Why read The Secret Collector?

Book cover of The Secret Collector: The Lost Art Collection of Erich Šlomovič

Book description

There are countless stories of buried, hidden, lost and then “exhumed” artworks, preserved thanks to having been hidden. The Croatian Jew Erich Šlomovič possessed an art collection of around 600 paintings, including works by Picasso, Chagall and Matisse, which he acquired while working in Paris in his early twenties as…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Secret Collector as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Noah Charney

Author

This book reads like a novel but tells the true story (one of the authors was personally involved in the adventures) of one of the most famous lost art collections of all-time. Over 400 paintings were once owned by Erich Slomovic, a Serbian Jewish collection based in Paris, who was killed in a concentration camp during the Second World War. Most of his collection remains lost, its whereabouts unknown. This book is unusually written in that it really feels like a Dickensian novel but it’s based on the best available scholarship and research.

From Noah's list on The best books on art crime: theft, looting, and forgery.