The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum canceled its evening hours yesterday "due to a planned protest by climate activists that would put our community and collections at risk," the museum's director said in e-mail to museum supporters. Read more.
"Antoine’s Organ'" by Rashid Johnson. See it larger. Photo by Sasha Patkin.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is one of my favorite museums in Boston, which has to do with its unique history (who doesn't love an unsolved art heist or a quirky female philanthropist?), its hodgepodge and personalized way of displaying art (mixing genres and time periods exactly as Isabella wanted, and mainly unlabelled), its curation of everything from European bench pews to sculptures to personal letters, but most of all its constantly-blooming courtyard garden, which constitutes the heart of museum in every respect. Read more.
WBZ reports officials at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum shut the museum today, the 33rd anniversary of the infamous painting robbery after learning climate activists planned to use the occasion and the museum to promote their cause - and the fear something could happen to damage the remaining artwork.
Boston Police report arresting a Randolph man on charges he smashed in a door at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and left behind an object that brought the bomb and hazmat units early Saturday. Read more.
Nothing stolen after a door was smashed early Saturday, but a strange object involving powder brought both the bomb squad and the hazmat unit, Live Boston reports.
The Dig interviews Scott Von Doviak, author of Charlesgate Confidential, which sets the Gardner heist in the '40s - and builds on the knowledge of Boston he built while a student at Emerson, back when it owned a hotel-turned-dorm called Charlesgate.
An FBI agent who has spent more than 14 years investigating the theft of paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum figured almost immediately that a guy offering to sell two of the painting for a total of $55 million on Craigslist was full of it. But on the off chance that Todd Desper was for real - and if not, to catch a guy trying to run a large scam - Special Agent Geoffrey Kelly started an investigation. Read more.
A Beckley, WV man was arrested today on charges he tried to scam foreign art lovers into wiring him millions for two of the paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, the US Attorney's office reports.
Todd Andrew "Mordokwan" Desper's arrest is the culmination of an investigation in which the Gardner's security director was brought in to communicate with him in an attempt to determine if he actually had the paintings (spoiler: He didn't). Read more.
NECN reports the FBI is busy checking out the Connecticut home of a gangster they think might know about the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner robbery in 1990.
A Far Cry, a string orchestra with no conductor that plays at the Gardner Museum, is up for a Grammy for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
The awards ceremony in Los Angeles starts at 8 p.m., EST. On their way there, the group stopped off in Tucson. They were supposed to leave for LA yesterday, but there plane was delayed for five hours. So they put on an impromptu concert for their fellow passengers.
Stolen: La Sortie de Pesage by Degas. More.
SuspectsThe FBI and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum today announced a $5 million reward for the return of the paintings stolen in 1990, in the hopes the money will shake loose information about the whereabouts of the paintings.
In a press conference today - the 23rd anniversary of the heist - the FBI said it now knows who stole the paintings - a mid-Atlantic crime syndicate - but that it doesn't know what happened to the collection, which includes Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings, after it was moved to Connecticut and then Philadelphia:
The Globe reports the FBI is planning an advertising campaign - similar to the one that brought down Whitey Bulger - around the 1990 Gardner art heist.
Boston Daily totals up all the money spent on art-museum expansion in the Boston area over a decade, and comes up with a pretty large number.
WBUR reports the extension to the Gardner Musem is set to open in two weeks.
Boston might be more famous for its museums than its nightlife, but there’s plenty of both. When you combine the two, sophisticated Bostonians turn out in droves. “Gardner After Hours,” held at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on the third Thursday of each month, is just such an event. Read the article by John Stephen Dwyer.
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