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The Accidental Picasso Thief
The True Story of a Reverse Heist, Outrunning the FBI, and Fleeing the Boston Mob
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Brief Description
In 1969, during a Boston snowstorm, a crate containing Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of a Woman and a Musketeer vanished from Logan Airport. It should have gone to a Milwaukee gallery—but instead ended up in the closet of Bill Rummel, a young forklift operator. What followed was...
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The Accidental Picasso Thief
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In 1969, a Picasso painting was stolen by mistake. This book explores how the accidental thief pulled off a reverse heist while avoiding the FBI and the Boston mob.
In 1969, a Picasso painting was stolen by mistake. This book explores how the accidental thief pulled off a reverse heist while avoiding the FBI and the Boston mob.
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Description
In 1969, during a Boston snowstorm, a crate containing Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of a Woman and a Musketeer vanished from Logan Airport. It should have gone to a Milwaukee gallery—but instead ended up in the closet of Bill Rummel, a young forklift operator.
What followed was a stranger-than-fiction chain of events: FBI agents on the hunt, whispers of Whitey Bulger’s mob, and a daring “reverse heist” devised by Bill’s father to secretly return the painting.
But the mystery didn’t end there. After its return, the Picasso disappeared again—vanishing into private hands, unseen by the public for more than fifty years.
Part true crime, part memoir, The Accidental Picasso Thief uncovers the Rummel family’s incredible brush with art history, crime, and secrecy—and one man’s decades-long search for a lost masterpiece.
Series: Association for Research into Crimes Against Art
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The Accidental Picasso Thief
In 1969, during a Boston snowstorm, a crate containing Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of a Woman and a Musketeer vanished from Logan Airport. It should have gone to a Milwaukee gallery—but instead ended up in the closet of Bill Rummel, a young forklift operator. What followed was a stranger-than-fiction chain of events: FBI agents on the hunt, whispers of Whitey Bulger’s...Hardback$5500Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Forgers and Thieves
Art theft has risen from an occasional event involving the trophies of the wealthy and elite, into a multi-billion-dollar annual criminal industry. It is run almost entirely by organised crime groups, serving as a significant funding source for terrorism. It has been listed among the highest-grossing criminal trades worldwide. When ARCA (the Association for Research into Crimes against Art) began,...Paperback$6599Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9798765188262
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 22 January 2026
Country: United States
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 20.0mm
Width: 156.0mm
Height: 232.0mm
Weight: 400g
Pages: 168
About the Author
Whit Rummel Jr. is a filmmaker with a Master's in Film from Boston University. His first documentary, TATTOO, aired nationally on PBS. His first screenplay, Secret Boy, won the Nicholl Fellowship from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He established WITCOM Associates, a Boston-based production house.
Noah Charney is an art historian, author of The Art Thief, and founder of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a non-profit focused on art crime prevention. Publications such as the New York Times, Italy's Ventiquattro, and TIME have written about him, and he has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, and CNBC.
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