The Las Cruces Museum of Art’s monthly Reading Art Book Club will host an open, group discussion on the book The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick on Wednesday, March 8, at 2:30pm in the Museum of Nature and Science classroom.
The little-known world of art theft is compellingly portrayed in Dolnick’s account of the 1994 theft and recovery of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream. The theft was carried out with almost comical ease at Norway’s National Gallery in Oslo on the very morning that the Winter Olympics began in that city. Despite the low-tech nature of the crime, the local police were baffled, and Dolnick makes a convincing case that the fortunate resolution of the investigation was almost exclusively due to the expertise, ingenuity and daring of the “rescue artist” of the title: Charley Hill, a Scotland Yard undercover officer and former Fulbright scholar who has made recovering stolen art treasures his life’s work.
To jump start the discussion, the Museum of Art will show the documentary Art of the Heist-The Search for the Scream at 1:30pm.
Reading Art Book Club meetings are free and open to the public. Join us even if you haven’t read the book! For more information or for details on book selections, contact Stephanie Abdon at 541-2217 or e-mail sabdon@las-cruces.org.
Admission to the City of Las Cruces Museums are free. The museums are located downtown and are open Tuesday through Friday from 10am to 4:30pm and Saturday from 9am to 4:30pm. For additional information, visit the website at: museums.las-cruces.org.
If you need an accommodation for a disability to enable you to fully participate in this event, please contact the museum 48 hours prior to the event.
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