thoughtful tour through the spirited and occasionally ludicrous American art scene of the 1950s.
William Boyd is the author of nine novels, including A Good Man in Africa , winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War , winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach , winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Restless , winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award.
Praise for Nat Tate :
"William Boyd's description of Tate's working procedure is so vivid that it convinces me that the small oil I picked up on Prince Street, New York, in the late '60s must indeed be one of the lost Third Panel Triptychs. The great sadness of this quiet and moving monograph is that the artist's most profound dread-that God will make you an artist but only a mediocre artist-did not in retrospect apply to Nat Tate."- David Bowie
"A moving account of an artist too well understood by his time."- Gore Vidal
Nat Tate is a work of art unto itself-an investigation of the blurry line between the invented and the authentic, and a thoughtful tour through the spirited and occasionally ludicrous American art scene of the 1950s.
William Boyd is the author of nine novels, including A Good Man in Africa , winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War , winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach , winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Restless , winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award.
Praise for Nat Tate :
"William Boyd's description of Tate's working procedure is so vivid that it convinces me that the small oil I picked up on Prince Street, New York, in the late '60s must indeed be one of the lost Third Panel Triptychs. The great sadness of this quiet and moving monograph is that the artist's most profound dread-that God will make you an artist but only a mediocre artist-did not in retrospect apply to Nat Tate."- David Bowie
"A moving account of an artist too well understood by his time."- Gore Vidal
72 pages, Hardcover
First published June 3, 1998
15 people are currently reading
458 people want to read
About the author
William Boyd
69 books2,506 followersNote: William^^Boyd
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.
Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.
Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.
Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.
Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.
Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.
Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
June 11, 2011
Participating in a prank? Fun. Watching a prank unfold? Entertaining. Reading a work of prank memorabilia thirteen years after the prank unfolded? Meh.
Nat Tate is a fake biography or a real biography of a fake person, depending on how you want to look at it. William Boyd created Nat Tate, “a New York modern artist,” and gave him a slender, basic- facts biography to fool some art critics in the 1990s. It worked. Critics believed the “Tate burned most of his artistic output before his suicide” line and Boyd and David Bowie and Gore Vidal (the prank assistants) had some good laughs, I’m sure.
But despite a pretty interesting premise, this bare-bones biography is just --- not a good read. I don’t know. There are some interesting questions surrounding the work as a whole: no doubt you could have some incredible discussions regarding the general idea and implications of a fake biography, especially in today’s age of memoir hype and James Frey betrayal and what have you. But there’s nothing to glean from the specific details, from the actual reading of the book.
So, y’know, go ahead. View this whole project as a work of art and make it your new trendy coffee table book, if you feel so inclined. Feel superior to those silly art critics. But don’t actually read it.
I won a copy of Nat Tate through a Goodreads' First Reads contest, and it's entirely possible my grumpiness/confusion with this book has to do with the fact that I received the tiny paperback ARC with the blurry photos and not the large spiffy coffee table version with the high-quality paper.
Nat Tate is a fake biography or a real biography of a fake person, depending on how you want to look at it. William Boyd created Nat Tate, “a New York modern artist,” and gave him a slender, basic- facts biography to fool some art critics in the 1990s. It worked. Critics believed the “Tate burned most of his artistic output before his suicide” line and Boyd and David Bowie and Gore Vidal (the prank assistants) had some good laughs, I’m sure.
But despite a pretty interesting premise, this bare-bones biography is just --- not a good read. I don’t know. There are some interesting questions surrounding the work as a whole: no doubt you could have some incredible discussions regarding the general idea and implications of a fake biography, especially in today’s age of memoir hype and James Frey betrayal and what have you. But there’s nothing to glean from the specific details, from the actual reading of the book.
So, y’know, go ahead. View this whole project as a work of art and make it your new trendy coffee table book, if you feel so inclined. Feel superior to those silly art critics. But don’t actually read it.
I won a copy of Nat Tate through a Goodreads' First Reads contest, and it's entirely possible my grumpiness/confusion with this book has to do with the fact that I received the tiny paperback ARC with the blurry photos and not the large spiffy coffee table version with the high-quality paper.
May 14, 2022
Farklı bir sanatçı farklı bir bakış açısı ve hazin bir son. Kısa ama güzel bir anlatım.
May 3, 2019
Si te gusta que jueguen contigo es tu libro. Me convenció y me vendió muy bonito William Boyd su recreación de artista alcoholico y todo estereotipado. Pero en una segunda revisión ya van resonando cosas que escapan a la lógica.
