Dr. Tom Flynn at Terni Waterfall

Tom will be returning to Amelia this year to teach ‘The International Art Market and Associated Risk’. The course provides a comprehensive overview of the art market’s historical evolution as well as an insight into its diverse business practices today. Students are introduced to the market’s key institutions, public and private, in order to develop a critical awareness of the inherent risks and rewards of art commerce. The lecture program seeks to create a relaxed space of intellectual inquiry and exchange in which students are able to ask testing questions of the status quo and to challenge received wisdom about the market and its institutions. Discussions usually continue beyond the classroom to create a continuous forum for debate and informal exchange of ideas. 

Do you have a recommended reading list that students can read before the course? I would recommend that students start keeping an eye on the online market reports from Bloomberg, the International New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Art Newspaper. A comprehensive reading list will be provided closer to the course commencing, but meanwhile any of the following titles would be worth looking at: Dempster, A., (Ed), (2014) Risk & Uncertainty in the Art World, Boomsbury, London; 

Gould, C. & Mesplède, S. (Eds) (2012) Marketing Art in the British Isles, 1800 to the Present: A Cultural History, London, Ashgate; 

Fletcher, P. & Helmreich, A. (Eds) (2011) The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London: 1850-1939, Manchester University Press; 

Degen, N. (Ed) (2013) The Market: Documents of Contemporary Art, London, Whitechapel; 

Barragán, P. (2008) The Art Fair Age, Milan, Charta; Flynn, T. & Barringer, T. (Eds) (1997) Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum, London, Routledge

Ms. Straus is an accomplished professional with a successful career in providing solutions on art and insurance matters, globally. She is widely recognized for her expertise in insurance and risk transfer needs of museums and cultural institutions, auction houses, galleries and private collectors. She has broad proficiency in legal issues relating to confiscation, repatriation and provenance.... For over 30 years, Dorit Straus has been an important contributor to the fine art insurance industry. She has authored commentary on the implications of art theft on the insurance industry and on insuring art. She currently serves on the faculty of ARCA (the Association for Research on Crimes Against Art) teaching a course on art crime and insurance in Amelia, Italy.

Richard Ellis, retired Scotland Yard detective

An act allowing the heirs of Holocaust victims get more powerful leverage to claim their property, i.e. the works of art looted by the Nazis, is being debated by Bavarian legislature.The bill is named after Cornelius Gurliit - a Munich pensioner and owner of a spectacular collection of modernist paintings, drawings and watercolors. The Art Management Group and former Head of the Art and Antiques Union of Scotland Yard Richard Ellis and Gurlitt’s representative Stephan Holzinger explained to the Voice of Russia the legal aspects of the intricate "treasure hunt".

The trafficking of antiquities internationally, focusing on the last 50 years, and especially the developments in the illicit trade since 2005, using case studies throughout. We will start with a historical introduction, then survey the leading dealers of the international market. The central session of the course will consider the roles of auction houses, museums and galleries. Focusing on Greece, Italy, the UK and the USA, we will discuss the level of proof needed for a successful claim and repatriation, before we examine various strategies proposed for regulating the market in the future. Lectures will be combined with interactive discussion sessions.

CHIPPINDALE, CHRISTOPHER & DAVID W. J. GILL. 2000. Material consequences of contemporary classical collecting, American Journal of Archaeology 104:463-511. 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/507226

MEYER, KARL E. 1977. The Plundered Past. Atheneum (NY): Hamish Hamilton. 

O’KEEFE, PATRICK J. 1997. Trade in Antiquities: Reducing Destruction and Theft. London: Archetype Publications and UNESCO.

RENFREW, A. COLIN. 2006. Loot, legitimacy and ownership. London: Duckworth.

*WATSON, PETER & CECILIA TODESCHINI. 2007. The Medici conspiracy. New York (NY): Public Affairs.

Judge Arthur Tompkins, an instructor in ARCA's academic program, will be discussing 'Stealing Beauty' at the University of Auckland Law School on Friday October 6.

"Art always suffers during wartime. From the sack of the Temple of Solomon, through the many crimes committed against the Ghent Altarpiece, and the depredations of Napoleon and Hitler across Europe, this has always been so. This lecture will survey fascinating examples of these sorts of crimes, the people involved, and some of the stories and myths surrounding them. 

