Erin L. Thompson
@artcrimeprof.bsky.social
Art crime prof at CUNY (but opinions here are mine alone). Follow me for how-to tips on art forgery (book forthcoming from Norton), repatriation, monuments, and general museum shenanigans. She/her; queer.
www.artcrimeprof.com
www.artcrimeprof.com
A small good thing: @stephenharrigan.bsky.social, fired for discussing slavery in his draft interpretive panels for the Alamo, published this gem of a piece about another artifact on display: www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...
Why Pee-wee Herman’s Bike Is Now on Permanent Display at the Alamo
We found it!
www.texasmonthly.com
December 15, 2025 at 12:58 PM
A small good thing: @stephenharrigan.bsky.social, fired for discussing slavery in his draft interpretive panels for the Alamo, published this gem of a piece about another artifact on display: www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...
Vegetarian query: any substitutes for the salty, substantial hit of pepperoni on a pizza?
Don’t know why I’m craving this after like 30 years but I am.
Don’t know why I’m craving this after like 30 years but I am.
December 14, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Vegetarian query: any substitutes for the salty, substantial hit of pepperoni on a pizza?
Don’t know why I’m craving this after like 30 years but I am.
Don’t know why I’m craving this after like 30 years but I am.
"I recommend students do not go on to graduate work until they’ve had some success elsewhere" AMEN
"Writing is a social act": a terrific essay on how and why to send work out into the world from my colleague @alexanderchee.bsky.social: querent.substack.com/p/what-do-yo...
"What Do You Do With Your Stories?"
A report from the end of the term, including some thoughts on teaching students to send work out as well as what magazines are even for.
querent.substack.com
December 12, 2025 at 5:43 PM
"I recommend students do not go on to graduate work until they’ve had some success elsewhere" AMEN
Learned an important hidden curriculum lesson: offered to give a student an incomplete; student vehemently said no; student later returned to say they hadn't understood what an incomplete meant and actually, yes, they did want one. (They thought it required retaking the entire class.)
December 12, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Learned an important hidden curriculum lesson: offered to give a student an incomplete; student vehemently said no; student later returned to say they hadn't understood what an incomplete meant and actually, yes, they did want one. (They thought it required retaking the entire class.)
Is it weird to say I had a lot of fun talking with @alletson.bsky.social for @motherjones.com about Trumpian aesthetics? But it was a blast trying to figure out why there’s so much gold when, you know Versailles didn’t end that well for the folks in charge…
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Trump's gilded White House makeover is all about power
On this week’s “More To The Story,” art historian Erin Thompson examines the ways societies build and destroy monuments—and why Trump is so focused on remaking Washington in his own image.
www.motherjones.com
December 10, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Is it weird to say I had a lot of fun talking with @alletson.bsky.social for @motherjones.com about Trumpian aesthetics? But it was a blast trying to figure out why there’s so much gold when, you know Versailles didn’t end that well for the folks in charge…
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
I’m doing a kid’s nonfiction book on art heists and just got the first sketches back from the (brilliant!) illustrator. This is going to be so awesome.
December 10, 2025 at 2:08 PM
I’m doing a kid’s nonfiction book on art heists and just got the first sketches back from the (brilliant!) illustrator. This is going to be so awesome.
Doing a museum heist to grab gold and gems? So boring, so basic. Doing a museum heist to steal a Rembrandt to bargain with prosecutors to reduce your sentence for other art thefts? That's Myles Connor.
hyperallergic.com/the-rembrand...
hyperallergic.com/the-rembrand...
The Rembrandt Thief Who Came Out On Top
Myles Connor is one of the very few people alive to have come out ahead after lifting an artwork from the wall of a museum, as Anthony M. Amore explores in his new book.
hyperallergic.com
December 10, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Doing a museum heist to grab gold and gems? So boring, so basic. Doing a museum heist to steal a Rembrandt to bargain with prosecutors to reduce your sentence for other art thefts? That's Myles Connor.
hyperallergic.com/the-rembrand...
hyperallergic.com/the-rembrand...
They’re apparently selling freshly cut lumberjacks on the streets of NYC now
December 8, 2025 at 4:01 PM
They’re apparently selling freshly cut lumberjacks on the streets of NYC now
The Met’s “Divine Egypt” show is spectacular, but instead of calling the section with these representations of Horus “Expressing the Divine,” they really should have just gone with “Angry Birds”
December 5, 2025 at 7:11 PM
The Met’s “Divine Egypt” show is spectacular, but instead of calling the section with these representations of Horus “Expressing the Divine,” they really should have just gone with “Angry Birds”
Reposted by Erin L. Thompson
A beautiful hairpin that belonged to Prince Alemayehu's mother - Empress Tiruwork - is going back to Ethiopia c. 160 years after it was taken by the British military doctor who treated her last illness. Congrats to all involved @alulapankhurst.bsky.social royalethiopiantrust.org/the-return-o...
December 4, 2025 at 5:43 PM
A beautiful hairpin that belonged to Prince Alemayehu's mother - Empress Tiruwork - is going back to Ethiopia c. 160 years after it was taken by the British military doctor who treated her last illness. Congrats to all involved @alulapankhurst.bsky.social royalethiopiantrust.org/the-return-o...
December 3, 2025 at 7:11 PM
It's only now, nearly a year later, that I want to think about how close the Palisades Fire got to the Getty Villa. Close enough to fill the reflecting pool in the courtyard with black ash...
December 1, 2025 at 6:57 PM
It's only now, nearly a year later, that I want to think about how close the Palisades Fire got to the Getty Villa. Close enough to fill the reflecting pool in the courtyard with black ash...
Kid review of shabu shabu: "If Link ate this in Legend of Zelda he would get full recovery plus 10 hearts and a defense up!"