September 2, 2025
Fascinating tiny fake biography, a living artwork
June 9, 2025
Lol
Boyd is a diva and literally does it for the plot
Side quest icon
RIP Nat Tate
Boyd is a diva and literally does it for the plot
Side quest icon
RIP Nat Tate
April 15, 2019
There are several reasons why you probably haven’t heard of Nat Tate, an Abstract Expressionist artist active in New York City art scene of the 1950’s. The first is that Tate destroyed nearly all of his own work shortly before his suicide in 1960. Another reason why you haven’t heard of Nat Tate is because he didn’t actually exist.
Tate was the brainchild of author William Boyd, who had the idea to create the biography of a fake artist and try to pass him off as the real thing. Boyd was on the editorial board for the magazine Modern Painters, and his fellow board member David Bowie (yes, that David Bowie) told him that he should turn this idea into a book, as that would make the hoax more convincing. Boyd wrote a short monograph, detailing how he had seen one of Tate’s drawings in a gallery and been inspired to dig into his story.
Inventing Tate, whose name is a portmanteau of two of the most well-known art museums in England, the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery, meant that Boyd had to invent other fictional characters to support his story. So Boyd created a wealthy patron who adopted Tate and financed his artwork, a gallery dealer who showed his drawings and paintings, and a British author, Logan Mountstuart. It’s through Mountstuart’s diary and letters that we see glimpses of Tate’s personality. Mountstuart became the subject of Boyd’s 2002 novel Any Human Heart. I wonder if Boyd had the idea for the novel about Mountstuart before the idea of Nat Tate, and then folded Tate into Mountstuart’s story, or if he created Mountstuart to support Tate’s story and then decided to expand Mountstuart’s story into a novel?
When the book Nat Tate was published, it featured supporting blurbs from Bowie and Gore Vidal. A launch party was held in New York City on April 1, 1998. Bowie read excerpts from the book, and people in attendance claimed to recall Tate and his unfulfilled talent. Unfortunately, soon after that the hoax was revealed by a reporter.
The story behind the Nat Tate hoax is more interesting than the book itself, which remains a fascinating curio. I can imagine if someone knew nothing of the backstory you could pick up the book and be convinced that Tate was a real artist. The book is full of photos—mostly of people other than Tate, of course. And the three works of Tate’s reproduced in the book look authentic enough to be real 1950’s Abstract Expressionist pieces.
With the proliferation of the internet, it’s hard to imagine such a hoax being attempted now. Not to say that a hoax like this couldn’t happen, but someone would have to work very hard to create a convincing digital footprint for the fictitious person.
Boyd kept Mountstuart’s diary entries about Tate in his novel Any Human Heart. As Mountstuart recounts a visit to Tate’s studio in 1959, an asterisk draws our attention to a footnote at the bottom of the page: “For a fuller account of Nat Tate’s life, see Nat Tate: An American Artist, by William Boyd.” (Any Human Heart, p.334)
If nothing else, the Nat Tate book and hoax are continuing reminders of David Bowie’s everlasting coolness.
Tate was the brainchild of author William Boyd, who had the idea to create the biography of a fake artist and try to pass him off as the real thing. Boyd was on the editorial board for the magazine Modern Painters, and his fellow board member David Bowie (yes, that David Bowie) told him that he should turn this idea into a book, as that would make the hoax more convincing. Boyd wrote a short monograph, detailing how he had seen one of Tate’s drawings in a gallery and been inspired to dig into his story.
Inventing Tate, whose name is a portmanteau of two of the most well-known art museums in England, the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery, meant that Boyd had to invent other fictional characters to support his story. So Boyd created a wealthy patron who adopted Tate and financed his artwork, a gallery dealer who showed his drawings and paintings, and a British author, Logan Mountstuart. It’s through Mountstuart’s diary and letters that we see glimpses of Tate’s personality. Mountstuart became the subject of Boyd’s 2002 novel Any Human Heart. I wonder if Boyd had the idea for the novel about Mountstuart before the idea of Nat Tate, and then folded Tate into Mountstuart’s story, or if he created Mountstuart to support Tate’s story and then decided to expand Mountstuart’s story into a novel?
When the book Nat Tate was published, it featured supporting blurbs from Bowie and Gore Vidal. A launch party was held in New York City on April 1, 1998. Bowie read excerpts from the book, and people in attendance claimed to recall Tate and his unfulfilled talent. Unfortunately, soon after that the hoax was revealed by a reporter.
The story behind the Nat Tate hoax is more interesting than the book itself, which remains a fascinating curio. I can imagine if someone knew nothing of the backstory you could pick up the book and be convinced that Tate was a real artist. The book is full of photos—mostly of people other than Tate, of course. And the three works of Tate’s reproduced in the book look authentic enough to be real 1950’s Abstract Expressionist pieces.
With the proliferation of the internet, it’s hard to imagine such a hoax being attempted now. Not to say that a hoax like this couldn’t happen, but someone would have to work very hard to create a convincing digital footprint for the fictitious person.
