Travis Simpkins

Friday, December 12, 2014

Research: Worcester Art Museum "Then and Now" by Travis Simpkins. Update #29

-Up until the late 1990's, for roughly 100 years, the west gallery on the second floor was used as an auditorium space. The first photo, from 1980, shows the last set-up the room had. It looked like this, wood-paneled with theater seating, for nearly three decades. I have seen old posters advertising an Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival, lectures and performances that took place in this auditorium. It held a diverse array of events. The projection room (openings seen on the back wall) is still there, but is decommissioned. The space was renovated as part of the WAM Centennial project, and serves as the Contemporary Gallery today.
-The second "Then and Now" composition shows a before and after of Studio 201 in the Higgins Education Wing, renovated for it's current use as the Museum Conference Room. Although Studio 100 (downstairs) had been used as a meeting space for a number of years, WAM had not really had a good lecture hall since sacrificing the old auditorium for gallery space in the 1990's. This construction project, undergone in 2011, provided WAM with a much needed arena to develop museum-related programs.

-The sketch depicts the circa 10th-11th Century Indian sandstone sculpture of a "Standing Vishnu".

-Evidence of the projection room from the old Museum Auditorium can still be seen, both outside on Lancaster Street as well as inside the Contemporary Gallery. The booth, plunked on the facade of the original 1897 building, now contains ductwork and various building systems equipment. In the Contemporary Gallery, the door and window to the projection room can still be seen as outlines on the wall.

Auditorium. Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Conference Room. Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Standing Vishnu. Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Projection Room. Worcester Art Museum

Thursday, December 11, 2014

"The Art of the Heist" by Myles Connor

Myles Connor "The Art of the Heist"

The Art of the Heist, by Myles J. Connor Jr.

Harper-Collins, 2010

Brief Review by Travis Simpkins

The name Myles Connor has become interlinked with Art Heists. Famously brazen and daring, Connor stole priceless works from museums and private residences, including a Rembrandt and paintings by N.C. Wyeth, over a decades-long criminal career. In The Art of the Heist (2010), Myles Connor recounts his turbulent and troubled life with the assistance of author Jenny Siler. Disclaimer: If you are looking strictly for an Art Heist book, you may want to look further, as about 80% of the material in this book is unrelated to Art Crime… but is fascinating nevertheless. Connor details his exploits as an up-and-coming Rock & Roll performer in the 1960's, his early criminal exploits and misdeeds, a successful escape from prison using a fake gun carved from a bar of soap, his overturned rape case, several bank robberies and a double-murder conviction and subsequent acquittal of the heinous crime. There is also much space given to his criminal friendships and dealings in the prison system. Through much of the text, Connor offers few excuses and little remorse for his crimes. The all-too-brief Art Theft sections, which undoubtedly are the main selling points of the book, are interesting and offer insights into the thinking and planning process behind the thefts. Details are presented about how Connor burglarized the Woolworth Estate in Maine, stole a truckload of art and antiques, and was later caught by the FBI after trying to sell paintings by N.C. Wyeth taken during the theft. Myles Connor's most famous art heist, however, occurred on April 14,1975... when he ripped a million-dollar Rembrandt portrait off the wall of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and ran like hell to a waiting getaway car, fighting off a tough elderly security guard, aided by armed accomplices. Connor later struck a deal to return the Rembrandt, using the painting as a bargaining tool to have a pending prison sentence reduced. This established a grim precedent of bartering the return of art for leniency on criminal acts that would be utilized by other criminals in subsequent years. Towards the end of the narrative, Connor discusses his role in the infamous 1990 Heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: an as yet unsolved crime during which 13 masterpieces were stolen, including a Vermeer and three Rembrandts. According to Connor, who was in prison at the time of the heist, he had planned on robbing the Gardner Museum years before. He cased the building and chose what he wanted to steal, but did not get around to it. Myles Connor claims that associates of his, Bobby Donati and David Houghton, were responsible for robbing the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. However, both Donati and Houghton are dead now, and (as the book's text will illustrate) Connor has a propensity for fabrication. So, if taken for what it is, Myles Connor's memoir is a grandstanding yet intriguing true-crime tale, certainly worth the time spent reading it.