The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft

Overview

One museum, two thieves, and the Boston underworld--the story behind the lost Gardner masterpieces and the art detective who swore to get them back

Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history. They stole a dozen masterpieces, including one Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. But after thousands of leads, hundreds of interviews, and a $5-million reward, not a single painting has been recovered. Worth a total of $500 million, the missing masterpieces have become the Holy Grail of the art world and one of the nation's most extraordinary unsolved mysteries.

Art detective Harold Smith worked on the theft for years, and after his death, reporter Ulrich Boser inherited his case files. Traveling deep into the art underworld, Boser explores Smith's unfinished leads and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including the brilliant rock 'n' roll art thief; the golden-boy gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse; the deadly mobster James "Whitey" Bulger; and the Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner, who stipulated in her will that nothing should ever be changed in her museum, a provision followed so closely that the empty frames of the stolen works still hang on the walls. Boser eventually cracks one of the biggest mysteries of the case and uncovers the identities of the men who robbed the museum nearly two decades ago. A tale of art and greed, of obsession and loss, The Gardner Heist is as compelling as the stolen masterpieces themselves.

Editorial Reviews

In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thieves posing as cops entered Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and left with a haul unrivaled in the art world, including three Rembrandts and a Vermeer, valued today at $600 million. Boser, a contributing editor at U.S. News and World Report, turned amateur sleuth after the death of a legendary independent fine arts claims adjuster, Harold Smith, who was haunted by the Gardner robbery. Boser carried on Smith's work, pursuing leads as varied as James "Whitey" Bulger's Boston mob and the IRA. Along the way, he visited felons-including the notorious art thief Myles Connor-and Bob Wittman, the FBI's only art theft undercover agent. Boser's rousing account of his years spent collecting clues large and small is entertaining enough to make readers almost forget that, after 18 years, the paintings have still not been found: the museum is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to their return. Photos. (Mar.)

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Author Information

Bio of Ulrich Boser

Ulrich Boser is an award-winning reporter whose writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Smithsonian, among others. Boser has also worked as a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report and as the special projects editor for the Washington Post Express. He is also the founding editor of the The Open Case, a crime magazine and web community. Boser writes feature stories and investigative articles about culture, politics, and social issues, and serves as the research coordinator for a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded project that will grade the 50 states on their systems of education. He has a great deal of experience in computer-assisted, investigative reporting, and his forthcoming book on the Isabella Stewart Gardner art heist has been called "rousing" and "exciting" by Publisher's Weekly and "riveting" by Jonathan Harr. Boser's work has received numerous citations and awards. His reporting has been profiled in The New York Times, and Washingtonian magazine recently called him "a writer to watch." He has also been an Arthur F. Burns fellow, won the National Award For Education Reporting, and served as the associate editor and general data guy for the U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Colleges, which became one of the bestselling reference books of 2004. Boser has appeared as a commentator for various outlets, including CNN, FOX News, National Public Radio, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He has also been invited to lecture at numerous institutions from Stanford University to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He graduated with honors from Dartmouth College and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children.

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Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins Publishers

Filesize

1.82 MB

Number of Pages

272

eBook ISBN

9780061773013