A former assistant to artist Jasper Johns has been charged with stealing 22 works

NEW YORK, NY.- Last wednesday, James Meyer assistant of the master of Pop Art Jasper Johns, was stopped by the FBI and accused of stealing 22 art Works of Johns, some of these unfinished, and selling them to an art gallery in Manhattan. The pieces were valued for 6.5 million dollars and the artist’s assitant acquired 3.4 million. Meyer declared himself innocent and is currently free on (250,000 dollar) bail. According to the accusation, between 2006 and 2012, Meyer had a parallel archive of unfinished paintings in the artist’s studio in Sharon, Conneticut, which he sold afterwards to a New York art gallery. The assitant falsified the documentation which made him owner of the pieces, which he passed off as gifts from his mentor. John is one of the most important artists of his generation, known for his United States’ flags canvasses. His work on Three Flags, which can be admired in the Whitney Museum, was acquired in 1980 for a million dollars, the highest sum paid to a live artist to date. According to his web page, Meyer, of mexican origin, was adopted in California in 1962 and studied at the Visual Arts school of New York before he started to work for Johns. The portal theartblog.org published an interview with Meyers in which he admitted that when he was 22 years old he survived in Brooklin making copied of Van Gogh and Matisse for six dollars an hour to decorate the walls of a chain of restaurants in the city, work he didn’t like. His friends then suggested that he should ask profesional artists if he could collaborate with them. One of the first he tried, according to the article, was Johns. With a portfolio of his drawings in one hand and his CV on his other hand, Meyer showed up in front of the building where John’s studio was located in Houston Street. “I put on my suit and called”, revealed the assistant. However, that day he didn’t get past the threshold, but he left the painter his work. When he came back the next day to retrieve them, Johns invited him for a cup of coffee. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll see what will happen day to day”, recalls Meyer. Throughout his years collaborating with Johns, Meyer would draw traces in canvasses that Johns would later errase and repaint.

James Meyer, former assistant of the master of Pop Art Jasper Johns. Photo: Linkedin.


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Canvas nails found by experts investigating Rotterdam heist

BUCHAREST.- An image showing old copper and iron nails used to fix canvas on the wooden frame of paintings is shown during a press conference at the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest on August 8, 2013. Romanian experts sifting through ashes that could contain charred debris of masterpieces stolen from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum have identified fragments typical of burnt oil paintings, the museum carrying out the analysis said Thursday. Six Romanians will stand trial in August for what has been called the "theft of the century". The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin", Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed". AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU.

The World's Major Art Thefts

BUCHAREST (AFP).- Major art thefts around the world over the past decade, as the trial of six Romanians accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum last October is set to open on Tuesday in Bucharest:

October 16, 2012: Seven masterpieces, including works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and Gauguin, were stolen in a pre-dawn heist at Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum. Prosecutors say the paintings were worth 18 million euros ($24 million), although experts initially put their collective value at up to 100 million euros.

August 21, 2010: Van Gogh's "Poppy Flowers", worth $55 million, was stolen from Cairo's Mahmoud Khalil museum after it is cut out of its frame. It has yet to be found.

May 20, 2010: A lone thief stole works by Matisse, Picasso and three other modern masters from a Paris gallery as it emerged that an alarm was out of order at the time of the 100 million euro heist. The works are still missing.

February 10, 2008: Four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh and Monet valued at more than 112 million euros were stolen from a museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The Van Gogh and the Monet were later recovered; the other two have not been found.

August 5, 2007: Two Bruegels, a Sisley and a Monet, all considered priceless, were stolen from the Jules Cheret museum in Nice, France. They were recovered the following year.

In December 2011, a French court convicted five men arrested in an FBI sting and sentenced them to between two and nine years.

February 25, 2006: Works by Salvador Dali, Picasso, Matisse and Monet, estimated at $54 million, were taken from the Chacara do Ceu museum during the annual carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They have not been recovered.

August 22, 2004: Edvard Munch's masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna", valued at 80 million euros, were stolen from an Oslo museum. They were recovered damaged in 2006.

December 7, 2002: Two Van Goghs, valued at several million euros, were stolen from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. The pieces have so far not been found.

In addition, in March 1990, 13 works of art were lifted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, including rare paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer. The total value of the haul was estimated at a record $500 million. In March 2013 the authorities said they had identified the thieves, but that it was too late to prosecute as the statute of limitations had run out.

The most dramatic theft was probably that of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in Paris on August 21, 1911. It was found in December 1913.

A reproduction of the Edgar Degas painting "Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter", one of four paintings by major artists which were stolen from the private E.G. Buehrle Collection, in Zurich, Switzerland. Photo: Foundation E.G. Buehrle Collection.

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Romania court adjourns Dutch art heist trial; Suspect offers to return paintings

Eugen Darie (R) and Radu Dogaru (R), two of the six suspects in the Dutch art heist trial, exit a local Court in Bucharest, Romania on August 13, 2013. A Bucharest court on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 adjourned the trial of six Romanians charged with a spectacular theft from the Rotterdam Kunsthall , including masterpieces by Monet, Picasso and Gauguin that are now feared to have been burned. AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU.