As well as the Ghent Altarpiece, the lecture will include the long history of the Four Horses of San Marco's Basilica in Venice, the theft of Veronese's Wedding at Cana, the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, the miracle of the Alt Aussee salt mine, the survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, and the bizarre story connecting Goya, the Duke of Wellington, James Bond, and television licensing fees."

Mr. Ellis: I use Michel van Rijn to illustrate not only the importance of "informants" to the criminal investigator, but also the problems that "informants" can create for an investigator and hence the care that must be used when dealing with such individuals. I play an interview that I recorded with Michel in 2004 at the request of the Dutch Government, which was played to an EU conference to illustrate how criminals fabricate provenance and the difficulties that this presents for all those involved in cultural property. I am still in contact with Michel, which provides me with a constant insight in to the darker side of the art market. Michel will of course help the authorities if it is in his interest to do so and this is another reason why I introduce him to the students. Understanding why people become informants is essential to being able to use them and the information that they provide safely and legally and this is another part of the scope of my course. Understanding why people become involved in cultural property crimes, their motives and expectations will assist the investigator in reaching a successful outcome to a case.

Mr. Ellis: The past three decades has been interesting in respect of the response to cultural property crime by the police in many countries. At the start of the 1980's there was little interest in this area of crime with the exception of Italy, who throughout this time have devoted considerable resources to protecting their cultural property and investigating those responsible for the theft of it. In 1984 the art squad at Scotland Yard was actually closed and its 14 detectives were dispersed on to other crime squads. In the USA the FBI had no dedicated team and only in the police departments in New York and Los Angeles was there any recognition that art and antique crime posed a problem. It was largely due to the restructuring of the art market during the 1980's and the rapid increase in prices that this generated that criminals recognised the potential in art crime. The resulting increase in crime forced law enforcement to adjust and review the situation.

By the end of the 1980's I had reformed the art squad at New Scotland Yard, the FBI in New York were handling an increasing number of international requests through one dedicated office and in Los Angeles an art detail was put in place run by a detective Bill Martin who was later appointed to the President's advisory panel on cultural property crime. During the 1990's more countries recognised cultural property crime as a problem and with the end of the cold war and the opening of international borders the trafficking of cultural property crime grew rapidly becoming a major concern.

The introduction of computer systems during this period, which recorded and made accessible information on stolen objects was a major step forward and Interpol has been able to provide a central record of at least the most important stolen cultural property. France, Italy, the USA and a handful of other countries developed their own databases of stolen cultural property supported by dedicated investigators. UNESCO developed a programme of workshops through which it was able to raise awareness of cultural property crime and by utilising the help of specialist police officers such as myself, it delivered a programme designed to assist countries in protecting their cultural heritage.

There followed a number of high profile cases which illustrated how with the cooperation of these dedicated national squads successful prosecutions could be achieved such as the recovery of the Scream and the prosecution of Tokeley Parry and Fred Schultz to name but two of my own cases. However, as we entered the new millennium, other international crimes overtook cultural property crime in importance for law enforcement. Drug trafficking, people trafficking and terrorism now occupy the top three positions and with the global economic crisis financial fraud has also moved above cultural property crime in importance and I fear that we shall see a gradual reduction in the number of specialist officers dedicated to cultural property crimes. This makes the work of ARCA all the more important as the private sector will now be required to handle the many crimes and disputes left untouched by law enforcement and only through some serious academic research to demonstrate the true scale of the problem that cultural property posses will governments and law enforcement agencies be persuaded to direct more of their limited resources to it. The internet offers a fantastic tool for the investigator in terms of information about objects and where they are appearing on the market for sale. It does not however replace the need to actually talk to victims of crime or to interview those in possession of disputed items in order to reach some kind of resolution to a dispute. These are skills that you can only gain by actually doing the job and no amount of internet research will give you those skills.

Finally and in answer to the last part of your first question, "How can students best prepare for your class?" I would suggest that they cover as many art thefts and investigations as they can find in books and on the internet. To keep an open mind on who has committed the crime and not to be influenced by the often ill-informed opinions of the journalists. To read "The Irish Game" by Mathew Hart, which sets out probably the most thoroughly investigated art thefts of a single collection and gives a good insight in to who commits such crimes and how the criminal has arrived at the routes to market available to them for iconic works of art. A topic to be covered in my class.