I've been busy atoning for my sins ("and for the sin of considering even the possibility of selling a work of art to keep a museum from closing its doors . . .") and seeing The Art of the Steal at the New York Film Festival (more on that later) and fallen a little behind, so let's start catching up on some news from the last few days, starting with a major art theft in Pebble Beach: paintings and drawings, valued at more than $27 million, from the home of a retired Harvard Medical School professor.
The Art Market Monitor thinks the story "contradicts much of what the experts tell us about art thefts, which is that they are primarily crimes of opportunity, not the work of criminal masterminds with shopping lists composed by secretive billionaires." David Nishimura says "it all sounds awfully fishy."
And Derek Fincham wonders: "Why all these [recent] thefts? Is it a product of the economic downturn? Or are thieves hoping to gain some of these lucrative rewards?"
