Art & Crime: The Fight Against Looters, Forgers, and Fraudsters in the High-Stakes Art World

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Here are stories of high-stakes, brazen art crimes from around the world with new insights on ongoing cases by two journalists counted among the most 100 influential people in the art business. "True crime fans and aficionados of culture will appreciate this dive into the dark side of the art world." -Publishers Weekly The art world is one of the most secretive-and largely unregulated-of global businesses, and the list of its crimes run long and deep. The extent of the economic and cultural damage that results from criminality in the global art scene rarely comes to light. By turns thrilling, disturbing, and unbelievable, the cases explored in this book include "artnapping"-stealing art to collect a ransom-tax fraud, forgery, money laundering, and illegal excavations. The book includes coverage of- The 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the LouvreA 2017 sensational case of a 220 lb Canadian gold coin from Berlin's Bode MuseumThe Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heistA section on the thriving market for Mondigliani forgariesThe ill-gotten art collection of former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda MarcosArt stolen by the Nazis during WWII, and the enduring business of forgeries of Hitler's own paintingsPresident Donald Trump's practice of using his charitable fund to buy art, including a portrait of himself True crime and art history lovers will devour this thoroughly researched and fascinating book.

Reviews

"In Art & Crime, German journalists Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm detail the doings of a rogues gallery of art scammers, rascals and outright thieves. The action ranges from European watering holes to the New York townhouse of Imelda Marcos to the free port warehouses of Geneva and Singapore, where works of art, legally obtained and otherwise, can be discreetly traded."The Washington Post

"Thetales they tell in Art and Crime are hair-raising. Some are well known and go back decades; others are more recent and involve prominent international figures."Financial Times

"In this engrossing account, Koldehoff and Timm (False Pictures, Real Money) survey the link between art and crime, starting with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and including such recent sensational cases as the 2017 theft of a 220-lb. Canadian gold coin from Berlins Bode Museum. The authors make the case that in todays unregulated art world, many crimes are committed for laundering drug money or hiding stolen assets. (To this day, the FBI suspects the Mafia was behind the unsolved 1990 robbery of 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.) While most readers know about the art stolen by the Nazis during WWII, it will be news to many that forgeries of Hitlers own paintings, most of them fake according to one expert, remain a lucrative business. One chapter, The Fakes President, describes how President Trump siphoned funds from his charitable fund to buy art, including a portrait of himself. The authors also cover how, when Trump had the Bonwit Teller building demolished to build Trump Tower, he reneged on his promise to preserve the buildings Art Deco friezes and donate them to the Metropolitan Museum of Artwhich was technically not a crime. Assured prose bolsters these fascinating tales. True crime fans and aficionados of culture will appreciate this dive into the dark side of the art world. (Dec.)"
Publishers Weekly

"The theft of the Mona Lisa and Hitler's collection of looted art: both figure in this tomebyjournalists Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm.The book mulls the art world's obsession with crime, stopping along the way to peel back the mystery surrounding a charitable fund from whichDonald Trump allegedly diverted money in order to buy paintings."
ArtNews

"There are so many exciting stories in this book that read like any crime thriller by Agatha Christie."
WDR 5

"An incredible book...It's as exciting to read as any thriller and is yet so carefully researched that none of it can be attributed to the imagination of Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm" Laura Helena Wurth, Der Freitag

A clearly organised, sharply written and engaging addition to the genre of art-market crime compendiums.
Ben Lewis, The Art Newspaper

Author Bio

STEFAN KOLDEHOFF, born in 1967, is culture editor at Deutschlandfunk in Cologne, and writes for Die Zeit and art - Das Kunstmagazine among other publications. In 2008 he received the Puk journalist prize for his investigative research. In 2012, he and Tobias Timm published False Pictures, Real Money on the Beltracchi case. The book was awarded the Prix Annette Giacometti and the Otto Brenner Prize. Galiani also published his books The Pictures Are Among Us- The Nazi-Looted Art Business and the Gurlitt Case (2014) and Me and Van Gogh- Pictures, Collectors and Their Adventurous Stories (2015). TOBIAS TIMM, born in 1975 in Munich, studied urban ethnology, history, and cultural studies in Berlin and New York. He writes for Die Zeit's feature pages from Berlin on architecture, art, and crime. In 2012, he and Stefan Koldehoff published Fake Paintings, Real Money on the Beltracchi case. The book was awarded the Prix Annette Giacometti and the Otto Brenner Prize. Both authors were recently counted among the 100 most influential people in the art business by the national German magazine monopol.