All That Glitters

Peta's Review 

Art heists have an air of glamour – swarthy men in tuxedos, women dripping in glittering jewels, all sipping champagne at some well-heeled party – but as Shakespeare reminds us, all that glitters is not gold. Orlando Whitfield’s new book All That Glitters is in essence a memoir, a story of a friendship shattered by hubris. But it is also an inside account of the machinations of the art world, and how the basic driving force is not the love of a beautiful object, but pure greed. The love of money.

Orlando Whitfield and Inigo Philbrick met at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2007, both enrolled in an art history degree. Whitfield was drawn to Inigo like a moth to the light; a light that was, however, to eventually cast a dark shadow over Whitfield’s life.  By 2018 Whitfield found himself in a psychiatric hospital in suicide watch. By 2022, Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in prison for art fraud, estimated to be in the vicinity of US$86m. What happened in the intervening years leading to these events is told by Whitfield, who knows full well that in the telling, his friendship with Philbrick will be irrevocably broken. His story is effectively Whitfield’s catharsis, through which he tries to pick up the pieces of his life. He pieces the trail of fraudulent transactions together from emails and text messages from Philbrick, newspaper reports, art dealers and court transcripts. But the question below the surface becomes: is this Whitfield’s story to tell? Various interviews by Whitfield after the release of the book show that he remains deeply affected by the whole affair. Interestingly though, in the book’s final sentence, he writes that people, even failed art dealers, deserve a second chance; he writes of his “sincere wish that Inigo should have one too.” If you can believe the internet gossip, Philbrick is getting just that: out of prison, married to Chelsea socialite Victoria Baker-Harber, and planning his comeback to the world of art! I sense that we will be seeing another memoir soon, this time penned by Philbrick.

For anyone who likes a ‘who dunnit’ (although it is more of a ‘how dunnit’) and enjoys deep diving into the fascinating world of art, money, underhand double dealings and fraud, then All That Glitters definitely fits the bill.  Whitfield gives us an intimate insight into a world of opulence, greed and ambition, in which the driving force is paint on a piece of canvas. A book that will certainly keep you engrossed till the last page.

Gabi’s Review 

Orlando Whitfield, the author of this biography, started dealing art with his enigmatic friend Inigo Philbrick while both were students at Goldsmiths University in the UK. Graduating in 2009, they worked as collaborators and associates around the art market for over a decade. Philbrick, whose personal success far eclipsed Whitfield’s, was arrested by the FBI in Vanuatu in 2020 and brought to the USA for trial. He was the pivotal player in one of the biggest art frauds in history, accused of duping art investors of $86m. 

Whitfield writes in a wide-eyed lamb guileless style as he describes his wild and ultimately reluctant association with the uber-charismatic, ruthless Philbrick. Both were highly credentialed young men (Whitfield’s father directed the auction house Christies, while Philbrick was the head of department at a museum in Connecticut). They were thus well placed to trade in the secondary art market, whose speculative assets require entrepreneurship, coupled with intense ambition and a salesman’s opportunism. But Whitfield could never have envisioned the high stakes compromises his partner was prepared to engage with. 

As it unfolds, the story of the decade of their business interactions becomes increasingly astounding: from attempts to prise free Banksy’s work in absurd locations, to shady hotel cash exchanges and vast overvaluations for worthless creations. This exhilarating and always surprising read reveals the unregulated secondary art market as an asset bubble akin to the Wild West, and in which dealings with the world’s mega-wealthy defy belief, involving eye-watering sums of money and a confounding indifference to integrity. You couldn’t gift a more sensational story to the non-fiction lovers in your clan.

Publishers Reviews

'One of the hottest memoirs of 2024' - Sunday Times Style

A Guardian 'Books to look out for in 2024' pick and a Financial Times 'What to Read in 2024' pick.

'An art world Great Gatsby, deliciously withering and dishy.' - Patrick Radden Keefe

'Delicious, sharp and often breathtaking' - Megan Nolan

'A brilliant, devastating expose' - William Boyd

DECEPTION IS A FINE ART.

When Orlando Whitfield first meets Inigo Philbrick, they are students dreaming of dealing art for a living. Their friendship lasts for fifteen years until one day, Inigo - by then the most successful dealer of his generation - disappears, accused of a fraud so gigantic and audacious it rocks the art world to its core.

A sparklingly sharp memoir of greed, ambition and madness, All That Glitters will take you to the heart of the contemporary art world, a place wilder and wealthier than you could ever imagine.