Forge
The Forgery of Venus, Michael Gruber, 2008
What does a talented artist do in the age of the death of art? He turns to the forgery of old masters. A very clever and readable novel. The main character Chaz is the son of a famous Saturday Evening Post cover painter who, despite his great talent, is struggling along as a divorced commercial artist. The art scene in New York is in chaos. The artist living in the loft below Chaz is hospitalized when his 9/11 performance piece including repeatedly inflating and deflating world trade towers and falling figures complete with actual dust from the 9/11 disaster causes a riot at the gallery.
Chaz has a drug problem and has been committed a couple times for rehab. He signs up for an experimental program using Salvinorin A derived from a plant used by the Mazotec Indians of Mexico. The drug induces time travel and Chaz finds himself drifting back in time to relive the life of Valazquez, his favorite painter.
Chaz gets a commission to paint some celebrities including Madonna and Kate Blanchett, J LO, and Kate Winslet in the style of various old masters. The magazine declines to use the paintings but they sell quickly, coming to the attention of the German son of a Nazi art thief at the center of post war investigations into the fate of lost and stolen masterpieces. The shady son decides that the forging of lost war booty masterpieces (maybe destroyed in allied bombing of the cities) is a good way to amass a real fortune.
Tiepolo The Sacrifice of Isaac 
As a test Chaz is hired to repaint a ceiling masterpiece originally done by Tiepolo in a Palacio in Venice. He succeeds and is offered $1 million to paint a lost masterpiece of Valazquez; the Rokeby Venus painted in Rome. Chaz time travels to become Valazquez for a prolonged time while he paints the Venus masterpiece. The German hides the Rokeby Venus forgery under a worthless forged painting from the same era which he has purchased quietly from a Museum which has become aware that the painting is a forgery yet sells it as authentic. The German then “discovers” the hidden Valazquez masterpiece under the forgery and sells the Rokeby Venus at auction for $110 million. The German’s confederates are dangerous mafia figures who would not hesitate to kill Chaz to protect the secret of the big Forgery. As long as the world believes Chaz is crazy as a result of his drug abuse, no one will believe any fantasy he tells and he is safe from the hit men.
Valazquez Rokeby Venus 
A cynical, clever look at the contemporary art world in the age of the death of art.