Two morning lectures followed by a sandwich lunch. 9.45 coffee and tea served; first lecture 10.30; 11.30 short break; second lecture 11.45; 12.45 questions followed by lunch. Finish 14.20.
Dr Tom Flynn draws on thirty years of writing, reporting and lecturing on art theft, its perpetrators and their motivations and throw light into the darker recesses of international crime syndicates.
Are art heists really “victimless crimes”, to what extent has physical violence played a part in major art robberies and why do thieves steal works of art that have almost zero chance of re-sale? Who steals high-value art and why do they do it? What happens to masterpieces once stolen? Are they really stashed in some millionaire’s mountain hideaway, or is the story tawdrier and more mundane? What proportion of stolen works of art are recovered, are museums improving their security to tackle art thefts and are we beginning to see the end of high-profile museum heists?
Tom offers a comprehensive overview of the most significant and notorious cases of art forgery over the last 150 years and focuses on the core motivations of art forgers, explaining how the majority of the most prominent art forgers started out as failed artists whose work was ignored by the dealers, auction house ‘experts’ and connoisseurs who function as the market’s ‘gatekeepers’. In many cases, this rejection led to a desire on the part of the overlooked painters to exact a form of revenge against what they perceived as an elitist art world ‘club’ from which they were excluded. The talk also poses the question of whether we are taking fakes and forgeries sufficiently seriously given their negative impact on broader cultural values.
Dr Tom Flynn is a UK-based art historian, valuer and appraiser and a specialist in the professional practices of the international art market, historical and contemporary sculpture, and issues in art crime and cultural heritage. Tom is a graduate of the University of Sussex and the Royal College of Art, completing his doctorate at the University of Sussex in 1998. His writing has appeared in numerous international art publications and he has held board positions with London-based art price data and contemporary art publishing companies. He is a member of AICA, the International Association of Art Critics, and has published widely on the global art market, contemporary sculpture and art and design history. He is the author of The A to Z of the International Art Market (Bloomsbury 2016).
Image: Dr Tom Flynn (left) with John Myatt, “one of the most notorious art forgers of the century, although a charming man. This was taken when I interviewed him at his successful one-man exhibition at Castle Fine Art in Bruton Street, Mayfair in 2014. “
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