Gary Vikan & Noah Charney at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Spotlight: Gary Vikan and Noah Charney

November 07, 2009

Walters Art Museum

Baltimore, MD

Time: 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

Date: Saturday, November 7, 4 p.m.

Pre-registration recommended; books for sale in the Museum Store

Fans of Dr. Vikan's compelling WYPR "Postcards From the Walters"will enjoy this 2009--2010 series of lively on-stage chats, with Dr. Vikan hosting distinguished guests. In this session, he will chat with author Noah Charney, and will discuss Charney’s novel, The Art Thief and issues of art theft. Charney is the director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art. An "after-talk" reception and book signing follow.

ARCA Lecture "The Most Stolen Artwork in History: Crimes and Mysteries of the Ghent Altarpiece"

ARCA Lecture

"The Most Stolen Artwork in History: Crimes and Mysteries of the Ghent Altarpiece"

Yale Art Gallery

Thursday, November 12, 5:30 PM

Noah Charney, art historian and founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), a nonprofit think tank on the protection of cultural property, presents a lecture on the subject of his next book, Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, the world’s most frequently stolen artwork, involved in thirteen different crimes since its creation in 1432. The lecture takes place at the Yale University Art Gallery’s Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall and is followed by a book signing and reception at Atticus Bookstore/Café, where Mr. Charney will be signing copies of "Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World," a collection of essays on the world of art crime and its consequences.

ARCA Featured in "The New Criminologist"

We are pleased to direct your attention to a new article on art crime by Elizabeth Elliot, published in "The New Criminologist."

New Criminologist Special: Art Crime

http://www.newcriminologist.com/article.asp?nid=2175

One of ARCA's primary goals is to encourage the academic study of art crime and create a criminological methodology for the analysis of art crime. Interested academics from any relevant field are welcome to contact us and submit papers for publication in our peer-reviewed academic journal, The Journal of Art Crime. The more scholars and professionals working together to curb art crime, the better off we, and our world's cultural heritage, will be.

Investigating Art and Cultural Objects Theft: How the History of Art Crime Solves Today's Mysteries

ARCA and The Henry Lee Institute Team Up on the Forensics of Art Theft

Investigating Art and Cultural Objects Theft: How the History of Art Crime Solves Today's Mysteries

This special one-day workshop will explore the history of art theft, and the lessons that it can offer to contemporary investigators and security personnel. Over the past forty years, art crime has consistently been the third highest-grossing criminal trade worldwide. Most art crime since the 1960s has involved organized crime, funding other operations, including the drug and arms trades, and even terrorism.

Art crime is little studied, from an academic and an investigative perspective. The combination of scholarly historical analysis with experience in the field can provide the best means to understand and curb this serious threat to not only our cultural heritage, but to impede organized crime overall.

The first half of the program will take you on a tour through the history of art crime with a focus on fine art theft, investigation, and museum security. The second half of the workshop will detail practical methods of using the lessons learned from history's master thieves, and from the successes and failures of investigators and security programs, to suggest better ways to investigate and protect art in the future.

Seminar starts 900am and will be located in Dodds Auditorium on the University of New Haven campus. This seminar is open to law enforcement officers, educators, and the public. Tuition is $100.00 and light refreshments will be served.

The seminar will be run by ARCA Founding Director Noah Charney.

To register please go to www.henryleeinstitute.com .

Smithsonian Announces Upcoming Conference on Cultural Property Protection

The Smithsonian has announced that next year's National Conference on Cultural Property Protection will take place from February 21-24 in Washington, DC . This event "offers insight and proven solutions for new and seasoned professionals in the field of cultural property protection." Session proposals are currently begin accepted and registration will begin soon. For more information, visit the conference website.

ARCA Trustee Uncovers New Twist in California Heist

Anthony Amore — chief of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, head of Amore Associates, and a trustee of ARCA — has uncovered a new twist in the increasingly bizarre art thefts in California. Amore's discovery, which contradicts statements in the press by the alleged victims of the heist, was featured in the October 11 edition of the Boston Herald. You can read the full story here.

CNN/KSRO Radio Interviews ARCA About Recent Art Thefts in California

On October 8, KSRO Radio interviewed ARCA's Managing Director Terressa Davis regarding the recent art thefts in Pebble Beach, California. The heist initially made international headlines because of its scale and significance — up to $80,000,000 US worth of art was purported missing, including pieces by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Jackson Pollock. Now, the story is making headlines for a different reason, since the collectors who reported the crime are now the prime suspects.

KSRO is a CNN affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area and the station sends all interviews to CNN for national broadcast after they are aired locally. KSRO will also replay the interview with Davis tomorrow as its "Live Line of the Week." Until and after then, you can listen to the full interview here.

Why steal artwork?

In a recent edition of the National — one of the leading English language newspapers in the Arab world — journalist Andy Pemberton investigates why thieves steal artwork that is nearly impossible to sell. To do so, he interviewed ARCA's Managing Director Terressa Davis and the Art Loss Register's William Webber, who both dispute the popular misconception that thieves steal art to order. Instead, stolen art is most commonly held for ransom or used as collateral when trading with other criminals.

You can read the full text of the article, entitled "Painting Into a Corner," here.

ARCA Launches New Monthly Newsletter

To keep our supporters better informed, ARCA has launched a new online bulletin. Citations: Updates from the Association for Research into Crimes against Art has already been e-mailed to our mailing list subscribers. From now on, this newsletter will be sent out on the first Tuesday of every month. It includes information on our work, a calendar of upcoming events, and links to important news stories. For future issues, we welcome your input on what other features you would like to see included.

If you are not already on our mailing list, you can join it at our website. You can also view our past newsletter archive online. Thanks for your interest and support!

Letter from the New Managing Director

Please let me introduce myself. In September 2009, I was named Managing Director of ARCA. As such, I'll be running the organization's daily operations, as well as helping to conceptualize, develop, and implement new projects. I hope to continue the great work founder Noah Charney and so many others have begun, but to do so, I will need your help.

Supporters like you have already allowed us to achieve a great deal in a short amount of time. In just the past year, ARCA launched the world's only Postgraduate program in Art Crime Studies, introduced the Journal of Art Crime, published the book Art and Crime, and consulted governments, law enforcement agencies, museums, places of worship, and other public institutions on art protection and recovery cases. In the next year, we will continue these endeavors and undertake numerous others, about which you'll be able to read in future posts on the ARCAblog.

There are many ways that you can become involved in this important work. Show your support by becoming a member, making a tax-deductible donation, subscribing to the Journal of Art Crime, purchasing Art and Crime, or studying in our Postgraduate program. Just as importantly, we need people to donate their time by volunteering or interning. And we are always looking for contributors to our journal, blog, and podcasts.

Thank you for your interest and support. If you have any questions or comments about our organization, I encourage you to email me. And you'll be hearing again from me soon on the ARCAblog.

I look forward to working with you!

Terressa Davis

director at artcrime.info