Sacred and Stolen is the memoir of an art museum director with the courage to reveal what goes on behind the scenes. It lays bare the messy part of museums: looted antiquities, crooked dealers, deluded collectors, duplicitous public officials, fakes, inside thefts, bribery, and failed exhibitions. These back stories, at once shocking and comical, reveal a man with a taste for adventure, an eagerness to fan the flames of excitement, and comfort with the chaos that often ensued.
This is also the story of a Minnesota kid who started out as a printer’s devil in his father’s small-town newspaper and ended up as the director of a the Walters, a gem of an art museum in Baltimore. Of his quest to bring the “holy” into the museum experience, and of his struggle, along the way, to reconcile his passion for acquiring and displaying sacred works of art with his suspicion that they were stolen.
Among the cast of characters are the elegant French oil heiress Dominique de Menil, the notorious Turkish smuggler, Aydin Dikmen, and his slippery Dutch dealer, Michel van Rijn, the inscrutable and implacable Patriarchs of Ethiopia and Georgia, and the charismatic President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze. And the mysterious “Mr. R. Egrette,” a museum insider who in 1951 stole a tiny Renoir as a present for his girlfriend, that finally turned up and was returned 60 years later
Art museum director Gary Vikan lays bare the messy underbelly of museum life in his revealing memoir Sacred and Stolen. From looted antiquities and crooked dealers to fakes, inside thefts, bribery, and failed exhibitions, Vikan's revelations are both shocking and sometimes comical.
A Minnesota kid who started out as a printer's devil, Vikan ended up as the director of The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Sacred and Stolen details his quest to bring the "holy" into the museum experience as he struggles to reconcile his passion for acquiring sacred works of art with the suspicion that they were stolen.
Among the cast of characters on his many adventures are the elegant French oil heiress, Dominique de Menil, the notorious Turkish smuggler, Aydin Dikmen, and his slippery Dutch dealer, Michel van Rijn.
Sacred and Stolen is a truly eye-opening account of art dealing in the modern world.
Not since Thomas Hoving made the mummies dance has there been such a lively and engaging look at the inner workings of a major museum. Based on Gary Vikan’s decades-long tenure at the helm of the Walters Art Museum, this book brings his exceptional flair for scholarship and pop culture, which has seen Graceland described as a contemporary Byzantium, to showing how to make a great collection come alive. Having played a minor role in some of Vikan’s adventures, I know at first hand that the work of a museum director is often more Raiders of the Lost Ark than Father Knows Best. Vikan’s autobiographical account is a welcome addition to the often bone-dry literature about modern museums.
James Bradbourne, Director, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
The world of museums, art collectors, and trade in cultural heritage ranges from murky to opaque, though it is always intriguing. Gary Vikan’s wonderful, insightful memoir lifts the curtain and provides an invaluable, honest, and engaging glimpse behind the scenes of the museum world. A must-read for anyone interested in museums, curating, and collecting.
Dr. Noah Charney, best-selling author of The Art of Forgery
Great read!! Fun! One-upping fictional art whodunits, Gary Vikan shares a variety of nerve-racking real life experiences to provide new insights into the world of art museum directors. Lurking behind all that Technicolor museum glamour are many shades of gray, a fascinating cast of characters, and lots of intrigue.
Tom Freudenheim, former Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Worcester Art Museum; former Assistant Secretary for Museums, Smithsonian Institution
In his fascinating memoir, Sacred and Stolen, Gary Vikan invites us into the mind of a leading American museum director as he wrestles with the issue of our day: whether or not to buy art that, by all indications, was looted. Vikan navigates the issue with humor, aplomb, and a common sense that is both reassuring and, at times, treacherous. You may not always agree with his decisions, but you’ll find him an able guide to one of the most confounding and controversial issues facing the art world today. Rarely have we had such a candid window into the thinking that guides America’s biggest cultural institutions.
Jason Felch, co-author of Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities in the World’s Richest Museum
As a writer Gary Vikan has three virtues hardly ever found together. He genuinely loves art and is extraordinarily erudite on the subject; he cares about what’s right and wrong; and he is wonderfully alive to the human capacity for absurd behavior. Gary’s scholarship and professional ethics, combined with his impish sense of humor, make for delightful reading.
Dan Hofstadter, author of Goldberg’s Angel: An Adventure in the Antiquities Trade