November 30, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Kid review of shabu shabu: "If Link ate this in Legend of Zelda he would get full recovery plus 10 hearts and a defense up!"
The bots are getting better at profile text but not so much at the other stuff…
November 30, 2025 at 12:29 PM
The bots are getting better at profile text but not so much at the other stuff…
Bless the youth librarians who ask your kid like two questions, peer deep into their soul, and hand them a pile of books they will love.
(Also no I don’t know why he reads like this)
(Also no I don’t know why he reads like this)
November 29, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Bless the youth librarians who ask your kid like two questions, peer deep into their soul, and hand them a pile of books they will love.
(Also no I don’t know why he reads like this)
(Also no I don’t know why he reads like this)
Seriously temped to scrap my plans for the final exam for my art and crime class and instead give the students this Playmobil museum heist set and ask them what they got right and wrong...
(h/t @karenho.bsky.social, who always sends me the best stuff!)
(h/t @karenho.bsky.social, who always sends me the best stuff!)
November 27, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Seriously temped to scrap my plans for the final exam for my art and crime class and instead give the students this Playmobil museum heist set and ask them what they got right and wrong...
(h/t @karenho.bsky.social, who always sends me the best stuff!)
(h/t @karenho.bsky.social, who always sends me the best stuff!)
Reposted by Erin L. Thompson
‘By his own estimate, Jonathan Tokeley-Parry smuggled three thousand antiquities out of Egypt in 65 trips over six years. His success was down to his skill as a “fabricator”.’
Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof.bsky.social) on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof.bsky.social) on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Erin L. Thompson | Fake it till you make it
Jonathan Tokeley-Parry, who died last month, had a business card in the early 1990s that described him as ‘Jonty “...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 12:50 PM
‘By his own estimate, Jonathan Tokeley-Parry smuggled three thousand antiquities out of Egypt in 65 trips over six years. His success was down to his skill as a “fabricator”.’
Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof.bsky.social) on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof.bsky.social) on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Not to brag, but all of the lifelong learners auditing my art and crime lecture this semester have now asked what I'm teaching next semester and expressed disappointment that it's the same course... 💅
November 26, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Not to brag, but all of the lifelong learners auditing my art and crime lecture this semester have now asked what I'm teaching next semester and expressed disappointment that it's the same course... 💅
A small good thing from social media - I visited a church museum and posted photos of a cool thing and then heard from a scholar who said my photos were the best he could find of said cool thing and could he use one for his article? And now it’s out!
November 26, 2025 at 1:57 PM
A small good thing from social media - I visited a church museum and posted photos of a cool thing and then heard from a scholar who said my photos were the best he could find of said cool thing and could he use one for his article? And now it’s out!
One of the most colorful figures in the black market for ancient art has died. For @lrb.co.uk, I wrote about Jonathan Tokeley-Parry - a smuggler who made fake fakes to defeat border inspections to get Egyptian artifacts to the UK and US, whose downfall both changed and didn’t change the market.
‘By his own estimate, Jonathan Tokeley-Parry smuggled three thousand antiquities out of Egypt in 65 trips over six years. His success was down to his skill as a “fabricator”.’
Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof.bsky.social) on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Erin L. Thompson (@artcrimeprof.bsky.social) on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Erin L. Thompson | Fake it till you make it
Jonathan Tokeley-Parry, who died last month, had a business card in the early 1990s that described him as ‘Jonty “...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 6:46 PM
One of the most colorful figures in the black market for ancient art has died. For @lrb.co.uk, I wrote about Jonathan Tokeley-Parry - a smuggler who made fake fakes to defeat border inspections to get Egyptian artifacts to the UK and US, whose downfall both changed and didn’t change the market.
I was the weirdo kid stuck in a normy family and now my daughter is a normy kid stuck in a weirdo family.
November 20, 2025 at 4:02 PM
I was the weirdo kid stuck in a normy family and now my daughter is a normy kid stuck in a weirdo family.
When I was snuggling with my kid just now, she told me she was disappointed by her book about the Donner Party, “because I thought they were going to feast on the people when they were still alive.”
Then she asked if cannibalism was illegal.
Then she asked if she could sleep in my bed.
Then she asked if cannibalism was illegal.
Then she asked if she could sleep in my bed.
November 15, 2025 at 1:51 AM
When I was snuggling with my kid just now, she told me she was disappointed by her book about the Donner Party, “because I thought they were going to feast on the people when they were still alive.”
Then she asked if cannibalism was illegal.
Then she asked if she could sleep in my bed.
Then she asked if cannibalism was illegal.
Then she asked if she could sleep in my bed.
I wrote about sitting shiva in the American Museum of Natural History for a man who died centuries ago: brooklynrail.org/2025/11/crit...
Race in the Museum | The Brooklyn Rail
In the fall of 2023, I went to the American Museum of Natural History to sit shiva for a man who died nearly 1,500 years ago. The dry conditions and fluctuating temperatures of the high desert in what...
brooklynrail.org
November 14, 2025 at 3:40 PM
I wrote about sitting shiva in the American Museum of Natural History for a man who died centuries ago: brooklynrail.org/2025/11/crit...
Best. Art. Crime. Costume.
(from Hailey Fuqua, a Boston coloratura soprano: www.instagram.com/p/DQhrnW9kpx...)
(from Hailey Fuqua, a Boston coloratura soprano: www.instagram.com/p/DQhrnW9kpx...)
November 13, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Best. Art. Crime. Costume.
(from Hailey Fuqua, a Boston coloratura soprano: www.instagram.com/p/DQhrnW9kpx...)
(from Hailey Fuqua, a Boston coloratura soprano: www.instagram.com/p/DQhrnW9kpx...)