Boyd kept Mountstuart’s diary entries about Tate in his novel Any Human Heart. As Mountstuart recounts a visit to Tate’s studio in 1959, an asterisk draws our attention to a footnote at the bottom of the page: “For a fuller account of Nat Tate’s life, see Nat Tate: An American Artist, by William Boyd.” (Any Human Heart, p.334)
If nothing else, the Nat Tate book and hoax are continuing reminders of David Bowie’s everlasting coolness.
March 14, 2021
Más que el libro como tal, lo realmente interesante es todo lo que pasó en torno a él.
March 13, 2024
You work for an art magazine and in a meeting one day, someone says why don't we have some fiction as all of the writing is non-fiction and the response from Boyd is 'let's invent an artist'. Yes it's fiction but it's in non-fiction form and so will be no different. We have moved here from an unreliable narrator to an unreliable author and that is far more uncomfortable. Anyway, this novella is an imagined biography of an imagined artist which fooled the art world, even down to the point of selling one of the paintings from this artist which had been drawn by Boyd. The art world is full of frauds, this is just one in the written form.
If I hadn't read about the artifice of this book, I would have believed that this artist existed because Boyd has captured the style of writing just so. His inclusion of sources such as journals from other artists as well as his lover's journal but most of all the photographs, provide the authenticity to the book. Boyd says at the end these are photos that he collected from markets. He did insert a character from one of his previous short stories, Logan Mountstuart, but this wasn't picked up on, dare I say because most of us haven't read it. Nor did anyone pick up on the name of the painter and so it became a hoax that would not die. I think what really convinced people that this artist existed was the way that artists of the time were woven into the story. So integral to the ending is Georges Braque, Picasso is in there as well as others from that era. Perhaps it is FOMO when others believed Tate was a real person. Who wants to be considered ignorant about such an important artist and this is what the book plays into in the world of art.
There have been plenty of other books that are imagined biographies or even autobiographies, Biography of X by Catherine Lacey or The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields but what differs with them is that we know they are fictional as we enter them so there is no hoodwinking. So what was the point of Nat Tate?
Well, firstly I suspect, the author's wonder/ego about whether he can pull it off. The answer is yes but Boyd does go on to say that he felt like Frankenstein because as in all of these things, he lost control of the hoax and that is when, I think, hoaxes become dangerous. The ending was ingenious and a perfect way to answer the question of why there is no art left from this person. The second purpose of this book might have been to shine a light on the world of art: how myths and stories around artists are created and how we all buy into them because we want these creatives to be different, to be better, more interesting and, therefore, how easily the world of art can be duped.
I question the motivations for writing a book like this but in truth the boundaries have blurred considerably between fiction and non-fiction nowadays in books and in real life and so this is one more in the library that resides at the lies end of the truth and lies continuum. What is true is that it is very well written.
If I hadn't read about the artifice of this book, I would have believed that this artist existed because Boyd has captured the style of writing just so. His inclusion of sources such as journals from other artists as well as his lover's journal but most of all the photographs, provide the authenticity to the book. Boyd says at the end these are photos that he collected from markets. He did insert a character from one of his previous short stories, Logan Mountstuart, but this wasn't picked up on, dare I say because most of us haven't read it. Nor did anyone pick up on the name of the painter and so it became a hoax that would not die. I think what really convinced people that this artist existed was the way that artists of the time were woven into the story. So integral to the ending is Georges Braque, Picasso is in there as well as others from that era. Perhaps it is FOMO when others believed Tate was a real person. Who wants to be considered ignorant about such an important artist and this is what the book plays into in the world of art.
There have been plenty of other books that are imagined biographies or even autobiographies, Biography of X by Catherine Lacey or The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields but what differs with them is that we know they are fictional as we enter them so there is no hoodwinking. So what was the point of Nat Tate?
Well, firstly I suspect, the author's wonder/ego about whether he can pull it off. The answer is yes but Boyd does go on to say that he felt like Frankenstein because as in all of these things, he lost control of the hoax and that is when, I think, hoaxes become dangerous. The ending was ingenious and a perfect way to answer the question of why there is no art left from this person. The second purpose of this book might have been to shine a light on the world of art: how myths and stories around artists are created and how we all buy into them because we want these creatives to be different, to be better, more interesting and, therefore, how easily the world of art can be duped.
I question the motivations for writing a book like this but in truth the boundaries have blurred considerably between fiction and non-fiction nowadays in books and in real life and so this is one more in the library that resides at the lies end of the truth and lies continuum. What is true is that it is very well written.
