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Heist at the Museum
Sun
26
Sun 26 Oct 10:30 AM
Terrace Room | National Portrait Gallery
Wheelchair
General Admission
60 Mins
October
Museum heists conjure visions of golden artifacts and paintings razored out of frames, but the biggest serial theft in Australian museum history involved the brazen removal of 3,000 rare, delicate butterfly specimens from Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide through the 1940s. In The Butterfly Thief, Walter Marsh paints a remarkable picture of the life and crimes of confessed museum thief Colin Wyatt and a bigger story of ‘collector’s mania’: in an age of repatriation and decolonisation, were our museums crime scenes all along? Discover this daring and disturbing trail of larceny with Walter, in conversation with author and journalist Michael Brissenden.
Walter Marsh is a journalist and editor based in Tarntanya/Adelaide, and the author of The Butterfly Thief (Scribe 2025) and Young Rupert: The Making of the Murdoch Empire (Scribe 2023). A former staff writer and editor at The Adelaide Review and Rip It Up, his writing has also appeared in The Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The Age, and InDaily.
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Concession Tickets apply for children under the age of 16, full-time students, Commonwealth Health Care Card holders, Commonwealth Seniors Card Holders and Commonwealth Pensioner Concession Card holders. Please have your eligible card with you at the venue.
Walter Marsh is a journalist and editor based in Tarntanya/Adelaide, and the author of The Butterfly Thief (Scribe 2025) and Young Rupert: The Making of the Murdoch Empire (Scribe 2023). A former staff writer and editor at The Adelaide Review and Rip It Up, his writing has also appeared in The Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The Age, and InDaily.
_______________________________________________________________
Concession Tickets apply for children under the age of 16, full-time students, Commonwealth Health Care Card holders, Commonwealth Seniors Card Holders and Commonwealth Pensioner Concession Card holders. Please have your eligible card with you at the venue.