David Bowie and William Boyd Invented an Artist and Hoaxed the Art World

Boyd’s bio of artist Nat Tate was read by Bowie at Jeff Koons’ NY studio. But, unfortunately, it was all a lie.

Nat Tate was an American artist who lived from 1928 till his suicide in 1960. When Scottish novelist William Boyd wrote a biography about him, the launch caused a significant stir in the New York art scene.

The launch was attended by major players in the New York art scene

The book was launched at Jeff Koons’s Manhattan studio, with David Bowie reading extracts from the book. At the event, the famous art historian and Pablo Picasso biographer Sir John Richardson discussed Nat Tate’s friendship with Braque and Picasso.

The writer and intellectual Gore Vidal and Richardson provided quotes for the book and hinted that the troubled Tate had been a ‘drunk’.

Vidal said that Tate was:

“an essentially dignified drunk with nothing to say. Unlike most American painters, he was unverbal.”

The book, Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960, was published by 21 publishing, whose board members included Bowie and Karen Wright — the editor of the highly influential and respected Modern Painters magazine.

A very brief biography of Nathwell ‘Nat’ Tate

Nat Tate was an only child whose father left when he was three years old, and his mother died when he was just eight. His adoptive family encouraged his artistic talents.

He achieved minor fame in the New York art scene but grew increasingly erratic and drank heavily from the fifties onwards. Tate visited Europe in 1959 and was blown away by the quality of the art there. On his return to the USA, he bought back 99% of the art he had sold. He claimed it was to improve the art, but he ended up destroying it all.

In 1960, he committed suicide by jumping from the Staten Island Ferry. Little of his work survived.

At the launch event, an English journalist called David Lister wandered through the crowd. He later wrote in the Independent:

I was present at the New York launch of the book and watched artists, collectors and critics receiving their copies of the book on Nat Tate and listening in respectful silence to details of his suicide.

American art critics whom I asked about Nat Tate described him as “interesting but not terribly well known”.

Many of those present remembered the artist or had at least heard of him. All agreed Tate had lived a tragic life.

A separate event for the book was planned for the following week in London.

The problem, as you may have guessed from the title of this article, is that Nat Tate never existed. In fact, the above quote from Lister came from an article entitled:

“How a British novelist fooled the US art world” (Source)

The launch party, on the 1st April 1998 — April Fool’s Day — was all a hoax. Boyd, Bowie, Vidal, Richardson, and Wright were all in on it.

How did it all come about?

William Boyd, David Bowie, and Karen Wright were all on the board of Modern Painters magazine. One day, Wright, the editor, wondered if there was some way to mix in a little fiction into the reviews, bios, and articles featured in the magazine.

According to Boyd, this is when he suggested inventing an artist. He created Nat Tate, whose name was a mix of two London galleries — the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. However, it was Bowie who suggested the hoax would work better as a book.

Boyd then wrote a biography of Tate, which included photographs and surviving artwork. The fact that David Bowie was involved increased the media attention. Then there was the added weight of having the launch at Jeff Koons’s studio (he was a friend of Bowie).

Boyd was friends with Gore Vidal and John Richardson, who both came on board. They both described meeting the troubled artist Nat Tate and added their testimonies to the book. Also included were pictures of Picasso and Braque along with Tate’s art — which was actually painted by Boyd.

Nat Tate lives on… kind of.

With all these well-known people claiming to have met Tate, it is understandable why people might be reluctant to say they had never heard of him. However, even though everyone has come clean, the artist has curiously hung around in the public imagination.

William Boyd included Nat Tate as a character in his novel Any Human Heart and was played by Theo Cross in the TV adaptation. There have also been several documentaries about Tate, and his biography has been translated into multiple languages.

Even more interesting (and a bit bizarre) is that an ‘authenticated’ painting by Tate was auctioned at Sotheby’s in London in 2011. The artwork (which was by Boyd) was sold to the TV presenter Anthony McPartlin for £7,250. McPartlin was obviously aware of the painting’s background, and the money went to the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution.

Nat Tate never existed, but it seems he will never be forgotten.