NEW YORK and BERLIN, April 9 /PRNewswire/ --

artnet is pleased to announce that it is publishing Artful Tom, the new
memoir by Thomas Hoving, best-selling author and former director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The memoir is being published exclusively on
artnet in weekly installments beginning with Chapter 1, which is available in
artnet Magazine today (http://www.artnet.com/ArtfulTom).

In his latest art world tell-all, Hoving reveals:

    -- how he smuggled art treasures from Europe as a young curator.
    -- why he got fired from Connoisseur magazine.
    -- the secrets that helped the Italians get back his beloved
       million-dollar Euphronios krater.
    -- how he got the police to move bodies out of Central Park as
       Commissioner of Parks.
    -- inside stories of ABC's television newsmagazine 20/20.

A renowned museum executive, Hoving was first a curator (1959-65) and
then director (1967-77) of the Met, where he presided over a dramatic
expansion of both the museum and its audience. He specialized in high-profile
acquisitions of masterworks -- an abiding interest, and the subject of his
previous artnet Magazine column, "My Eye" -- as well as opening the museum to
a broader and more youthful public via blockbuster exhibitions like "King
Tut." Under his leadership, the museum embarked on its great expansion plan,
which added 125 galleries to the museum and doubled its space. The extensive
acquisitions that took place during his tenure include the Lehman Collection,
the Packard Collection and the Temple of Dendur.

After a decade as director, Hoving left the museum and became the on-air
correspondent and entertainment editor for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20. He
then went on to form Hoving Associates, a museum consulting firm, and later
became the Editor-in-Chief of Connoisseur magazine.

Hoving is a best-selling author whose numerous titles include Making the
Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1993), The Hunt For
Big-time Art Fakes (1997), Art for Dummies (1999), and American Gothic: The
Biography of Grant Wood's American Masterpiece (2005).

Visit artnet.com/ArtfulTom to read Artful Tom.

About artnet:

artnet has been online since 1995 and is host to approximately 2,000,000
visitors each month. Through its Fine Art Price Database of over 3.8 million
auction sales results, its new Decorative Art Price Database and its Gallery
Network of over 2,200 galleries worldwide, artnet is the leading online
resource for the international art market. With its Online Auctions, artnet
has added a transaction platform to its successful information services.
artnet Magazine features authoritative coverage from the art industry's most
respected journalists and critics.

www.artnet.com www.artnet.de www.artnet.fr

Press contact:

    Sarah Bradley
    artnet Worldwide Inc.
    61 Broadway, 23rd floor
    New York, NY 10006-2701, U.S.A.
    Tel: +1-212-497-9700 ext: 197
    sbradley@artnet.com