For the past ive years, Robert “The Cook”
Gentile, a mobster from Hartford, Connecticut,
has been considered the key to recovering some
$500 million in artwork stolen from Boston’s
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. But
how Gentile became the FBI’s primary target
among a group of aging New England gangsters
was unclear until the January 3 publication of
a story in the Hartford Courant. According to the
paper, Sebastian “Sammy” Mozzicato, a Gentile
associate, directed law enforcement authorities to
the mob boss last year, before participating in a
failed sting operation. He told the fbi, which is
offering a $5 million reward for the artworks’
return, that since the late 1990s, Gentile had been
boasting that he could sell the works. Mozzicato recalled
moving a package containing
what he believes were some of the
paintings, and that he was tasked
with inding buyers for ive of them.
He also identiied another Gardner
artwork, a 200-year-old Napoleonic gilded eagle,
which had graced a shelf at Gem Auto, a Gentile-
owned used-car business in South Windsor,
Connecticut. Despite the prospect of reward
money, Gentile, 80 and in poor health, isn’t talking.
22
INTHEAIR
FOR MOR E OF WHAT’S IN TH E AIR , VISIT
BLOUINARTINFO.COMChanges at BADA
When the 24th edition of the
venerable vetted British
Antique Dealers’ Association
Fair opens March 9 in London’s
Duke of York Square, it will be
helmed by Marco Forgione,
who took up the newly created
post of CEO of the organization
last fall. The appointment
of Forgione, a marketing guru
who has built a reputation
shepherding organizations
through growing pains, is the
latest development in a plan to
restructure BADA on the eve
of its centenary in 2018. Other
recent hires include Victoria
Borwick as president of the
association and Madeleine
Williams as fair manager.
“I am excited to be leading
BADAat this time of change
and progress for our members
and the fair,” says Forgione.
“This year’s fair will see further
enhancements to reflect our
ethos of luxury and quality,
as well as more modern and
contemporary offerings that
reflect our increasingly diverse
membership, which will be
presented alongside traditional
offerings for which the fair
is known.” First-time exhibitors
include Alan Wheatley Art,
Benton Fine Art, Lucy B.
Campbell Gallery, and
Wimpole Antiques, which will
join stalwarts Godson & Coles,
Thomas Coulborn & Sons,
Holly Johnson Antiques,
Laura Bordignon, Jonathan
Cooper Park Walk Gallery,
and Howard Walwyn Fine
Antique Clocks, among others.
The fair runs through March 15.Sticky Fingers
Taking the Helm
After serving as a curator at
Tate Modern for nearly three
decades, Frances Morris has
been appointed director of
the London institution, which
cuts the ribbon June 17 on
a new, 10-story, Herzog & de
Meuron–designed structure
built atop “the Tanks,” a suite
of former fuel storage con-
tainers behind the Bankside
Power Station, which has been
the museum’s home since- Morris has built a solid
reputation for her curatorial
acumen through the mounting
of several critically acclaimed
retrospectives over the years,
including those dedicated
to Louise Bourgeois in 2007,
Yayoi Kusama in 2012, and CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; BADA; TATE PHOTOGRAPHY
ART+AUCTION MARCH 2016 (^) | BLOUINARTINFO.COM
IN BRIEF
Christine Kuan, former
chief curator and
director of strategic
partnerships at Artsy,
has been appointed
director of the Sotheby’s
Institute of Art in New
York...Emma Enderby,
formerly of London’s
Serpentine Galleries,
has crossed the pond to
join the curatorial
staff of the New York–
based Public Art Fund...
Socrates Sculpture
Park has hired Jess
Wilcox as director of
exhibitions...The Andy
Warhol Foundation for
the Visual Arts has
elected artist Catherine
Opie to its board of
directors...Zurich-
based gallery Karma
International has opened
a permanent outpost in
Beverly Hills, having
set up a temporary L.A.
space there last year.
NEW HIRES
ON THE MOVE
Agnes Martin in 2015. The
Cambridge University and
Courtauld Institute of Art
alumna succeeds the Belgian-
born Chris Dercon, who has
served as director of Tate
Modern for the past six years.
He will be artistic director
of the Volksbühne, Berlin’s
experimental theater, in 2017.
Marco
Forgione
Frances
Morris
Vermeer’s
The Concert,
ca. 1665,
one of 13 works
stolen from
the Isabella
Stewart Gardner
Museum. They
have yet to
be recovered.