August 25, 2025
Intrigued by Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928 1960 by William Boyd, on this reader’s favorite writers
10 out of 10
One of the fabulous advantages of the age of the internet is that you can find so much in the blogosphere, the universe of YouTube videos – there is a lot of waste out there and you can take this useless note as an example, and if you have reached this far, you can stop now and go instead to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iubaa... where William Boyd explains quite a few of his principles, methods of working, preferences for Camus, Chekhov versus Shakespeare and Evelyn Waugh, Rolling Stones versus The Beatles…
From the interview that you can watch at the link provided, you learn that the sublime William Boyd is of the opinion of Vladimir Nabokov, who had said that ‘his characters are galley slaves and he is the man with the whip, they do as he tells them’ and similarly, William Boyd is in control…as for Nat Tate, we find that he could not have been invented today – for we could google and see it is fictional – but Tate is the creation of William Boyd and…David Bowie, who was his publisher…the author is very meticulous and prepares thoroughly before getting to the written page, he writes on paper and then moves to the computer…
William Boyd and David Bowie invented the character – and he says we can call it ‘a novel though it is only eighty pages long, there is enough staff around it for ten novels’ and it had so much life around it, more than he could imagine – in the studio of Jeff Koons, in New York…William Boyd also speaks of the immense, unique advantage that the novel offers readers…only in novels we can find everything about what a character thinks…in real life, we can presume, use intuition and look at the face for clues, but only in novel we have the author who is telling you exactly what a personage is feeling, thinking, all in elaborate detail…
‘It was a very elaborate hoax, and it will be exposed in six months and in 1988 it became a news event, all at the party claimed they had heard about Nat Tate…a sort of April Fool’s Day, out of his control, similar to Frankenstein, now translated into Italian…about Any Human Heart http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/01/a... ...we find that William Boyd became attached to his hero and somehow regretted when he had to die, albeit the author has everything planed in advance and knows where he takes the novel, how will it end and that the protagonist has to die…
There are many details in the Nat Tate novel that make it indeed a very credible ‘hoax’, as the alleged Peggy Guggenheim statement about the American Artist he was a great lover...almost in a class with Sam Beckett who had bad skin...I loved Sam for six months, a record for me...Nat for six weeks at the outside...incidentally, William Boyd is asked in the interview with Tamsin Greig about the criticism that is so acute and omnipresent – I mean it is in so many ways such a blessing to have nobody reading your (admittedly crappy) material and not having to face a barrage of insults, assaults and just write here quietly, with the advantage of imagining some will read this, but with the comfort provided by the reality that they do not…there is this silly thing of likes, and I get some, but then quite a few come from a fellow that gave me quite a number and then I felt obliged to reciprocate and so it goes…he is the only one in this sharing tacit agreement – and it is absurd to ask writers to limit their scope…
We learn a lot about Nat Tate from the journal of Logan Monstuart – and this is an example of an unusual name…’The names of the characters have to have an appeal, ‘if you name a character well, that character will live on the page’…this is one advise from the magician William Boyd – and the boy has both luck and is hit by tragedy when his single mother dies – the father had died drowned presumably, before Nat was born as an illegitimate child…this is the conclusion he draws from the stories his mother had told him – for he is then taken in by Peter Barkasian, a rich man for whom the mother had worked, and his wife, though it is the ‘adoptive’ father that will play a crucial, if potentially destructive role in the life of the American Artist…
With the death of his only known parent, Nat Tate benefits from the money that Peter Barkasian is willing to spend for his education, and he will attend an art school during the summer – a logical move, for the only subject in which the boy had had A level grades had been Paint and Drawing – and he will be influenced by a teacher who was a German émigré, Hans Hoffman, a man ‘with adamantine ego…His dogmatic asseverations influenced a whole generation of American artists…’ and Nat will become one of the greatest…allegedly
Alice Singer is a figure we find about in the very first lines, for it is in her gallery that one of the remaining drawings (one percent of the work…the rest of ninety nine percent will have been destroyed) and she was instrumental in helping painters, sculptors present and sell her work…early on, artists would group and share the expenses of a place where they would show their works, but gradually, Alice singer would take over the expenses and the gallery…
She visited the summer house that had been transformed into a studio and den and saw the works of Nat Tate and she seems to have had an arrangement with the adoptive father, who would buy the majority of the works by his son…according to the journals of Mountstuart, Nat might have been involved in a homosexual relationship – albeit the ‘evidence’ is circumstantial, the journalist will have met the two together three times out of the four he will have visited the apartment – and has had a love affair with Alice Singer, brief as that would be…
There are a lot of details on some other famous painters, apparently Pollock was dismissed as abrasive and not intellectual enough – if at all – by Alice Singer, who cultivated creative men and women with verbiage, enough intellectual capacity to be interesting, charming in conversations – Nat Tate drinks too much from one point on…we also find about some of the clichés of the time, one of which is about the drunk artist, the macho, bullish painter…the tow masterpieces written by William Boyd that I love most are A Good Man in Africa http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/09/a... and An Ice Cream War http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/09/a...
