Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner is a modern art installation that used to be housed in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles until these incidents. This sculpture was vandalized twice. For what reason? Why did this spur such a heated debate about what is able to be displayed as public art and who gets to decide?

Sometimes referred to as one of the most successful thieves in Canadian history, John Tillman made a name for himself stealing. Really anything he could get his hands on but he especially targeted precious books, artefacts, and works of art amassing over 10,000 items in his home in Nova Scotia.

Note the all-important question mark here. This controversial painting has been authenticated and then disputed and debated over and over again. Let’s investigate whether we think this is a legit van Gogh or not.

On New Year’s Eve 1999 everyone in Oxford England was partying, enjoying fireworks, and celebrating the new millennium. Actually, let me correct that, almost everyone. That night, using the festivities as cover, someone, or someones, stole Cézanne’s View of Auvers-sur-Oise and it’s never been seen again.

This week is going to be a little different, going to be discussing artist (scammer?? bootlegger??) Eric Doeringer. He isn’t in any trouble and hasn’t done anything wrong technically but his trade is copying art from other artists and selling those copies as copies for his own profit. Lots to unpack. 

Stephen Hahn was a respected gallery owner and art dealer in New York City, he frequently talked about being on the cutting edge of safety and security for the pieces that he had for sale. Unfortunately, he was proven wrong one night in 1969 when seven works were stolen from him.

This is another unsolved mystery and it is on the FBI’s top 10 list of unsolved art theft crimes. A Renoir oil painting was stolen in 2011 and the perpetrator has completely baffled police. No clues and no leads have come up, where could the painting be?

42 years ago there was a robbery at an East German castle. The perpetrators made off with a real bounty; five paintings done by masters or other notable artists. They got away free and clear and the paintings haven’t been seen since. That is, until this year.

Michelangelo’s statue of David is maybe one of the most famous statues in the world. He’s printed on t-shirts, aprons, tea towels, even underwear. Most people know him but what has remained debated is what he’s holding in his right hand (the one not holding the sling).

Looting of artifacts from countries at war and under colonial rule isn’t anything new but the sheer number of things removed from Iraq, especially during the Iraq War is not to be believed. Who let this happen and where are the artifacts now?

Almost one year after Pablo Picasso’s death, in February 1974 a man enters the MOMA with a plan. He walks directly up to Picasso’s famous masterpiece Guernica and paints three, foot-high words across it in red spray paint. But who was he and what was his motivation? Even more interestingly, where is he now?

Non-Fungible Tokens (or NFTs) have been taking the internet by storm. They can be anything but those in the form of digital art pieces have become a prime target for scammers. Since most people don’t know a ton about NFTs and this emerging market they can easily be taken for a ride.

Four thieves in 2006 pull off a robbery of some of the most valuable paintings in the world. 15 years later and there has been no sign of the paintings, how did they accomplish this and what happened to the works??

A newly discovered painting by an old master will always be something that gets people excited, especially if that master is Leonardo da Vinci himself. da Vinci only has between 15 and 20 paintings verified to be his work so something new is a real find. However, is this painting really the discovery that some think it is?

If you thought Rembrandt’s Jacob de Gheyn III had been stolen a lot, strap in. The work we’ll be discussing today, The Ghent Altarpiece (also called Adoration of the Mystic Lamb), has been involved in at least 13 different crimes. Let’s touch on a few of the major ones.

This week’s article is less of a crime and more of a mystery. Under a few iconic Picasso paintings, conservators and curators have noticed some previously unknown portraits. Why did Picasso choose to paint over these works and who are these people covered up by a new composition? Turns out this is a topic that has caused much debate, let’s find out.

Musée Marmottan, an often overlooked Paris museum, boasts the largest collection of Claude Monet paintings in the world. This made it the perfect target for thieves that wanted some of the most well known and valuable Impressionist paintings of all time.

Spoiler, we’re talking about yet another art forger today. This guy is on another level though, Han van Meegeren is sometimes called the boldest modern forger of Old Masters. So what exactly did he do, how did people find out, and what do the Nazis have to do with it?

I’ve written about the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci before but what made this painting so famous? She is one of the most widely recognized pieces of art in the world today but this wasn’t always the case. Before 1911, Mona Lisa was only really popular in some artist circles. So, the question remains, how and why did she shoot to fame?

You might know Caravaggio from his masterful use of light in his paintings or from another article here where I talked about the theft of his Nativity with St. Frances and St. Lawrence. But what I bet you didn’t know is that he was actually not a good guy and committed a number of crimes in his lifetime.