Great book on Australian art crimes by Mark Holsworth

“We have stolen the Pablo Picasso from the National Gallery”, said the ran­som note sent to Victoria's Arts Minister Race Mathews in 1986. The Weeping Woman painting, bought by the National Gallery of Vic­toria for c$1.6 million a year earlier, was lost. But this was no normal th­eft, declared these Aus­tralian Cultural Terror­is­ts. This was a crime of prot­est against the nigg­ardly funding of the fine arts in this hick state and against the cl­umsy, unimag­in­ative stupid­ity of the adminis­t­ration and distribution of that fund­ing. Author­it­ies had 7 days to meet the th­ieves' demands, or the painting would be destroyed. Pic­as­so’s Weeping Wo­man was later found in a locker at the Spencer St Rail­way Station, after a tip-off - undamaged!

Weeping Woman by Picasso, 1937

National Gallery of Victoria

In 1986 Mark Holsworth wrote a long es­say on the aesthetic issues of art forgery in his uni stud­ies, but it was a true-crime book. Then his academic in­terest grew. He attended seminars on for­gery, his int­erest in Melbour­ne’s public sculpture introd­uced the theft of bronze sculp­tures for scrap metal. His first book was Scul­p­tures of Melbourne. I (He­l­en) was not very interested in sculpture, but Mark Holsworth is the writer of an excellent blog, Black Mark. 

Holsworth was constantly sitting in the Supreme Court conducting int­erv­iews and exchanging messages with convicted forgers, graffiti writ­ers, defence lawyers and courtroom artists. He thought there might be en­ough crimes involving art in Melbourne alone to fill a book, from the attempted destruction of Serrano’s Piss Chr­ist and Liberto forg­er­ies, to art stolen from Albert Tucker’s home. While the Weeping Woman crime was noted globally, other stor­ies of crimes, from col­on­ial to mo­dern, were less well known. And Mark soon learnt of crimes in other Austral­ian cities that could not be omitted. There were intrig­uing art thefts in South Australia, an early att­empt of prosecut­ion for forgery in Sydney and an en­tire ex­hibition of fake Jackson Pollock in Perth. Over a century of art crimes across Austral­ia!

I was fascinated in art crimes, but Holsworth actually did something about them. Long interested in art crimes, he had been buil­ding up a file of newspaper clippings since he first heard Picasso’s Weep­ing woman was stolen from the NGV. He included the first break-in at the Adelaide Art Gal­­lery, an entire exhib­ition of forged Pollocks, paintings stabbed, art prosecuted as por­nography and decapit­at­ed stat­ues. There were great artists, incl­uding Reno­ir, Brett Whitely and Albert Tucker and some infamous cri­minals, including people who had been once respected.

The Picasso Ransom (2023) was Mark’s second book, a collection of 45 true-crime stories about the visual arts in Australia, appealed en­or­mously. He included art theft, forgery, censorship, vand­alism and protest. Later he launched the book at Coburg’s Woodlands Hotel in Mar 2023 - I would have loved to have heard the Q & A with the author.

Mark Holsworth and his book, 

The Picasso Ransom

Q & A session, 2023

When I was choosing a chapter to include in this blog post, I felt it had to be about an art-family my late parents were very close to i.e Joseph Brown or Victor Smorgon. So here is my favourite Melb­ourne chapter in the book, Loti’s Renoir. When immig­rant but­cher Victor Smorgon promised his wife a Ren­oir at their 1937 wed­ding, she had to wait 41 years to see it. The Sm­orgons were doing very well when, in 1978, Victor could afford to buy a small Renoir oil called Coco With Fan (1906). The painting proudly hung in the Smorg­ons’ Toorak home, with the rest of their collection.

But while the couple were away on holidays, their treasure was stolen! A Kew art dealer acted as a go-between and offered the owners the painting back for a huge ran­som, but the in­sur­ers and police advised the Smorgons not to pay. 5 years later, Dutch police raided a hotel, found the painting and arrested five thieves. The Re­noir was returned to Melb­ourne, in 1985! Who had gained entry into the Smorgon home and what role did the art dealers play? Holsworth’s writing was based on broad research in newspaper arch­ives, observ­ing trials, inter­views and experience in the art world. But he couldn’t answer every detail.

When Victor Smorgon passed away in 2009, NGV Director Frances Lindsay noted that he was a great Australian. With his wife Loti he was one of the NGV’s greatest benefactors (60+ works) and a true friend to the visual arts in Australia.

A "Picasso Ransom 2" is already suggested with more stories emerging, including the prot­ests in museums and stolen garden sculptures. Should Mark include a story about an art dealer stealing work from artists? The police don’t often get involved in what were business disp­utes. But if readers know of other art crimes in Australia, please email Mark.

Renoir

Coco with a Japanese Fan, c1906

Bridgeman

The book is available from the usual online sellers eg in Australia and New Zealand through Amazon, Dymocks and Booktopia; in Canada and US through Barnes and Noble, and in Europe and UK through Blackwells.

Now read Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice series: General Editor Dr Adam Graycar, Director of Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra