Journalist Michael Finkel said he is fascinated by stories of people who apply the rules differently than the rest of us.
“The protagonist of the book is a man named Stéphane Breitwieser and he's the most prolific art thief in history,” Frankel said. “But that is not really what interested me about him. There were two other things that really fascinated me about him. First was that he stole during the day, completely non-violently. And even that, while it's interesting, wasn't what really grabbed my heart. It's the fact that he stole for the love of art. He put them up in his bedroom. He lived with his mother because he was unemployed as his full-time job was an art thief. He put $2 billion worth of stolen art just to hang in his room to enjoy.”
Finkel added that Breitwieser is no art historian or scholar, but simply someone who took what he liked.
“He was a natural aesthete, meaning that when he saw a piece of art that truly affected him, he was overwhelmed with emotion,” Finkel said. “Now, a lot of what you're talking about, what an art, what an art historian or a guide, or a professional will tell you is like all these technical details, look at the color, look at the form and he was like, look at the emotion that's pouring out. And so, he educated himself on the works that he stole like a scholar, but he's still purely out of emotional and aesthetic attachment and we spent a long time speaking about that.”
Calling him part street magician and pickpocket, Finkel said Breitwieser averaged more than one theft every 12 days for more than seven years, using his girlfriend as a lookout and decoy.
"Like any good Icarus story, you know, he flew too high, his wings melted, and he crashed to Earth,” he said. “And the last few years have been quite rocky for him. And he's been in and out of prisons, and I've attended a few of his trials and spoke to him both before, during and after his latest legal troubles.”
Using nothing more than a Swiss Army Knife, Finkel said he will explain how Breitwieser accomplished the thefts at a public book reading and signing at Dolly’s Bookstore Tuesday, June 27, at 5:30 p.m.
