Sandy Nairne is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London. He was previously Director of Programmes at Tate, Director of Visual Arts for the Arts Council of Great Britain and Director of Exhibitions at the ICA, London. He has worked as a curator and writer.
I was gripped by Sandy Nairne’s matter-of-fact but hair-raising
account of the efforts to reclaim the two Turners
*Philip Hensher, Books of the Year, The Spectator*
In Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners, Sandy Nairne
describes going underground to help recover the booty of a daring
heist. Superheroes all.
*Elaine Showalter, 'Books of the Year', TLS*
a riveting, edge-of-seat chronicle of the eight years of subtle
sleuthing and wrangling that led to the painting’s recovery. As
[Nairne] engages with undercover policemen, top financiers and
Serbian crime lords (via seedy lawyers), this is a fabulously
involving tale.
*The Independent*
a fascinating read, delving into some of the important moral issues
associated with the paying of recovery fees.
*Alexander McCall Smith, Books of the Year, The
Scotsman*
a thoughtful (and personal) entrée into the business of art
theft
*Sunday Times*
Sandy Nairne takes us into an art-and-underworld maze that matches
Raymond Chandler at his most labyrinthine . . . raise[s]
interesting questions about why thieves steal art and why art theft
should matter to us.
*RA Magazine*
an engrossing volume with behind-the-scenes stories of an
incredibly complicated recovery
*Art News*
a gripping account of the complex and delicate negotiations for the
recovery of the Turners.
*Country Life*
[a] vivid account of the workings of a hidden art world the
culmination of over eight years of research has at its heart an
exploration of different concepts of value.
*Apollo*
A stupefying amount of Nairne’s life, as his riveting book reveals,
was devoted to nerve-racking negotiations with mysterious
middlemen, sudden and futile expeditions to Germany, tense meetings
with loss adjusters, Tate trustees and detectives.
*The Observer*
Nairne’s book is fascinating in its account of the astonishingly
British way in which extraordinary legal precedents were set, and
special permissions were sought, to legitimise the return of the
Turners
*The Spectator*
Nairne’s insiders chronicle of the investigation and subsequent
recovery of the paintings via negotiation often reads like a fine
arts version of The Thomas Crown Affair. And that romanticized
perception a crime of derring-do by suave gentlemen or plucky
outsiders is part of the problem.
*Washington Post*
Rarely does an institution victimized by an art theft recover its
stolen works of art . . . It is also rare that someone associated
with the victimized institution writes an intriguing, in-depth
account of the recovery effort. Sandy Nairne has just such a
captivating account in Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners
. . . a dramatic narrative of the case that dispels many of the
myths and misconceptions that have surrounded the circumstances of
the works extraordinary recovery . . . I would recommend Nairne’s
new book to anyone interested in the intricacies of stolen art
recovery.
*Art Theft Central*
A sensational, frank book
*Welt am Sonntag*
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