Noah Charney, PhD, is internationally best-selling author of more than twenty books, translated into fourteen languages, including The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art, which was nominated for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Museum of Lost Art, which was the finalist for the 2018 Digital Book World Award. He is professor of art history specializing in art crime, and has taught for Yale University, Brown University, American University of Rome and University of Ljubljana.
Forgers and Thieves: The Shadowlands of Art Crime by Noah Charney is a masterful exploration of the lurid underbelly of the art world that intelligently weaves a bricolage of breathtaking case studies and insightful commentary. Structured across and within five interrelated themes that range from authenticity to popular culture, and conflict to the law, Charney authoritatively integrates a variety of fascinating topics into a suspenseful matrix of criminality. Within this, he confidently surveys subjects as poignant and diverse as Napoleon's insatiable desire for cultural plunder to Banksy's novel shredding device, which cements this book is an essential read for anyone interested in the shadows loitering behind the canvas.