Summer Reads: Art Crime

I was reading Daniel Silva’s book, The English Assassin, a thriller about European art treasures stolen by the Naziis and hoarded in Swiss banks and it occurred to me to blog about art thievery. Little did I know how many books had been written, or, movies created, about art crime. Here’s but a few that we have at the library!

           

FICTION

VENETIAN HOLIDAY by David Campbell (2006)
Art thief Kate Fujimori, formerly partners with her Japanese husband, Paul, has struck out on her own and is planning to steal a phony Mona Lisa from a gallery in Venice. What follows is a comedy of errors encompassing two other thieves after the same painting; a pair of bumbling monks trying to find the corpse of their abbot; and Kate's unwise affair with a police inspector, whose voodoo-practicing ex-girlfriend is hard at work stirring up mysterious potions. How readers react to this story will depend on their tolerance for violence--this is no cozy--and their feelings for Kate, who, despite being a glorified thug, is pretty darn cool.(Jenny McLarin from Booklist)

(Young Adult level) HEIST SOCIETY (2010) by Ally Carter
After a childhood spent assisting her father, one of the world’s most talented art thieves, Katarina Bishop tries to leave the family business behind when she forges her way into a New England boarding school. She quickly discovers, though, that her past is inescapable. Her father has been accused of stealing already stolen masterpieces from a dangerous Italian billionaire…(excerpted from Booklist)

(Young Adult level ) UNCOMMON CRIMINALS (2011) by Ally Carter
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life: Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners.

ONCE A THIEF by Kay Hooper
It had taken centuries for Max Bannister’s family to acquire their treasures, and now he’s been asked to risk his collection as bait for a master criminal…

ALWAYS A THIEF by Kay Hooper

The priceless, rarely displayed Bannister collection is about to be exhibited—and the show’s director, Morgan West, can’t ignore her growing uneasiness. She’s certain she hasn’t seen the last of the infamous cat burglar Quinn. But she never expected him to turn up at her apartment one dark night in desperate need of her help—help she can’t refuse. The mysterious master thief is playing a dangerous game, and it’s a game that just might get him killed.

(Children's book) FRAMED by Carolyn Keene

This is Nancy Drew, girl detective book #15

Nancy Drew tries to free a prince who has been framed for the theft of a painting

STEALING MONA LISA: by Carson Morton

This will be published in August 2011, but you can put requests on it in our catalog.

With all the careful brushstrokes of a classic, Morton gives us a historical tale of deception and theft surrounding the actual 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Great characters, a captivating tale, and vivid descriptions of old Paris…. (Excerpted from Library Journal).

RELUCTANT BURGLAR by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

If Desiree Jacobs knows anything, it's art. Her father, whose security company is internationally renowned, taught her everything he knew. Most of all, he taught her about honor, integrity, and faith. So surely God will forgive her for despising the one man determined to destroy her father's good name? Special Agent Tony Lucano knows Hiram Jacobs is an art thief. What he can't figure out is Desiree. Is she an innocent victim...or a clever accomplice?

RELUCTANT RUNAWAY by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

Museum security expert Desiree Jacobs doesn't mean to get in danger's path. But when a friend is in trouble you don't just walk away. No matter what your overprotective FBI agent boyfriend says! So when Desi and Tony's date at a presidential ball is interrupted by a frantic Maxine Webb Desi doesn't hesitate to jump in. Soon she's neck-deep in a confusing array of villains. Did Max's niece run away or was she taken? Is she alive or the victim of a perverse ritual?

THE MAN WHO STOLE THE MONA LISAby Robert Noah (1998)

A fictionalized account of the real-life theft from the Louvre museum in Paris in 1911 of Leonardo da Vinci's painting, Mona Lisa by an aristocratic Argentinian who masterminds the operation, his assistant who is a painter good at forgery, and a crippled urchin who is the actual thief.

PAINTED LADIES by Robert B. Parker

Called upon by The Hammond Museum and renowned art scholar Dr. Ashton Prince, Boston PI Spenser accepts his latest case: to provide protection during a ransom exchange-money for a stolen painting. The case becomes personal when Spenser fails to protect his client and the valuable painting remains stolen.

HOMEPORT by Nora Roberts

After an assault at her family home in Maine, Dr. Miranda Jones is determined to put the experience behind her. Distraction comes when she is summoned to Italy--to verify the authenticity of a Renaissance bronze of a Medici courtesan known as The Dark Lady. But instead of cementing Miranda's reputation as the leading expert in the field, the job nearly destroys it when her professional judgment is called into question. Emotionally estranged from her mother, and with a brother immersed in his own troubles, Miranda has no one to turn to...except Ryan Boldari, a seductive art thief whose own agenda forces them into a reluctant alliance. Now it becomes clear that the incident in Maine was not a simple mugging--and that The Dark Lady may possess as many secrets as its beautiful namesake once did. For Miranda, forced to rely on herself--and on a partner who offers her both unnerving suspicion and intoxicating passion--the only way home is filled with deception, treachery, and a danger that threatens them all.

THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN by Daniel Silva

Switzerland's shameful behavior in WWII provides the backdrop for this thriller that opens with Gabriel Allon, an art restorer and Israeli hit man becoming the apparent victim of a double cross. When he arrives to restore a Raphael owned by reclusive Swiss banker Augustus Rolfe, Allon not only discovers the banker dead but finds himself the number one suspect…

THE ART THIEF by Noah Charney

Three paintings disappear simultaneously in Rome, Paris, and London. It appears the thefts are linked.

NON-FICTION

STEALING REMBRANDTS: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF NOTORIOUS ART HEISTS by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg This is on order; you can place a request on it.

This is a detailed look at numerous robberies targeting works by the great Dutch master over the past century.

THE GARDNER HEIST: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST UNSOLVED ART HEIST by Ulrich Boser (2008) 364.162 Bos
On March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as police entered Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and stole fabulous artworks including three Rembrandts and a Vermeer. By a bit of serendipity, a contributing editor at U.S. News, Ulrich Bosner, inherited the file of an art claims adjuster who had been investigating the theft, caught the investigative fever, and tells a gripping story of the search that still goes on today. (from Amazon.com)

ART AND CRIME: EXPLORING THE DARK SIDE OF THE ART WORLD by Noah Charney (2009)N8795.A78 2009

This is a collection of essays by international experts about the nature and depth of the lucrative global business of art crime.

STEALING THE MYSTIC LAMB: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD'S MOST COVETED MASTERPIECE by Noah Charney 759.949 Cha

Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece , often referred to after the theme of its center panel, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, represents the fulcrum between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and may be one of the most important artworks ever made. It is also the most frequently stolen artwork of all time.

Since its completion in 1432, this twelve-panel oil painting has been looted in three different wars, burned, dismembered, forged, smuggled, illegally sold, censored, hidden, attacked by iconoclasts, hunted by the Nazis and Napoleon, used as a diplomatic tool, ransomed, rescued by Austrian double-agents, and stolen a total of thirteen times.

In this fast-paced, real-life thriller, art historian Noah Charney unravels the stories of each of these thefts. (Excerpted from Amazon.com)

THE RESCUE ARTIST: A TRUE STORY OF ART, THIEVES, AND THE HUNT FOR A MISSING MASTERPIECE

by Edward Dolnick (2005) 364.162 Dol

On a frozen February morning in 1994, two men in a stolen car skidded to a halt in from of Norway's national art museum. They grabbed a ladder they had stashed away the night before, and two minutes later, roared away with Edvard Munch's The Scream lodged behind the front seat. This is a true story of art, thieves, and the hunt for a missing masterpiece. This book won the Edgar award.

THE FORGER’S SPELL by Edward Dolnick (2008) 759.949 Dol

Han van Meegeren was a no-account Dutch painter during World War II who dared to forge Vermeer paintings and conned Hermann Goering into believing it was the real thing.


THE LOST MUSEUM: THE NAZI CONSPIRACY TO STEAL THE WORLD'S GREATEST WORKS OF ART by Hector Feliciano 709.744 Fel

MUSEUM OF THE MISSING: A HISTORY OF ART THEFT by Simon Houpt (2006) 364.162 Hou

According to INTERPOL records, more than 20,000 stolen works of art are missing—including Rembrandts, Renoirs, van Goghs, and Picassos. Museum of the Missing offers an intriguing tour through the underworld of art theft. (Excerpted from Amazon.com)

PROVENANCE: HOW A CON MAN AND A FORGER REWROTE THE HISTORY OF MODERN ART  by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo  364.163 Sal

A tight paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries-many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today. (from Amazon.com)

DVDs

THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, starring Pierce Bronson, Rene Russon, and Denis Leary. (1999) DVD

(We also have the version starring Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, and Jack Weston)

Billionaire Thomas Crown, who loves courting disaster and winning, steals a priceless painting in broad daylight from one of Manhattan's most heavily-guarded museums. He meets his match in an intelligent, cunning lady insurance investigator.

STOLEN Starring Blythe Danner, Campbell Scott, and Harold J Smith (2006) DVD

This is the movie version of the 1990 heist on the Boston Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Art as a Response to Tragedy and a Catalyst for Change

This story is about two related paintings painted 50 years apart. Both were inspired by nuclear tragedies in Japan. The first painting depicts the devastation wrought by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The painting crossed Japanese cultural taboos so strong that the artist believed that only Mexico, where life and death are integrated in culture and art, could receive this work. 

The second painting was inspired by the uncontrolled spread of radiation from the crippling of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant by the earthquake and tsunami in March, 2011. It movingly relates back to the first one.

The Story of Taro Okamoto's Myth of Tomorrow

First, a backgrounder article in a November 18, 2008 Time Magazine article on Taro Okamoto's Myth of Tomorrow. It explains why it was painted and how it ended up in the Shibuya, Japan, train station. Taro Okamoto

The Story of the Atomic Artists

Second, you might enjoy a PBS Frontline video shown in July, 2011 about a group of young artists who are struggling against cultural norms to become a crucible of grief and transformation in light of the failure of the nuclear plants at Fukishima. The Atomic Artists 

You'll see a painting they created about the Fukishima meltdown that fits perfectly into the bottom right corner of Okamoto's painting in a spot he left blank in 1968 to describe the unknown future of nuclear power. Moving.

