Joe Gibbons
The famous courtyard of the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum
In 2015, my partner, Pam Wall, and I became convinced about who had robbed Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, in what remains the greatest art theft in history. Thirteen works of art were stolen, including paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas and Manet.
I'd used the Gardner theft as the backdrop for my 2013 novel, Irreplaceable, in which I made the thieves art students. Given the facts of the theft (81 minutes in the museum, thieves not armed, every painting removed from its frame, jimmying a candy machine) art students seemed far more plausible than the mobsters whom law-enforcement claimed were responsible.
After difficult experiences with law enforcement and the museum itself, we've realized that the only way to close out the theft and see the art recovered is to go public with our story.
Please see/listen to the videos linked below, on which Pam and I were guests. And read the article in the Providence Daily Dose.
In any event, far more people know about the museum and the art that was stolen than ever would have had the theft not occurred.
The shows:
Episode One (7/28/2020)
Episode Two (8/11/2020)
Spalding Gray interview with Joe Gibbons in 1985. Hit this link to see/hear it:
