News
Photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa's Murder Trial Set to Resume This Month
CAPE TOWN — Eva Kumalo, the victim’s mother, has lost three jobs since the trial began. Mthethwa is still represented by the same three galleries.
Art Crime
News
France Lost Track of 23,000 State-Owned Artworks and Historic Objects
Nearly 23,000 works of state-owned art are missing in France and its overseas territories, lost over time from museums, town halls, and major institutions largely due to poor documentation and even theft.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: police took down a noose art installation, the leader of a Chinese antiquities looting ring was sentenced to death, and someone stole a public sculpture of a porcupine.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: seven Andy Warhol prints went missing from a museum, two men were arrested as authorities recovered a stolen Edvard Munch, and a Russian cultural critic was murdered.
Art
The Mug Shot’s Origins in Debunked 19th-Century Science
French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon believed each person's physical measurements were as distinct as their fingerprints, and devised the first modern mug shots as part of his classification system in the 19th century.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week's art crime blotter: an artist sued two dealers for plotting to split up and sell off his installation, the Pompidou's former managing director racked up €40,000 in taxi fees, and a group of art students accused their professor of being a sleazeball.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a UFO museum's flying saucer sculpture was stolen and smashed, a Japanese dealer was arrested trying to unload a $1.1 million antiquity, and Cambridge University tried to cover up the theft of a model skull.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a museum's photography contest backfired terribly, the alleged perps behind Verona's €15 million art heist were arrested, and a trove of books on medieval witch hunts stolen by the Nazis was recovered.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a trove of taxidermy animals went missing, five Francis Bacons were stolen, and a gang of crooked auction house porters went on trial.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: two tourists were arrested for taking naked pictures at Machu Picchu, a Snapchat post led police to a stolen sculpture, and ancient Mesopotamian artifacts were found at a refugee camp in Slovenia.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: 14 members of a British museum-robbing ring were convicted, Christie's sued collector Jose Mugrabi for failing to pay for a $37 million Basquiat he won at auction, and the NYPD seized a crate labeled "art" only to find it full of weed.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: people pillaged stones from the quarry where Stonehenge's giant rocks were sourced, the certificate of authenticity of a Lee Ufan painting recently sold at auction was found to be fake, and a curator bit a fellow passenger on an airplane.