Tools

From time to time I find things useful to the painting process. Here is a color acuity test you may enjoy taking (or agonize about).

According to X-Rite, the people who supply Munsell color products, one out of two hundred fifty-five women and one out of twelve men have some form of color vision deficiency. They've provided a free color test online that you can access here. You simply re-arrange each bar of colors in order from the one on the far left to the one on the far right. XRite Color Acuity Test (Hint: People score better using larger computer monitors!)

The Artist as Civic Advocate

In a previous chapter in my life I belonged to an art society in another city. One evening a city planner came and spoke to us about the demoralizing and dehumanizing effects of ugliness in city environments. He believed that artists have a civic and moral duty, because of our talent and training, to advocate for aesthetic civic environments, and encouraged us to become active.

American author James H. Kunstler, in his recent TED talk, had similar things to say though perhaps more negatively. Here's the link.

In James H. Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about.

"The emersive ugliness of our everyday environments in America is entropy made visible.We can't overestimate the amount of despair we are generating with places like this. And, mostly, I want to persuade you that we have to do better if we're going to continue to project of civilization in America...."

Kunstler calls suburban sprawl "the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." His arguments draw clear connections between physical spaces and cultural vitality.

I thought you might be interested...

Figure Drawing aids

Some people are naturals at figure drawing and the rest of us struggle. The library has a number of artists' anatomy books to help those of us in that second group. A particularly lovely one is Sarah Simblet’s Anatomy for the Artist. It has mylar overlays showing how bones, muscles, and skin affect each other. Sarah Simblet's Anatomy for the Artist

Recently I spent some time on the National Film Board of Canada's website. As I watched Norman MacLean's 1968 classic Pas de Deux, featuring two back-lit dancers, it struck me how useful this video would be for understanding the modelling of the human figure.                  NFB's Pas de Deux

Similarly, Ryan Larking's animated short, Walking, may be helpful for us drawing duffers. Larkin uses line drawing, color wash, and a keen eye for animation detail to illustrate the way people walk at various stages in their lives. NFB's Walking

And while you’re in that website, I dare you NOT to have a look at any of the other videos. Just like I dare you to eat one potato chip.

Nature as Medium: Eco-Art: Environmental Art: Land Art

Since the 1980's various artists, sculptors and painters mostly, have been communing with the land. Many use elements of nature such as stone, sticks, leaves, and flowers as their medium and regard the ephemeral nature of such art as part of its integrity. Others engage in architectural dialogs with the land, some with environmental issues in mind. Here are some resources for your creative dalliance...

Articles
"Earth Artists: Using Nature in Art to Raise Environmental Awareness". Eco Hearth: Come Home to the Earth



Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews with Environmental Artists by John K. Grande, 2004. State University of New York. (This book is in the Tomball Library collection.)


Wikipedia article on Land Art (This has the names of a number of other artists as well as a discussion of the philosophy behind the art)


Artists
Alfio Bonanno (Don't be deterred by the Finnish--just click on his projects!)
Gilles Bruni and Marc Babarit (Click on their 'catalogue' to see artworks)

Patrick Dougherty (Click on the link below his book to enter the site)
Andy Goldsworthy
Tomball Library has a copy of his DVD Rivers and Tides: Working with Time. The camera follows this gentle Scottish sculptor as he discusses his creative process. His rock walls that wind through the landscape, leaf chains that float on meandering waters, and ice sculptures that glow in the sunlight are but a few of the natural media he has used.
David Nash
Michael Singer
Nils-Udo
Bob Verschueren

Flower Painters, Botanical Artists, Botanical Illustrators

I'm looking at Siriol Sherlock's Botanical Illlustration: Painting with Watercolours, drooling over the shimmering translucent flowers and fuzzy matt leaves that are the dazzling stock in trade of  good watercolorists. Yum!  Flower painters, botanical artists, and botanical illustrators have a stunning history and an exotic future.

Here are some websites to explore, some clubs to join, some artists to enjoy. And of course, some books...




Botanical Societies
American Society of Botanical Artists
Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California
Botanical Artists of Canada
The Society of Botanical Artists (U.K.)
The Botanical Art Society of Australia, Inc.


Historical Illustration online
The Romance of Orchid Discovery by John Day. The Kew Gardens (a.k.a. The Royal Botanic Gardens) are featuring an oline version of the Victorian botanical illustrator, John Day.

Floral and Botanical Artists
Ann Blockley
Coral Guest
Karen Klugein
Anna Knights
Jan Kunz
Ann Pember
Billy Showell
Marney Ward
Janet Whittle

Books
Wulf, A. (2009).  The Brothers Gardeners: Botany, Empire, and the Birth of an Obsession. New York: Knopf.
This is about how the obsession with botany and gardening got started in England. American colonies are involved...We have copies of this book at the Tomball Library.

Margaret Stevens (2004). The Art of Botanical Painting. London: Harper Collins.

Pierre-Joseph Redoute (2000). The Lilies. A reprint of one of the most famous historical botanical illustrators, who created these between 1802 and 1816.