Ari Altstedter
Finding Willy: orca sculpture resurfaces 16 years after theft
OTTAWA “We have your whale,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “And could you come down and identify it in its holding cell tomorrow?”
And with that curious call from a taciturn cop, a 16-year-old mystery about the fate of a beautiful $500,000 bronze whale sculpture by renowned Canadian artist Bill Reid was solved.
The piece by Reid, whose work adorns the $20 bill and various Canadian landmarks, had been stolen from an Ottawa park in 1995 and was never seen again — until Lorraine Pierce-Hull got the call from Ottawa police.
Pierce-Hull works for the National Capital Commission, the government body responsible for beautifying Canada’s capital. She, like most people in Ottawa, had given up hope of ever seeing that sculpture again.
But the bronze orca was back on display Thursday at the NCC’s Ottawa headquarters, where it will stay until a new home is found. The unveiling marked the finale of a six-month saga that at times recalled the highbrow art underworld of The Thomas Crown Affair.
Of course, it all started with a mysterious phone call from an anonymous source.
Andrew Gibbs, an art appraiser at Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Ottawa, got that call in September, but when the voice on the other end claimed to have a Bill Reid, Gibbs didn’t get excited.
The famous Haida artist’s major works sit outside the Canadian embassy in Washington, the Vancouver International Airport and the Vancouver Aquarium. But Reid also produced tiny bronzes only a few inches tall, so Gibbs was skeptical this was a work of real value. He asked the mysterious voice to describe it.
“When he said it was maybe around four foot tall I thought, ‘My goodness, we’re talking about something very valuable here,’” he said. “Or a large copy, a large fake.”
The enigmatic tipster’s answers became vague when asked where he got the sculpture, so Gibbs suspected a forgery. He asked for pictures as proof. After a few weeks of waiting they never came, so he wrote the whole thing off.
Then, in December, the photos finally appeared in an unmarked envelope slipped under his office door.
“Instantly I knew that it was the real McCoy,” he said. “This was a half-million-dollar sculpture.”
Gibbs called the police to say he thought the long lost sculpture, Killer Whale, had been found. But none of his interactions with the anonymous caller so far offered any clues about the sculpture’s location. Gibbs could do nothing but wait. And hope he was contacted again.
With each day that passed the possibility grew that the statue would disappear, or worse.
“There was also the possibility that this could be melted down if something wasn’t sorted out,” he said.
Finally, after two tense weeks the phone call came and Gibbs managed to wring out enough information for the police to retrieve the sculpture.
The Ottawa Police are being tight-lipped about who had the statue and how he got it. They say they’re not pressing charges because the mysterious caller wasn’t aware the statue had been stolen, and if he hadn’t come forward the statue would still be gone. But they admit they’re out of leads as to who stole it in the first place.
“The investigation has gone cold a bit, it’s stalled,” said police spokesperson Constable Marc Soucy.
The police are calling for more tips, but for now, officials at the NCC are just happy to have their whale back.
The sculpture will stay safe in the NCC’s offices for now but the search for a more permanent home is already under way. The new venue will be a public place where people can enjoy the sculpture and the NCC can keep an eye on it with 24-hour surveillance.
“Bill Reid is one of the key Canadian artists of the 20th century,” Gibbs said. “His work is vitally important in many ways and this piece is not only financially very valuable, but culturally valuable. It’s a great gain to have it back again.”
The Canadian Press
http://www.thespec.com/news/canada/article/680041--finding-willy-orca-sculpture-resurfaces-16-years-after-theft