10 out of 10
One of the fabulous advantages of the age of the internet is that you can find so much in the blogosphere, the universe of YouTube videos – there is a lot of waste out there and you can take this useless note as an example, and if you have reached this far, you can stop now and go instead to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iubaa... where William Boyd explains quite a few of his principles, methods of working, preferences for Camus, Chekhov versus Shakespeare and Evelyn Waugh, Rolling Stones versus The Beatles…
From the interview that you can watch at the link provided, you learn that the sublime William Boyd is of the opinion of Vladimir Nabokov, who had said that ‘his characters are galley slaves and he is the man with the whip, they do as he tells them’ and similarly, William Boyd is in control…as for Nat Tate, we find that he could not have been invented today – for we could google and see it is fictional – but Tate is the creation of William Boyd and…David Bowie, who was his publisher…the author is very meticulous and prepares thoroughly before getting to the written page, he writes on paper and then moves to the computer…
William Boyd and David Bowie invented the character – and he says we can call it ‘a novel though it is only eighty pages long, there is enough staff around it for ten novels’ and it had so much life around it, more than he could imagine – in the studio of Jeff Koons, in New York…William Boyd also speaks of the immense, unique advantage that the novel offers readers…only in novels we can find everything about what a character thinks…in real life, we can presume, use intuition and look at the face for clues, but only in novel we have the author who is telling you exactly what a personage is feeling, thinking, all in elaborate detail…
‘It was a very elaborate hoax, and it will be exposed in six months and in 1988 it became a news event, all at the party claimed they had heard about Nat Tate…a sort of April Fool’s Day, out of his control, similar to Frankenstein, now translated into Italian…about Any Human Heart http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/01/a... ...we find that William Boyd became attached to his hero and somehow regretted when he had to die, albeit the author has everything planed in advance and knows where he takes the novel, how will it end and that the protagonist has to die…
There are many details in the Nat Tate novel that make it indeed a very credible ‘hoax’, as the alleged Peggy Guggenheim statement about the American Artist he was a great lover...almost in a class with Sam Beckett who had bad skin...I loved Sam for six months, a record for me...Nat for six weeks at the outside...incidentally, William Boyd is asked in the interview with Tamsin Greig about the criticism that is so acute and omnipresent – I mean it is in so many ways such a blessing to have nobody reading your (admittedly crappy) material and not having to face a barrage of insults, assaults and just write here quietly, with the advantage of imagining some will read this, but with the comfort provided by the reality that they do not…there is this silly thing of likes, and I get some, but then quite a few come from a fellow that gave me quite a number and then I felt obliged to reciprocate and so it goes…he is the only one in this sharing tacit agreement – and it is absurd to ask writers to limit their scope…
We learn a lot about Nat Tate from the journal of Logan Monstuart – and this is an example of an unusual name…’The names of the characters have to have an appeal, ‘if you name a character well, that character will live on the page’…this is one advise from the magician William Boyd – and the boy has both luck and is hit by tragedy when his single mother dies – the father had died drowned presumably, before Nat was born as an illegitimate child…this is the conclusion he draws from the stories his mother had told him – for he is then taken in by Peter Barkasian, a rich man for whom the mother had worked, and his wife, though it is the ‘adoptive’ father that will play a crucial, if potentially destructive role in the life of the American Artist…
With the death of his only known parent, Nat Tate benefits from the money that Peter Barkasian is willing to spend for his education, and he will attend an art school during the summer – a logical move, for the only subject in which the boy had had A level grades had been Paint and Drawing – and he will be influenced by a teacher who was a German émigré, Hans Hoffman, a man ‘with adamantine ego…His dogmatic asseverations influenced a whole generation of American artists…’ and Nat will become one of the greatest…allegedly
Alice Singer is a figure we find about in the very first lines, for it is in her gallery that one of the remaining drawings (one percent of the work…the rest of ninety nine percent will have been destroyed) and she was instrumental in helping painters, sculptors present and sell her work…early on, artists would group and share the expenses of a place where they would show their works, but gradually, Alice singer would take over the expenses and the gallery…
She visited the summer house that had been transformed into a studio and den and saw the works of Nat Tate and she seems to have had an arrangement with the adoptive father, who would buy the majority of the works by his son…according to the journals of Mountstuart, Nat might have been involved in a homosexual relationship – albeit the ‘evidence’ is circumstantial, the journalist will have met the two together three times out of the four he will have visited the apartment – and has had a love affair with Alice Singer, brief as that would be…
There are a lot of details on some other famous painters, apparently Pollock was dismissed as abrasive and not intellectual enough – if at all – by Alice Singer, who cultivated creative men and women with verbiage, enough intellectual capacity to be interesting, charming in conversations – Nat Tate drinks too much from one point on…we also find about some of the clichés of the time, one of which is about the drunk artist, the macho, bullish painter…the tow masterpieces written by William Boyd that I love most are A Good Man in Africa http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/09/a... and An Ice Cream War http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/09/a...
