The fine art of stealing

Michael Finkel's book tells the audacious tale of an art thief who amassed a collection worth billions, but it wasn't for monetary gains

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession

Author: Michael Finkel

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 222

Price: Rs 699

“There is no Dr No.”

That’s a line every art cop seems to repeat, writes Michael Finkel in his latest book, The Art Thief. The reference is to the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962), starring Sean Connery, where the filmmakers put (a replica of) Spanish master Francisco Goya’s painting, Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, stolen a year earlier from the National Gallery in London, as a gag in Dr No’s lair. The fictional villain appears to have stolen the masterpiece for personal pleasure, to own and admire it at leisure in his den.

That’s not something real-life art thieves do, investigators believe. Art, they are convinced, is stolen by those who know or care nothing about it. It is snitched for monetary gains.

But what if there is an exception?

Mr Finkel’s book is about one such anomalous art thief: A Frenchman called Stéphane Breitwieser, who amassed a collection worth some $2 billion purely to own and admire.

With his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, acting as the lookout, Mr Breitwieser stole over 300 artworks from more than 170 European museums over a span of less than 10 years, committing an average of one theft every 15 days! It’s a feat no one else has pulled off — if you leave out the colonial loot, that is.

Over 38 crisp chapters, Mr Finkel recounts the story of this audacious thief who considers himself an art collector, “with an unorthodox acquisition style”, or even an art liberator — “freeing” the works from the confines of museums and galleries.

The stolen artworks adorn the couple’s room in the attic of Mr Breitwieser’s mother’s house in a not-so-pretty, hardscrabble French town. It is the treasure box in which they live, their Aladdin’s cave, where one sculpture alone is worth twice as much as every house in the block put together.

The book is the canvas on which

Mr Finkel paints several aspects of Mr Breitwieser’s life, adding dashes of art history. One anecdote is of the time the great Pablo Picasso, the most pilfered artist, stole a pair of ancient stone figurines.

Mr Breitwieser’s unusual style of thieving is narrated across several chapters: Casual, impulsive and on most occasions, strikingly effective. This young man, who is in his 20s, takes abundant advantage of lax museum security and the distraction of visitors to flick the works — sometimes multiple works at one go; at other times, he returns to the scene of the crime to steal more.

One minute you see him standing in front of an artwork, with Ms Kleinklaus keeping watch. The next minute you see the couple casually walking out of the museum with the work concealed in a bag or under a jacket. Mr Breitwieser doesn’t necessarily go for the most popular or the most expensive works. He goes for those for which he feels an emotional tenor — a coup de coeur. These are mostly works that predate industrialisation, which he feels has corrupted human creativity.

Though not explicitly, The Art Thief makes a case for better security at museums, which, a museum director says, cannot be transformed “into a safe” since “we serve the public”. It also shows how low down art theft features in the legal system, with the police ill-equipped to handle these cases and courts letting the thieves off easy.

The book has a fair bit of information about Mr Breitwieser’s childhood. Born into luxury, thrown into hard times after his parents’ separation, he goes from being surrounded by priceless art and antiques to living with his mother in a humble house that makes do with Ikea furniture, which he abhors. In the story is a mother who ignores her son’s misdemeanours — never being party to his crimes but also never calling him out. There is a pragmatic girlfriend, the trusted partner he loves. There are doting grandparents who ensure that this man, who lives on government aid, isn’t wanting for money. And there is a missing father.

The book tries to explore why Mr Breitwieser becomes this obsessive, compulsive art thief. Mr Finkel is a journalist who wrote for The New York Times until 2002 (when he was fired for using multiple interviews to create a composite character for a story on slave trade). He is not a psychotherapist. Thankfully, he doesn’t attempt to be one in the book. Instead, he turns to court-mandated psychotherapists who try to make sense of Mr Breitwieser’s mind and actions. Is he just a glorified kleptomaniac? Or an art-obsessed man-child in need of help? A true connoisseur or a brash brat?

Mr Breitwieser insists he is not like other art criminals — the kind who steal for money and who wouldn’t think twice before damaging or destroying a priceless creation. As the book progresses and Mr Breitwieser gets on in years, you witness the falling apart of everything he believes himself to be. You also encounter the horrifying fate many of the masterpieces meet at the hands of his mother.

Mr Finkel portrays a fairly clear picture of Mr Breitwieser, whom he has interviewed. He doesn’t fall into the trap of being sympathetic towards him or depicting him a hero. The characters that remain abstract are Mr Breitwieser’s mother and girlfriend, who have chosen silence, perhaps for self-preservation. As they turn their backs on him, you are left wondering whether they loved him at all when throughout, the book gives the impression that they dote on him.

Mr Breitwieser’s is quite a story and Mr Finkel tells it well.