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Palgrave Macmillan

Females in the Frame

Women, Art, and Crime

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

  • Available as an audiobook from audible.co.uk
  • Marks the first book to examine women art criminals
  • Explores how art crimes committed by women differ in motivation, scale, and results when compared with men
  • Catalogues art crimes under familiar tropes such as vandals and thieves, but also as mothers and professionals

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book is available in audiobook format, narrated by Kerry Fox: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Females-in-the-Frame-Audiobook/B08PC6YSW1?asin=B08PC6YSW1&source_code=ASUOR22212112000M8

This book explores the untold history of women, art, and crime. It has long been widely accepted that women have not played an active role in the art crime world, or if they have, it has been the part of the victim or peacemaker. Women, Art, and Crime overturns this understanding, as it investigates the female criminals who have destroyed, vandalised, stolen, and forged art, as well as those who have conned clients and committed white-collar crimes in their professional occupations in museums, libraries, and galleries. Whether prompted by a desire for revenge, for money, the instinct to protect a loved one, or simply as an act of quality control, this book delves into the various motivations and circumstances of women art criminals from a wide range of countries, including theUK, the USA, New Zealand, Romania, Germany, and France. Through a consideration of how we have come to perceive art crime and the gendered language associated with its documentation, this pioneering study questions why women have been left out of the discourse to date and how, by looking specifically at women, we can gain a more complete picture of art crime history. 

Reviews

“I would strongly recommend this book for those interested in art, as well as those with a general interest in cultural history. … It makes a robust argument for the better appreciation of copies as a field of study, collection, and educated enjoyment.” (Rod Thomas, ARCA, art-crime.blogspot.com, February 21, 2023) “Females in the Frame: Women, Art, and Crime is an informative and thorough overview of women in art crime and an interesting read to account for untold stories. Just like the majority of art collections in art repositories worldwide that have an overwhelming representation of male artists, art history accounts tend to feature male protagonists. Jackson’s objective, hopefully, was not to show that there were as many female thieves and forgers but to uncover the underrepresented side of the history of art crime. This easy-to-read book provides us with new insights into the history of art crime and suggests why and how women’s involvement is omitted from historical documentation.” (Yuchen Xie, Art Law Review)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Tauranga, New Zealand

    Penelope Jackson

About the author

Penelope Jackson is an art historian and curator based in New Zealand.  A former gallery director, Jackson is a founding trustee of the New Zealand Art Crime Research Trust. She is the author of Art Thieves, Fakers & Fraudsters: The New Zealand Story (2016) and has contributed to the Journal of Art Crime and Art Crime and its Prevention (2016). Jackson has curated major exhibitions, including: award-winning Corrugations: The Art of Jeff Thomson (2013), The Lynley Dodd Story (2015), An Empty Frame: Crimes of Art in New Zealand (2016) and Katherine Mansfield: A Portrait (2018).

Bibliographic Information

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