July 16, 2025
Hayattan boğulduğu için ölümünü de boğularak yaşamayı seçmiş henüz 32 yaşında hayattan vazgeçmiş Amerikalı bir sanatçı Nat Tate. İntihara oldukça hassas olmama rağmen kitabı görmeden önce onun varlığından hiç haberim olmadı. Kitapta sanatçı ile ilgili tüm bilgileri öğrenememekle beraber anlatımın yer yer kopuk olması da beni ziyadesiyle yordu. Ancak Everest Yayınları’ nı, değer verip böyle bir kitap bastıkları için takdir etmek de lazım. Hayat oldukça garip çünkü sanatçı 1960 yılında ölmüş, kitap 1998 yılında yazılmış ve üzerinden neredeyse 30 yıl geçmiş. Bir hayattan ve kitaptan yazıldığı süre boyunca haberdar olmama hali her şeyin yanında yaşananlardan ya da sanatçıdan bihaber olma ama senin bu halinden onun hiç etkilenmeyip varlığını devam ettirmesi ve yaşananların hiç değişmemiş olması bana hep çok gizemli ve enteresan gelmiştir. Üzerine düşünülmesi gereken çok bakir bir zaman dilimi, sen bundan yeni haberdarsın onca şey yaşadın ya da çok zorluklar yaşadığını düşünüyorsun kendince’ ama hayat böyle de davranabiliyor insana senden habersiz. Kitabın insanı en çok önyargılı davranma konusunda daha anlayışlı yapma halini seviyorum evet okumak en çok da bunun için önemli! Yaşadığı hayatı yaşamadan, çektiği acıları bilmeden, hayatın ona sunduklarından haberdar olmadan kimse için ahkam kesmemeyi.. Kendi kuşağının en önemli şairlerinden sayılan Crane’nin yaratıcılığının bittiğine inanıp gemiden atlayarak intihar etmesi, bir sanatçının; sanatın hayatında yaşamsal fonksiyon işlevi gördüğünün göstergesi midir? Nat Tate’in de boğulduğunu hissedip aynı çıkış yolunu seçmesi ruhlarının kazandığı zafer midir?
April 16, 2023
This is a very short (67 page) little monograph about the brief unhappy life of the (fictional) American painter, Nat Tate, 1928-1960. The trick is, it's not presented as fiction, but as fact. Author William Boyd is a genius at this particular parlor trick.
The flyleaf includes a quote from David Bowie about how lucky he was to have obtained one of Tate's paintings - particularly because the artist burned nearly all his works just before he drowned himself in wintry New York Harbor. There are numerous real characters in the monograph, including one of my favorite poets, Frank O'Hara, who for a time was employed at the Museum of Modern Art.
It seems that the best source of information about Tate is one Logan Mountstuart, an Englishman who managed an art gallery in New York during the time in question. Boyd reports that much of what he learned about Tate came to his attention while editing Mountstuart's lengthy Journals for later publication. And you, dear reader, can read those Journals in Boyd's later book - some would say his masterpiece - "Any Human Heart," where, indeed, you can find mention of Nat Tate. So well rendered is Mountstuart, it's disappointing to concede that he might not be real. The "Nat Tate" volume even has a couple of photographs of Mr. Mountstuart!
My advice is that you surrender yourself completely to these portrayals, don't worry about where they came from, and enjoy the immense talent of Mr. Boyd. He's written 17 novels and almost every one is fascinating and warmly recommended.
P.S. Nat Tate = NATional Gallery + TATE Modern.
The flyleaf includes a quote from David Bowie about how lucky he was to have obtained one of Tate's paintings - particularly because the artist burned nearly all his works just before he drowned himself in wintry New York Harbor. There are numerous real characters in the monograph, including one of my favorite poets, Frank O'Hara, who for a time was employed at the Museum of Modern Art.
It seems that the best source of information about Tate is one Logan Mountstuart, an Englishman who managed an art gallery in New York during the time in question. Boyd reports that much of what he learned about Tate came to his attention while editing Mountstuart's lengthy Journals for later publication. And you, dear reader, can read those Journals in Boyd's later book - some would say his masterpiece - "Any Human Heart," where, indeed, you can find mention of Nat Tate. So well rendered is Mountstuart, it's disappointing to concede that he might not be real. The "Nat Tate" volume even has a couple of photographs of Mr. Mountstuart!
My advice is that you surrender yourself completely to these portrayals, don't worry about where they came from, and enjoy the immense talent of Mr. Boyd. He's written 17 novels and almost every one is fascinating and warmly recommended.
