GLR Taken In by Art Book Hoax
From the Editor:
We’ve been punked! The last issue included a review by Jim Nawrocki of a book, Bruce Sargeant and His Circle, by Mark Beard, ostensibly about the life and work of an early 20th-century artist. For those of you who don’t already know—and many apparently do, judging by the number of letters we received—Bruce Sargeant is a fictional artist created by none other than Mark Beard.
One correspondent, John Harris of New York, NY, wondered if the review could be a “double bluff, and Nawrocki is yet another version of Beard.” Nah. Jim is alive and real and living in San Francisco, a regular and highly valued writer for this magazine. He admits to being taken in—as does this editor and the five (count ’em!) proofreaders who went over this article. Apparently the Beard/Sargeant ruse is not as well known as some of our readers believe.
