Noah Charney

Bio

Noah Charney holds Masters degrees in art history from The Courtauld Institute and University of Cambridge , and a PhD from University of Ljubljana. He is Adjunct Professor of Art History at the American University of Rome and at University of Ljubljana, and is the founder of ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a non-profit research group on issues in art crime (www.artcrimeresearch.org).

His work in the field of art crime has been praised in such forums as The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, El Pais, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Tatler among others. He has appeared on radio and television, including BBC, ITV, CNBC, National Geographic and CBS, as a presenter and guest expert.  He is in constant demand as a lecturer.  He has given popular TEDx talks, was a finalist for the main TED event, and teaches a Guardian Masterclass called "How to Write About Art." He also is one of the founding editors of The Journal of Art Crime, the first peer-reviewed academy journal in the field, and ofThe European Review of Poetry, Books and Culture (www.versopolis.com), an online cultural magazine funded by the European Union.

Charney is the author of hundreds of academic and popular articles, contributing regularly to The Guardian, the Daily Beast, Atlantic, Salon, The Art Newspaper, The Washington Post, Esquire and many others. His first novel, The Art Thief (Atria 2007), was translated into seventeen languages and was a best-seller in five countries. He is the editor of academic essay collections, Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World (Praeger 2009) and Art Crime: Terrorists, Tomb Raiders, Forgers and Thieves (Palgrave 2016). He wrote the Museum Time series of guides to museums in Spain (Planeta 2010), which is also available as an app. His is author of critically-acclaimed, best-selling works of non-fiction, including Stealing the Mystic Lamb: the True History of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece (PublicAffairs 2011), The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World’s Most Famous Painting (ARCA Publications 2011) and The Art of Forgery (Phaidon 2015), which was an Amazon #1 best-seller. His Eternal Architect: The Life and Art of Joze Plecnik, Modernist Mystic (Totaliteta 2018) was the finalist for the Slovenian Book Award.

His book about his love for his adopted country, Slovenia--Slovenology: Living and Traveling in the World’s Best Country—was a mega best-seller there. The Museum of Lost Art (Phaidon 2018) was the finalist for the Digital World Book Award and a #1 Amazon best-seller. His Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art (Norton 2017, co-written with Ingrid Rowland) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and drew critical praise from The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review and beyond.

He lectures at major museums around the world, including recent talks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Dallas Museum of Art. He has given TEDx talks (one on Leonardo da Vinci and another on art crime) and recently did a TED Ed video that got 250,000 views in the first three days.

He lives in Slovenia (believe it or not).

CV

Occupational Experience (Selected)

Current

Adjunct Professor, University of Ljubljana

Consultant on Publishing, various international publishing houses

Columnist, Tendencias del Mercado del Arte Magazine

Editor-in-Chief & Founder, The Journal of Art Crime, a peer-reviewed academic journal

Lecturer, ARCA Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, Amelia, Italy

Founder & Trustee, ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art

Past

Adjunct Professor of Art History, American University of Rome

Adjunct Professor of Art History, Brown University Program in Rome

Visiting Lecturer, Yale College, Yale University, New Haven

Visiting Lecturer, University of Maribor, Faculty of Criminal Justice, Slovenia

Visiting Scholar, Institute of Criminology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Lecturer, Oxbridge Academic Programs, Cambridge University

Lecturer, History, Art, & Culture of Florence, Florence Italy, Miami Dade University

Duncan E. Robinson Scholar of British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Christie’s International Fine Art Auctioneers, London and Boston

Education

Noah won a prize from the Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut Chapter, in May 2012 for Arts and Entertainment Magazine Reporting for his 2011 article entitled “Our Treasures: Fifteen Must-See Artworks in Connecticut” for Connecticut Magazine. He was a finalist to become a 2014 TED Fellow, and was invited to prepare a course for the prestigious Great Courses series, published by The Teaching Company. His column in ArtInfo, “The Secret History of Art,” was named by the Italian magazine Panorama as one of the most interesting art columns in the world. His books have been finalists for the Digital Book World prize, the Slovenian Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in biography.

Noah’s work in the field of art crime has been praised in such forums as The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, El Pais, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle, and Tatler among others. Many of these articles are available on the Press & Interviews page of this site. He has appeared on radio and television as an expert on art history and art crime, including BBC, ITV, CNBC, NPR,  MSNBC, History, Discovery, National Geographic and more. A complete press appearance list is available on request.