P.S. Nat Tate = NATional Gallery + TATE Modern.
September 19, 2023
A fictitious biography of a non-existent artist, this is an entertaining novella which I read in one sitting. ‘Nat Tate: an American Artist 1928-1960’ by William Boyd has been on my to-read list forever.
What a stir it caused when it was published in 1998. The New York art world soon realised it had been set-up. The first edition appeared with endorsements from Gore Vidal and David Bowie but with hindsight the clues are there. Logan Mountstuart features as a friend of Tate and regular Boyd readers will recognise the protagonist of Boyd’s novel ‘Any Human Heart’ published in 2002. So, a piece of mischief.
If you’ve read any art biography, or one of those weighty ‘exhibition books’ that accompany major art shows, the tone of this story will be familiar to you. Lots of references to famous artists, the process, the tortured creativity, the successes and setbacks – shown here by Tate’s reverence for American poet Hart Crane – the mentors, financial backers and agents. But there never was an artist called Nat Tate. The book features Tate’s art and photographs from his life but which originate for Boyd whose satire asks questions about the morals and values of the art world, as topical today as in 1998.
An enjoyable novella, beautifully-written in the style of the ‘art biography,’ a confirmation of Boyd’s flexibility and skill as a writer. A convincing hoax. Something different.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-revie...
What a stir it caused when it was published in 1998. The New York art world soon realised it had been set-up. The first edition appeared with endorsements from Gore Vidal and David Bowie but with hindsight the clues are there. Logan Mountstuart features as a friend of Tate and regular Boyd readers will recognise the protagonist of Boyd’s novel ‘Any Human Heart’ published in 2002. So, a piece of mischief.
If you’ve read any art biography, or one of those weighty ‘exhibition books’ that accompany major art shows, the tone of this story will be familiar to you. Lots of references to famous artists, the process, the tortured creativity, the successes and setbacks – shown here by Tate’s reverence for American poet Hart Crane – the mentors, financial backers and agents. But there never was an artist called Nat Tate. The book features Tate’s art and photographs from his life but which originate for Boyd whose satire asks questions about the morals and values of the art world, as topical today as in 1998.
An enjoyable novella, beautifully-written in the style of the ‘art biography,’ a confirmation of Boyd’s flexibility and skill as a writer. A convincing hoax. Something different.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-revie...
January 9, 2018
A very short book, an easy and enjoyable read.
The most enjoyable thing about this book is the story around it, as much as the book itself.
Nat Tate styles itself as the biography of an obscure but highly successful American painter who committed suicide just after destroying almost all of his paintings. In reality it is completely fictional, but uses real people an events to surround the story and make it seem real and plausible.
Having David Bowie write the cover note and Gore Vidal a comment on the back cover, adds to the sense of realism. Apparently many people were taken in after the book appeared, and it is that which makes the whole thing fun. As I read the story there was nothing to suggest that the story was anything other than real, but I do not know enough about the American art scene in the 1950s to know of there are clues hidden in the text that might give you subtle hints. Many of the characters were obviously real and the use of copious photos helps the facade.
Very enjoyable and very well done.
The most enjoyable thing about this book is the story around it, as much as the book itself.
Nat Tate styles itself as the biography of an obscure but highly successful American painter who committed suicide just after destroying almost all of his paintings. In reality it is completely fictional, but uses real people an events to surround the story and make it seem real and plausible.
Having David Bowie write the cover note and Gore Vidal a comment on the back cover, adds to the sense of realism. Apparently many people were taken in after the book appeared, and it is that which makes the whole thing fun. As I read the story there was nothing to suggest that the story was anything other than real, but I do not know enough about the American art scene in the 1950s to know of there are clues hidden in the text that might give you subtle hints. Many of the characters were obviously real and the use of copious photos helps the facade.
Very enjoyable and very well done.
May 26, 2020
On its own this is the very short biography of an abstract expressionist artist in New York during the 1950s. It's an easy, rather forgettable read. But if you put it into context, which is that the book pretends that Nat Tate is a real person even though William Boyd made him up and pretended he was real during the initial publication of the book, it becomes something else. It's a clever little trick that makes you think about the border between facts and fiction and what makes you so sure that you are able to tell them apart. I loved the meta-fictional game this plays, especially when it refers to Tate's friend Mountstuart who's not real either but whose diaries exist in form of another novel written by Boyd.
April 12, 2023
The context of this tiny book is the most interesting part about it. William Boyd explains the origins and evolution of his fictional Nat Tate character at the end of this edition and its fascinating to see the snowball effect one idea has.
The fictional biography is given credibility by the inclusion of photographs and images of people and "Nat's art" and I can't help but wonder if I would have been fooled if I had just read the biography in isolation.
