How the Denver Post uncovered looted objects at the Denver Art Museum
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Sam Tabachnik in Buriram Province, Thailand. Photo: Courtesy of Sam Tabachnik
The Pandora Papers exposed indicted art trader Douglas Latchford in 2021. The institution that housed the second highest number of objects from him: The Denver Art Museum.
What to know: That's where Denver Post reporter Sam Tabachnik started his year-long investigation, one that would take him to Cambodia and Thailand as he traced how illicitly-obtained foreign artifacts landed in Denver.
What he's saying: Here are lightly edited excerpts from our interview with Tabachnik about his series, "Looted."
How it started: "When I started reading the Latchford indictment and some of the other cases involving him, it kept referring to this 'Colorado scholar' who seemed to be with him at every step of the way. So I was interested in that: Who is this Colorado scholar?"
Driving the news: "A couple days before I went to Southeast Asia … I had seen some Thai news reports, saying there were some Thai objects in the Denver Art Museum that Thailand was trying to get back and that were under investigation by homeland security. …
- "I didn't think they were connected until a couple days before my trip. … That's when I realized … I had multiple stories here all connected to the same people."
The big picture: "Museums are really having to deal with a new world. The New York Times just wrote a story recently and said 'the Indiana Jones era is over.' And I think that's true.
- "[Decades ago] provenance was not a thing that people cared about. There was a much larger focus on, 'Hey, let's fill our museums with stuff from around the world.' How did it get there? 'We won't say.' And the public didn't seem to ask a lot of questions."
The intrigue: "This is an issue that is going to continue to be at the forefront in the art world. There are other pieces from other parts of the world that countries are going to be more outspoken and aggressive about in terms of getting them back from foreign museums.
- "So I don't think these are the only things in the Denver Art Museum that countries might want back."
What to watch: "Museums for a long time have been interested in increasing their collections, not decreasing them. So it's a new concept to just be actively returning pieces.
- "Museums can say what they want, but I think a lot of the time they are pushed by authorities, who say we will seize them if you don't give them up. The proactive nature of returns is not an easy one for museums to deal with."