From 1994 to 2001, one Frenchman pulled off a staggering 172 art heists. Author Michael Finkel explains just how he did it.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” John Keats once wrote. “Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.” The poet’s immortal words should be emblazoned on the family crest of Stéphane Breitwieser: aesthete, depraved genius, and according to author Michael Finkel, “perhaps the most successful and prolific art thief who has ever lived.”
Finkel spoke with Esquire by Zoom to take us inside the eleven-year process of reporting this story–and inside the “bumpy but fun, fascinating, and all-consuming relationship” he formed with Breitwieser. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.MICHAEL FINKEL: I had read a few things in the French media about this ridiculously prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.
In nonfiction, you get very close to the subject, and sometimes it's hard to lower the boom. The way that everything in his life falls apart—I found it to be heartbreakingly sad. But on the other hand, he deserved to be punished and he dug his own grave. What I like in a good story is when an author doesn’t tell you how to feel about someone. I like when they put it on the table for you to decide. I don't like to hold back in my stories—I’m going to show the whole truth, warts and all.
This touches on a complicated question that I never really thought about before writing the book: “What’s the role of a museum?” Public museums are one of the great things about modern society. We can see artworks that only billionaires could own, and we can actually commune with them. The goal of a museum, of course, is to make the art feel as close as possible. Even putting a piece of glass on a painting is considered bad form—it's rarely done.
As it says right in the opening pages of the book, I did not have the chance to personally interview Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, nor Breitwieser’s mother, Mireille Stengel. I completely understand why Anne-Catherine did not want to speak to me; she really painted herself into a strange corner in her trial. On some level of the crazy triangle between mother, son, and girlfriend, I almost find the mother and the girlfriend to be the most compelling characters.
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