Bought, Borrowed or Stolen? The Multimillion Dollar Market in Stolen and Forged Art
Dr. Gary Vikan, author and former director of the Walters Art Museum

It’s the art world’s dirty little secret—the glittering treasures on their pedestals and priceless paintings in their burnished frames that adorn museum walls are often either stolen or forged. How often? According to Newsweek, the U.S. Department of Justice and UNESCO report art crime as the world’s third highest-grossing criminal trade during the last 40 years, after drugs and weapons. Now retired, museum director and expert on Byzantine art, Gary Vikan PhD, rips the veil away from the hushed halls of the world’s great museums with his stunning and eye-opening memoir, SACRED AND STOLEN: Confessions of a Museum Director.

Vikan, who led Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum for nearly two decades, has gone deep down the rabbit hole where the truth about the world’s art treasures lies. From his beginnings at Princeton University, to Harvard’s revered Dumbarton Oaks collection in Washington, DC, to the Menil Collection in Houston, and finally, to the Walters, Vikan has witnessed firsthand the hustle, shady dealings, bold-faced forgeries and outright thefts that have placed treasures in art museums—only to have them once again disappear.

Bought, Borrowed or Stolen? will be available for purchase on the day of the lecture.

ASG Members and Subscribers can pre-order Bought, Borrowed or Stolen? by November 1, 2016 by completing and returning the form available for download here.

LOCATION: the Suburban Club (7600 Park Heights)
$15 door fee for guests and subscribers

IMAGE CREDIT: The Baltimore Sun