In this episode, Olivia tells Emma the story of The Accidental Picasso Thief - a story about family, fate, coincidence, and adventure - all orbiting around a stolen Picasso painting. Special thanks to Whit Rummel for reaching out to us and letting us tell his family story. "Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it...
1 Feb 2026
My Kid Could Paint That
In this episode, Emma tells Olivia the story of toddler painter extraordinaire Marla Olmstead in the early aughts. This story is intertwined with an examination of the documentary about Marla and her family, My Kid Could Paint That, directed by Amir Bar-Lev and released in 2007. We discuss the question of whether four year old Marla or her father Mark were completing her prolific abstract paintings, as well as the question of whether or not a documentary can ever tell us the truth. We explore...
12 Jan 2026
The Knoedler Gallery Fraud Part III: A Trial of Prestige
In our Knoedler Gallery Fraud series finale, we discuss the end of the Knoedler Gallery, the arrest of one of the fraudsters, and explore the De Sole lawsuit extravaganza. We ask the question of what authenticity means within the art world and how important it truly is, from the walls of a prestigious gallery in New York to the Chinese village of Dafen where art reproductions were famously made by the hundreds. And of course, we armchair analyze the notorious Ann Freedman. “And so art i...
26 Oct 2025
The Vanishing Brief - 10/24/25
This week in The Vanishing Brief, we discuss some recent headlines in the art crime world including the recent Louvre Heist, a Picasso painting gone missing in transit, and a Nazi-looted painting discovered in an Argentine real estate listing. “I am not murdered, and I am not missing, but parts of me have been disappeared.” - Leanne Simpson Follow us on http://instagram.com/vanishingpointpod https://vanishingpointpod.substack.com/ Sources https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/world/e...
17 Oct 2025
The Knoedler Gallery Fraud Part II: Elegy to Authenticity
In this episode, we continue the story of the Knoedler Gallery as the fourteen year long forgery ring that made the gallery millions began to crumble. We unveil the masterminds behind the fakes, including a man who delivered caviar to Sotheby's in an old ambulance and a master Chinese forger who could easily replicate Rothko's and Diebenkorns. We discuss the alarming red flags that gallery girl boss Ann Freedman somehow overlooked, a millionaire Gucci alum, and misspelled Pollock signatures.&...
18 Sept 2025
The Knoedler Gallery Fraud Part I: Legacy of the Con
In this episode, we introduce the decades-long, $80 million forgery ring that took place within the prestigious Knoedler Gallery in New York City. We discuss the history of the long-standing gallery and its legacy, the calculated gallery director and art maestro Ann Freedman, and the movement at the heart of the story: Abstract Expressionism. Our story winds us through tales of forged Matisses, cannibalism allegations, a Jeffrey Epstein connection, and splatter paintings galore. “A pict...
18 Aug 2025
The National Gallery Heist of 1961
In this episode, Emma tells Olivia about the 1961 theft of Francisco Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. This story takes us through flamboyant ransom letters, the question of television licenses, and of one man's journey as a rebel looking for his cause. “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk,...
11 Aug 2025
The Transylvania University Rare Book Heist
In this episode, Olivia tells Emma the wild story of the rare book heist that took place at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky in 2004. “I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.” - Donna Tartt, The Secret History Follow us on http://instagram.com/vanishingpointpod https://vanishingpointpod.substack.com/ Sources American Animals. Directed by Bart Layton. Film4P...
29 Jul 2025
The Mona Lisa Part II: A Commodity Appears
In our final episode on the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, we catch back up with Picasso and Apollinaire who have just been arrested. We explore the truth of the theft and its perpetrator, growing tensions on the world stage as Europe prepares for war, an Argentine criminal art magnate, a French forger with an unlikely technique, and conspiracies born from the media spectacle of the case. “Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not...
21 Jul 2025
The Mona Lisa Part I: The Perfect Crime of the Modernist Era
In this episode, we travel back in time to Paris in 1911 to the Louvre where one of the most iconic paintings of all time is discovered missing: the Mona Lisa. In the first episode of our two-part series, we explore the inception of the painting and its captivating hold on both kings and museum viewers alike, la Belle Époque and the art movements that arose, the advent of photojournalism and sensationalism in the media, and a dastardly gang of punk artists and poets challenging the status quo...
30 Jun 2025
BONUS: The Gardner Heist Conspiracies
Today we bring you our first Vanishing Point bonus episode! In this episode, we decided to take a trip down the internet rabbit hole and read some conspiracy theories about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Heist. We explore how conspiracies come to fruition, discuss some favorites, and then explore some theories about Harvard University, FBI agents gone rogue, underwater art vaults, and stolen De Koonings. Thanks for listening! For even more bonus fun, take a drink every time Emma says "prolifera...
23 Jun 2025
The Gardner Heist Part III: Gangsters and Gods
In this episode, we introduce the possibility of Irish involvement in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, discussing the IRA, a British heiress turned bomb maker, and the infamous Whitey Bulger. We also circle back to Italian mobsters in the Boston crime underworld, where we end our tale, from golden boy mobsters to cocaine rings in auto body shops where stolen art was stashed. Thanks for listening! “Gangsters and gods do not speak, they nod their heads and all is done” - Mytholo...
16 Jun 2025
The Gardner Heist Part II: A Cast of Characters
In this episode, we take you step by step through the Gardner Heist, from the minute Richard Abath opened the door to let in the thieves, to Gardner director Anne Hawley and the Boston police discovering the scene of the crime We also introduce our bizarre and notorious cast of characters, including a Lynchian art detective with a prosthetic nose, a rock and roller with a knack for art theft, and the infamous Italian mob scene in Boston. Thanks for listening! “Face this world. Learn its...
9 Jun 2025
The Gardner Heist Part I: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Richard Abath
In this episode, we introduce the Gardner Heist and two important figures in our story: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Richard Abath. We begin with Isabella's conception of the museum, her place within Bostonian culture and the Gilded Age in the 1800s; then we head to 1990 to meet one of our museum guards present at the night of the infamous heist, Richard Abath. We're taking you from Lithuania under the Russian empire to Connecticut to see the Grateful Dead play. Thanks for listening! Tr...
2 Jun 2025
Welcome to Vanishing Point
Welcome to Vanishing Point, a podcast about the art and philosophy of art thefts and forgery. In this episode, we introduce ourselves and what led to the formation of this podcast. We also introduce our first case: The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist of 1990, which is considered one of the largest unsolved art heists in the world. Our story involves Italian mobsters, IRA arms dealings, Boston Brahmins and lost Rembrandts. “Perspective makes the single eye the centre of the visible...
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