Profs & Pints Baltimore: Portraits of Art Heists
Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Portraits of Art Heists,” a look at thefts from art museums and the struggle to prevent them, with Gary Vikan, former director and chief curator of the Walters Art Museum, former adjunct professor of art history at Johns Hopkins University, and author of Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Director.
The security vulnerabilities of the Louvre were on full display in October, when a small group of petty thieves stole half of the royal jewels in its Appollo Gallery in broad daylight and in just seven minutes.
The reality is that such thefts are surprisingly common at museums in Paris, Baltimore, and beyond, and that museums have yet to find a full effective way to stop them.
Get a firsthand perspective on the problem of art theft from museums with Gary Vikan, an art historian who spent nearly 20 years as director of Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum and gave a frank account of what goes on behind the scenes at such institutions in his 2016 book Sacred and Stolen.
He’ll discuss how most art thefts are inside jobs. Among the examples he’ll describe is the 1909 snatching of Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” by an Italian museum handyman who hid in a closet overnight and walked out with the painting under his smock the next morning. You’ll also learn about the infamous (and still unsolved) Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum heist of 1990, in which a young night security officer let in a pair of fake police officers who then made off with a dozen treasures, including a rare Rembrandt seascape and a priceless Vermeer.
Dr. Vikan also will tell the improbable tales of two thefts from the Walters Art Museum. One was extraordinary for the enormous number of artworks stolen, 143. In the other, the Walters was among three museums hit after hours in a theft that included an exquisite little Renoir from the Baltimore Museum of Art. The case was unusual for the length of time it took—six decades–for it to be solved and for the last of the stolen works to be recovered. In both Baltimore cases the thieves were trusted museum employees.
Finally you’ll get updates on the investigation of the Louvre royal jewel theft, including the type of damning evidence the perpetrators left behind and what is known about whether the thieves were working for a crime boss or had help from the inside.
Dr. Vikan will go over the advice he would give a new museum director. It includes: Trust no one, including security staff and the police. Make it all but impossible to get in or out of the museum during non-public hours. Don’t let anyone into open storage alone. Know that if there is a heist everyone is a suspect, staff morale will crumble, and you may be asked to resign. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Bar doors open at 5 pm. The talk starts at 6:30).
