Art Heist (What is Art and Why Do People Want to Steal It?)

A fun, illustrated guide to the true stories behind the world's most daring art heists by America's only art crime professor, Dr. Erin Thompson.

What do Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso have in common? Their artworks have all been stolen in bold heists!

Step inside famous museums, including Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Paris Museum of Modern Art, and the Iraq National Museum. Trace the steps of the bold thieves who decided to walk out with some of their most well known and most valuable artworks, including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Young Parisian, and The Scream by Edvard Munch.

This book will reveal the true stories behind some of the world's most famous art thefts, blending art history with art mystery! Discover which pieces were taken, how the pilferers got in, and where their loot is now. Readers will also trace the routes that stolen artworks take after they've left a museum and how thieves are caught.

The tactile cover features an elaborate foil frame with a hole where its artwork should be to immediately intrigue the reader and gives the book gift and shelf appeal.

Author Dr. Erin Thompson was awarded a PhD in Art History by Columbia University in 2010. For the last decade she's been a professor of Fraud, Forensics, Art Law & Crime at City University of New York. She specialises in the black market for looted antiques, controversial public monuments, and art made by detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Art Heist is her first book for children.