This book explores the untold history of women, art, and crime. It has long been widely accepted that women have not played an active role in the art crime world, or if they have, it has been the part of the victim or peacemaker. Women, Art, and Crime overturns this understanding, as it investigates the female criminals who have destroyed, vandalised, stolen, and forged art, as well as those who have conned clients and committed white-collar crimes in their professional occupations in museums, libraries, and galleries. Whether prompted by a desire for revenge, for money, the instinct to protect a loved one, or simply as an act of quality control, this book delves into the various motivations and circumstances of women art criminals from a wide range of countries, including the UK, the USA, New Zealand, Romania, Germany, and France. Through a consideration of how we have come to perceive art crime and the gendered language associated with its documentation, this pioneering study questions why women have been left out of the discourse to date and how, by looking specifically at women, we can gain a more complete picture of art crime history.
"Jackson has written an accessible book that takes the reader on a journey into the world of art and crime and women. ? It is evident that Jackson has a real love of art and the overriding message for me was the need to protect and look after all art so that future generations can experience these marvellous works." (ARCA, November 8, 2019)
"The author achieves bringing her results and insights to a broad readership that do not require to possess previous knowledge in the field of cultural heritage crime. And even though the book is not written from a criminological point of view, it makes a compelling case for further avenues of research into the gender perspective of cultural heritage crime that are more empirical and exploratory by nature. For sure, these future studies will have as a reference Jackson's pioneering study." (Marc Balcells, Journal of Art Crime, Issue 22, Fall, 2019)