The trailer for the Penn Gillette-directed film Tim’s Vermeer has been released, charting a computer graphics designer’s inquiry into the painting technique of Johannes Vermeer, and the impact it makes on the art world. (more…)

Announced this week, Sony Pictures Classics plans to release Tim’s Vermeer a documentary exploring the approach and technique of 17th century master Jan Vermeer.  Directed by longtime magician and entertainer Raymond Teller, the film will chronicle a Texas-based inventor named Tim  Jenison as he explores how Vermeer accomplished the impressive verisimilitude of the painter’s works.  “Tim is a genius, but I’m a skeptic. I wanted to see him do it. Teller has been the Penn & Teller de facto director since our beginnings, so we made a movie of Tim’s whole monomaniacal trip.”  Says longtime collaborator Penn Jillette. (more…)

Since 1990, the FBI has pursued the perpetrators of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft of over $500 million in art, including works by Rembrandt, Manet, Degas and Vermeer.  Twenty three years later, the bureau has announced that it knows who committed the thefts, but is witholding the information in hope of getting the works back.   The theft holds the disctinction of the largest property theft in U.S. history. (more…)