FIRST FRIDAY BOOK CLUB | THE ART THIEF by Michael Finkel

Join The Friends for another lively First Friday Book Club.

From 1994 to 2001, Stephane Breitwieser was the most prolific art robber in history.   He took more than 300 works of art at an estimated cost of $2 billion.  Selling them was not his aim – he simply wanted to gaze at them and kept them in attic rooms in his mother’s house.  Michael Finkel examines the exploits of someone who was obsessed by late Renaissance and early Baroque works.  At the same time the author explores both archiving and ownership as the stealing of art raises the question of the best way to preserve the past masterpieces and the way we make them accessible. 

 The Art Thief explores this true story of the art collector who went to extreme lengths to expand his personal collection – and the thrill of the heist that kept him going. It is a riveting story of art, crime, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.

Michael Finkel, The Art Thief, Knopf Publishing Group, 2023

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