The digressions into art and art history are distracting, but crime buffs will receive a painless education while they enjoy...
Entertaining, surprisingly informative memoir of an FBI agent who specialized in art thefts.
A dozen Scotland Yard agents deal with this massive, multibillion-dollar global problem. The French national police employ 30 agents, Italy even more. Since Wittman’s retirement, the FBI employs no one. With the assistance of Philadelphia Inquirer investigative reporter Shiffman, the author recounts an eventful career as the FBI’s sole art-crime specialist. He often worked undercover to trap criminals who, despite Hollywood’s romance with art thieves, tend to be lowbrow and thuggish. No intellectual or art lover, Wittman began his career in Philadelphia in 1988; almost immediately, thieves struck two major museums. With luck, tips from informants and hard work—always superior to genius in tracking stolen art—he helped recover priceless Oriental antiques and a Rodin statue. His interest aroused, Wittman took art classes, although at the time art theft was not even a federal offense. This changed after 1990 when thieves stole $500 million worth of artifacts from Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum, the greatest property crime in American history. The author writes about several years of tortuous undercover work ingratiating himself with international mobsters who claimed to have the paintings. The investigation eventually fizzled, but police recovered several other stolen paintings. Readers will learn the mechanics of undercover work complicated by FBI superiors who were often as self-important and obstructive as the suspects.
The digressions into art and art history are distracting, but crime buffs will receive a painless education while they enjoy a lively account of art thieves and the man who pursued them.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-46147-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
A general introduction to the life and work of photojournalist Lange that draws on family remembrances, scholarly evaluations, and a handsome picture portfolio. Six essays, one interview, and a healthy black-and-white picture section make up this composite introduction to Lange (18951965), best known for her US Farm Security Administration images of Depression-era migrant workers. Editor Partridge grew up in Lange's loosely knit family fold (her father worked as an assistant), and her warm introduction details the tension between Lange's motherly impulses and her irascible nature. In a 1976 interview, Ansel Adams comments on shared technical hardships, Lange's marriage to activist Paul Taylor, and her ``absolute sexless beauty.'' Roger Daniels (History/Univ. of Chicago) looks at Lange's work documenting Japanese Americans interned by the War Relocation Authority during WW II. And an incisive essay by Sally Stein (Art History/Univ. of California, Irvine) discusses Lange's fascination with bodily depictions (she had been crippled by childhood polio and was dogged by lifelong physical infirmities). Most telling, though, are the photographs themselves. One from 1937, taken at a sharecropper's cabin in Coahoma County, Miss., shows only a black woman's bare feet in the foreground, poised elegantly one atop the other on the dusty and worn boards of a front porch. Another, from 1938, records campaign posters taped to a Waco, Tex., gas station window. The sternly optimistic faces of the candidates surround painted sign lettering that reads: ``Washing/Greasing/Storage.'' Both images are blunt and literal, relying on secondary association for political or allegorical impact. Later photographs draw from Lange's extensive world travels. In all, this is a limited and general introduction to Lange's life and work. It piques curiosity but leaves a lot of rich material unexamined. Still, this compendium is respectfully assembled and nicely documented. (Partridge has produced a companion film to accompany the book.)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56098-350-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
A provocative exploration of how African-Americans have, and more often have not, participated in the creation of their image through photographs. Merely ``to illuminate'' is Willis's (Black Photographs 19401988, not reviewed) stated purpose in this collection of essays. The contributors seek to ``direct outward'' the gaze that historically has been directed at them. Some of these pieces (each inspired by a photograph selected by the writer) are intimate and highly personal: Edward P. Jones concludes that, if he'd met his mother as the stylish young woman she was on the day she had her picture taken, he'd have advised her to choose a life without him and his father (``Save yourself, I would have told her''); LisÇ Hamilton examines her feelings of rejection by her white mother and grandmother. Addressing a variety of subjects—from the stereotypical portrayal of black men as criminals and black women as poverty-stricken mothers with too many children, to the hegemony of ``good'' hair—these pieces provide a historical base from which to view the depiction of African-Americans in today's media. The subjects of the photographs range from two lynched men and an ancestor labeled ``¨N, ¨I, ´W'' (one-quarter Negro, one-quarter Indian, one-half White), to a variety of family snapshots. The juxtaposition of these images and histories magnifies the close intertwining of family and cultural history. Moving beyond mere explanations of the photographs, these essays lead the reader to question assumptions about what is being seen, how images are created, and for whose consumption they are produced. Angela Davis documents her lack of agency over her image and explains that 25 years after her trial what she is remembered for is not her politics but her Afro (Vibe magazine recently ran a '70s nostalgic fashion spread that termed Davis ``a fashion revolutionary''). A startling, revealing look at photographic representation and its effect on African-American identity and consciousness.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56584-107-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
