Anthony Amore
- Director of Security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
- Art Theft Investigator
Travels From
Massachusetts
Anthony Amore Speaker Biography
Anthony Amore is an expert in security matters, especially those related to cultural property and homeland security. Presently he is Director of Security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where he is charged with the ongoing efforts to recover thirteen works of art stolen from the museum on March 18, 1990. In 2011, he co-authored the Wall Street Journal true-crime bestseller Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists. His next book, The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fake, Frauds and Forgeries in the Art World is due out in 2015. In addition, he is a lecturer in homeland security at Fisher College and provides analysis on issues related to security and terrorism for Fox 25 News in Boston.
His work as security director has been highlighted in the book Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World (Praeger, 2009), which describes him as "among the most innovative, and most effective, museum security directors in the world." While with the Department of Homeland Security/TSA, he was nominated by his superiors for a Service to America Medal in 2002 and 2003.
Amore's work as an art theft investigator has been lauded in the Boston Herald and The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft (Smithsonian, 2009).
Amore has fifteen years of national security, law, intelligence, and crisis management experience with federal government agencies: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s Security Division.
Amore was instrumental in the reorganization and regionalization of national homeland security efforts post-September 11th and was the agency’s lead agent responding to the attempted terrorist attack by Richard Reid, the so-called “Shoe Bomber” in December 2001.
He blogs regularly on www.howiecarrshow.com and has been a columnist with the Boston Herald, where he wrote a bi-weekly column titled "Security Brief."
To book Anthony Amore call Executive Speakers Bureau at 901-754-9404.
Stealing Rembrandts: The True Story of International Art Theft
Art theft is a multi-billion dollar per year illicit industry, and the world’s most significant heists share one thing in common: the priceless works of Rembrandt. The great Dutch Master’s paintings are known for their value by everyone, from high school dropouts to museum curators. While Hollywood has portrayed the theft of high-value paintings as the work of dashing, likeable thieves working to steal art for evil, reclusive geniuses, in fact that’s nothing like the reality of art theft. Instead, it’s much more interesting. Amore takes his audience behind the scenes of the most notorious of these heists, telling the true story of art crime from the conception of the crime to the recovery of the art.
The Art of the Con: Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries
The famed former director of the Metropolitan Museum, Thomas Hoving, famously said that 40% of the art hanging on the walls of the museums and galleries of the world are fakes. Art forgery scandals continue to dominate the pages of the industry’s newspapers and, in recent years, have led to the closing of some of the world’s oldest and most esteemed galleries. Though talented copyists are involved in the most famous scandals, Amore describes how the true art in art scams is not on the canvas but in the con itself.
