Museum of the Missing (French title – Tableaux volés ) by Simon Houpt, art critic and correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail , delves into the often shady and criminal world of art theft from the major museums and art galleries around the world. Houpt takes us back in time to recall that Napoleon and Hitler and his cohorts were masters at “acquiring” the masterpieces of those countries they had invaded. However, he focuses largely on relatively recent thefts, the perpetrators and their motivations, often strange and unexpected, and the dark underworld of drug dealers who now use priceless masterpieces as collateral for drug purchases. He also imagines a virtual museum where the thousands of stolen paintings and sculptures could be exhibited, such as Edvard Munch's “The Scream” and “The Madonna” that were stolen in broad daylight from the Munch Museum in Oslo in 2004 or Johannes Vermeer's “The Concert”, stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and never recovered. Interpol's list of stolen paintings numbers more than 11,000, including 27 Rembrandts, 16 Renoirs, 17 Lautrecs, 12 Van Goghs and 79 Picassos. Houpt laces his work with numerous anecdotes covering the war-time pillages, shady underground thefts as well as the fascinating cases of art lovers driven to illegal acts in order to satisfy their obsessive passions. It is a book that will interest both the connoisseurs of fine art as well as those who are fond of tales of criminal investigation to track art thieves around the world.
Tableaux volés : Enquêtes sur les vols dans le monde de l'Art (English title – Museum of the Missing:Inside the High Stakes World of Art Theft ) by Simon Houpt. French translation by Annick and Roger Stevenson. Preface to the French translation by Raymond E. Kendall, Honorary General Secretary of Interpol.
206 pages, 30 €.
Editions Stéphane Bachès , Lyon, 2006.
To order: Tableaux volés
