Why art heists exploded in the 1970s
Valued at around $2 million (£1.5 million), The New York Times described it as “one of the largest art robberies in modern times.”
The new film "The Mastermind," starring Josh O'Connor, revisits a wave of art robberies that took place in the 1970s, when the commercial value of art rose sharply and security at museums was often minimal, according to a BBC report.
In May 1972, two men entered the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts and escaped with four paintings by Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso and a supposed Rembrandt, now believed to have been painted by one of his students.
The robbers held visiting high school students at gunpoint and shot a security guard during their escape.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Valued at around $2 million (£1.5 million), The New York Times described it as "one of the largest art robberies in modern times."
The Worcester heist is thought to have influenced the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery in Boston, where $500 million (£370 million) worth of art was stolen. That theft remains the costliest unsolved art crime in US history.
The Worcester robbery and its influence
The 1972 robbery was organised by career criminal Florian "Al" Monday. The two men he hired were caught after boasting about their crime in a local bar, and within a month, the paintings were found on a pig farm in Rhode Island and returned to the museum.
Director Kelly Reichardt, who wrote and directed "The Mastermind," told the BBC that she owns a record from Monday's earlier musical career. "Ironically, Monday – before he was an art thief – had a band, and I have the 45 of his record," she said.
Reichardt's film, which opened in the US last week, takes loose inspiration from the Worcester robbery and similar art thefts that occurred across the decade.
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw noted that "The Mastermind" highlights "the unglamour in the heist," showing how such crimes unfold without romanticising them, unlike films such as "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1999), where Pierce Brosnan plays a sophisticated art thief.
In "The Mastermind," O'Connor plays JB Mooney, a middle-class art school dropout who becomes an underemployed carpenter in Massachusetts. Under pressure from his parents, a retired judge (Bill Camp) and a socialite (Hope Davis), he plans to rob the fictional Framingham Art Museum.
The plan begins to fail when one of his accomplices questions how the stolen paintings could be sold.
Reichardt said, "If you start to get down into the minutiae of a robbery like this and don't concentrate on the bigger strokes, then by nature it becomes de-glamorised."
She said she came across the story while working on her earlier film "Showing Up" (2002). Reading about the Worcester robbery reminded her of the many "smash-and-grabs" of that period, such as the "skylight caper" at Canada's Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1972, when $2 million (£1.5 million) of art and jewellery was stolen, and the 1976 theft of 119 Picasso works from France's Palais des Papes.
Another well-known case was led by Oxford graduate and IRA member Rose Dugdale, who in 1974 stole 19 paintings by Vermeer and Rubens from Russborough House in Ireland to demand the release of imprisoned IRA members.
Filmmaker Joe Lawlor told Cineuropa, "There was something incredibly well organised about it and really badly thought out. They are so driven but completely blind to the wider political reality."
Art theft as money and perception of the thief
Art thefts were not new, but the 1970s marked a significant change. Art historian Tom Flynn told the BBC that the rise in thefts "coincides with the boom of the art market." He added, "It's a cultural change where we start to see works of art as the equivalent of money."
The 1977 launch of Antiques Roadshow and its popularity reflected this change in public attitude. At the same time, many museums struggled with funding shortages and limited security. Reports from the early 1970s described "funding crises" that left collections vulnerable.
Reichardt noted that museums often had inadequate safety measures. "Museums used to have these cool circular drives out front, which made the getaway pretty handy," she said. Security guards were often unarmed and poorly trained, and the FBI's Art Crime Team would not be established until 2004.
The 1960s and 70s also saw the rise of the art thief as a popular figure in film. Productions such as "Topkapi" (1964), "How to Steal a Million" (1966) and "Gambit" (1966) helped form the image of the clever, rebellious criminal.
According to historian Susan Ronald, this reflected the anti-establishment mood of the time. "Part of [the appeal of these characters] is [their] outsmarting the establishment," she said. "The fact that art heists usually don't involve private individuals makes it more acceptable. It's an institution, and there's something quite daring about it."
However, Flynn noted that art thefts are often underestimated. "We don't take it seriously enough," he said, referring to the short sentences given to offenders despite the cultural loss they cause.
Reichardt's film challenges this image through the people affected by JB's choices, including his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and his former classmate Maude (Gaby Hoffman).
"There is an added, more objective look at him at times through the women in JB's life who he counts on, who are taxed by his freedom," Reichardt said. "Personal freedom being a huge theme in American politics today – but at what cost and who carries the weight of that?"
Today, large-scale museum robberies are less common. Flynn said criminals have "cottoned on to the fact that these are essentially non-fungible objects." But he warned that renewed funding cuts could again weaken security. Heritage consultant Vernon Rapley told the BBC, "It's not just security that will suffer – it will be the very fabric of the buildings as well. If you don't invest in your roofs and windows, then ultimately, weather and climate change are probably a greater risk to objects, in fact, than criminals are."
"The Mastermind" opened in US cinemas last week and will be released in UK cinemas yesterday (24 October).