As I said, the mythology around this book is much more interesting than the reading of the "biography" but I'm happy enough to have spent just over an hour or two delving into it.
The fictional biography is given credibility by the inclusion of photographs and images of people and "Nat's art" and I can't help but wonder if I would have been fooled if I had just read the biography in isolation.
As I said, the mythology around this book is much more interesting than the reading of the "biography" but I'm happy enough to have spent just over an hour or two delving into it.
August 20, 2024
I enjoyed this short book very much, although I already knew the conceit behind it and therefore cannot say whether I would have been convinced by it. If anything I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't longer, with more detail - after all, William Boyd has successfully created long and detailed lives for several of his more obviously fictional characters. Maybe keeping this one brief was an intentional attempt to make it seem different from his novels, to add to the impression that it was a different kind of book. The story of Nat Tate was quite believable, but it was interesting enough to leave me wishing for more. I rather liked some of the art Boyd created to support his story.
September 9, 2025
I decided to read this book after really enjoying 'Confessions'. I was also attracted to it when I saw it was about a fictional artist ( I love art) and David Bowie had written a review (I am a Bowie fan).
I have to say I found the book a dissapointment. This is mainly because the lack of detail about 'Nat Tate' , who seemed a two dimensional character. Nat seemed to 'exist' purely as means to talk about the characters who surrounded him.
The final chapter explaining the 'hoax' was interesting , especially as I was unaware of this.
Nevertheless this very short book did not entertain or capture my imagination. Giving it two stars is generous.
I have to say I found the book a dissapointment. This is mainly because the lack of detail about 'Nat Tate' , who seemed a two dimensional character. Nat seemed to 'exist' purely as means to talk about the characters who surrounded him.
The final chapter explaining the 'hoax' was interesting , especially as I was unaware of this.
Nevertheless this very short book did not entertain or capture my imagination. Giving it two stars is generous.
December 28, 2023
I have read all of William Boyd’s published works and I admire his thorough research and ability to capture the ‘feel’ of the times and places he depicts. His early book, Stars and Bars, displayed great insight into the workings of the art world and art auction houses. His creation of a ‘fake’ biography of an American artist was a great joke, made more effective by David Bowie’s endorsement.
This is a short read—I had finished reading it before I had left the library, but admired the use of photographs and quasi-scholarly approach that Boyd affects in the telling.
This is a short read—I had finished reading it before I had left the library, but admired the use of photographs and quasi-scholarly approach that Boyd affects in the telling.
February 17, 2025
It's good to have read one of Boyd's earliest books and see it in the context of his lifetime's work, but although the reader can see the beginnings of Boyd's characteristic style, the story itself is pretty mundane, except as an exploration (as the Goodreads blurb puts it) of the boundaries between fiction and biography. Yes, if you imagine it as a biography, it is a pretty convincing one. But as a novel it is mercifully short and not a patch on the rest of Boyd's fiction.
September 20, 2024
Nat Tate es una obra de arte en sí mismo, una performance, una fantasía que dejó en ridículo a los más resabidos ricachones del panorama artístico de Manhattan, una broma pesada y a la vez una historia triste y romántica.
Para mí, de alguna forma, Nat Tate existió, pues es una historia tan perfecta, tan redonda, tan estereotípica, tan trágica... que debe de ser cierta.
Para mí, de alguna forma, Nat Tate existió, pues es una historia tan perfecta, tan redonda, tan estereotípica, tan trágica... que debe de ser cierta.
January 18, 2022
A lovely short read. The photos are a big bonus and really add to the atmosphere of authenticity for what is really the story of a fictional artist. The author repeats the trick in ‘Sweet Caress’, to great effect there too.
December 14, 2023
Nice short bio/explainer on the Nat Tate hoax! I always thought it was cool that David Bowie was involved. I'd have liked a bit more on how the art critics etc were fooled by it. Nice mentions of characters from Any Human Heart/use of character journals. Good stuff!
March 2, 2019
A discussion of the life and work of an artist.
Overall I found this a bit dull and none of the reproductions / images grabbed me.
Reading time roughly one hour.
Overall I found this a bit dull and none of the reproductions / images grabbed me.
Reading time roughly one hour.
March 28, 2022
This is art.
May 4, 2024
rec from rosie, thru bh. if only we had such memorable names
Read
July 1, 2024prank !
September 7, 2024
4.5⭐️
Enjoyed this more than I thought I would!
Enjoyed this more than I thought I would!
December 29, 2024
Wonderful “faux” biography of a sad artistic life. Great style, mood and sense of place. William Boyd: what a writer.
January 1, 2025
More of a pamphlet than a book. Really just a footnote to Any Human Heart. It would be smart to include in future editions of the novel.
January 14, 2025
Huge fun. The story of Boyd's "hoax" is as entertaining as the fictional Nat Tate's "life".
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews