Natalie Montaner/Contributing Writer
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum will be bringing more than art to the University this month with an art heist lecture, followed by an opening exhibit reception.
The first part of the event will be a lecture helmed by Robert Wittman, former FBI agent, and will address the art heists that have occurred throughout history and the FBI’s efforts to apprehend these international criminals.
Wittman, labeled as “the most famous art detective of the world” by the Times of London, is the founder of the Bureau’s National Art Crime Team, whose purpose is to recover stolen art and cultural property and work to fight art theft.
Back in 1990, the “single largest art theft in US history” was said to have taken place in the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Art Museum in Boston. With $500 million in valued paintings by Rembrandt, Degas and Manet among others stolen by crafty thieves, then FBI agent Wittman was heavily involved in solving the case.
Using the pseudonym Bob Clay, Wittman was directly involved with a sting operation that occurred in Miami and the hunting down of the art criminals who were then attempting to sell off the works they had stolen. Wittman will be using these first-hand, FBI experiences during his talk about the art criminals and the various heists he was directly involved in.
“Here’s a lecture that will appeal to everyone, because his accounts leave you at the edge of your seat. I would think that criminal justice, art history and international relations students and faculty would find this especially interesting,” said Emmett Young, assistant director of marketing & communications at the Frost.
The lecture will take place across from the Frost at the Wertheim Performing Arts Center. This event will be free of charge and open to the public.
Immediately following the lecture, there will be a preview reception, also free of charge, for the “Spanish Colonial Art: The Beauty of Two Traditions” exhibit at the Frost with wine and hors d’oeuvres for all.
This exhibit showcases the Spanish art brought to the Americas by explorers and the subsequent merging of imagery of the indigenous tribes of the Americas with that of Spanish art and culture.
Carol Damien, Frost Art Museum director and the exhibit’s curator, noted, “the variety of works created in the Americas, especially Latin America, offers a unique perspective on the people and culture of the time. The vast territories of the Americas, with their diverse ethnic groups and varied population centers ranging from tribal villages to the extraordinary cities of the Aztecs and the Incas, also gave way to regional styles in the Colonial period.”
The exhibit will host pieces from the Frost’s permanent collection as well as pieces on loan from private collectors. The exhibit will be on display at the Frost from April 24 to Aug. 25.
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