BUCHAREST (AFP).- A Bucharest court on Tuesday adjourned the trial of six Romanians charged with a spectacular theft from a Dutch museum, including masterpieces by Monet, Picasso and Gauguin that are now feared to have been burned. Immediately after opening proceedings, the court president postponed the trial to September 10 to allow more time for legal issues to be examined, including bail requests. It took less than three minutes for the thieves to take seven works by some of the world's most famous artists from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam in the pre-dawn heist last October. Among the paintings carried away in burlap sacks were Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin" and Monet's "Waterloo Bridge".
Shortly before the hearing opened, a lawyer for the alleged mastermind said his client, who admits his guilt, had offered to return five of the works in return for being tried in the Netherlands instead of Romania. "Radu Dogaru tried to make a deal with the (Dutch) prosecutors," Catalin Dancu told reporters, adding that the punishments for robbery were lighter in the Netherlands. There was no mention of the other two missing paintings, and the lawyer said he could not confirm whether Dogaru was actually in possession of any of the masterpieces. Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened to the paintings. Dogaru's mother Olga earlier this year told prosecutors she had torched them in her stove in the sleepy village of Carcaliu in a bid to destroy evidence and protect her son, but she retracted that statement last month. An analysis by experts from Romania's National History Museum revealed that ashes retrieved from her stove included the remains of three oil paintings and nails from frames used before the end of the 19th century. The museum could not say whether these were from the paintings stolen in Rotterdam, although four of those were oil paintings.

Four of the suspects, including Dogaru, were in court for Tuesday's brief hearing. A fifth, who is not in detention, did not attend the session while a sixth accused is on the run and will be tried in absentia. As well as standing trial for aiding and abetting, Olga Dogaru faces a separate investigation into the possible destruction of the artworks. The total value of the haul, dubbed the "theft of the century" in the Netherlands, was 18 million euros ($24 million) according to prosecutors, while art experts at the time of the heist claimed the paintings were worth up to 100 million euros. "The theft was carried out according to a meticulous plan," prosecutors say in the indictment. Dogaru, 29, is already under investigation in Romania for murder and human trafficking. If found guilty of "theft with exceptionally serious consequences", he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Dogaru and his alleged accomplices all come from the same region in eastern Romania but lived in the Netherlands, and were under suspicion for robbery while their girlfriends allegedly were sex workers.

With little knowledge of art but eager to steal valuable old pieces, the group settled on the Kunsthal by chance. After searching for museums on their GPS, the group initially found themselves at Rotterdam's Natural History Museum, but soon realised its exhibits could not be resold, according to the indictment. They then chanced upon a poster advertising an exhibition of 150 masterpieces from the private Triton Foundation at the Kunsthal. Despite their value, none of the paintings were equipped with alarms, Dutch authorities said. After smuggling the paintings into Romania by road, the group tried to sell them without success. A former model, Petre Condrat, accused of being an intermediary, is charged with concealment. A Romanian art expert on Monday said she alerted the authorities last November after being asked by a friend to appraise two canvases. In an interview with Romanian daily Adevarul and Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, Mariana Dragu of Romania's National Art Museum said she was shocked to discover that the works -- Gauguin's "Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite La Fiancee" and "La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune" by Matisse -- were originals. Two months later, three of the suspects -- Dogaru, Eugen Darie and Mihai Alexandru Bitu -- were arrested in Romania. Two of them had been identified by Dutch police thanks to surveillance cameras. © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

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Experts investigating Rotterdam heist find remains of at least three oil paintings

An image showing a microscope picture of a canvas piece containig lead oxide is shown during a press conference is shown during a press conference at the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest on August 8, 2013. Romanian experts sifting through ashes that could contain charred debris of masterpieces stolen from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum have identified fragments typical of burnt oil paintings, the museum carrying out the analysis said Thursday. Six Romanians will stand trial in August for what has been called the "theft of the century". The works stolen include Picasso's "Tete d'Arlequin", Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed". AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU.


BUCHAREST (AFP).- Experts investigating the theft of seven masterpieces said Thursday they had found the burned remains of at least three oil paintings at the Romanian home of the chief suspect's mother. Olga Dogaru admitted torching the stolen artworks, including two Monets and a Picasso, to destroy evidence against her son. Prosecutors say the seven paintings were worth 18 million euros ($24 million), although experts have put their collective value at over 100 million euros. She later retracted her statement, but Romanian art experts say they have discovered traces of three or four paintings in ashes taken from a wood-burning stove in her home. Ernest Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu, head of Romania's National History Museum which analysed the ashes, said he could not be sure the paintings were those swiped from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum last October. "The number and the type of nails we found (in the ashes) indicate that we have at least three paintings there. There are also tacks that could belong to a fourth one," he told a press conference. "We found remains of burned oil paintings, but whether they are the ones that were stolen is a separate question, to be determined by prosecutors and judges." Olga Dogaru, her son Radu and four other Romanians go on trial on Tuesday in Bucharest over the audacious heist, which has been called the "theft of the century". It took the thieves just a pair of pliers and less than three minutes and to break into the museum and snatch the masterpieces, according to the indictment. Four of the stolen canvases were oil paintings, while the other three -- including Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" and Picasso's "Tête d'Arlequin" -- would be impossible to identify if burned as they were either pastel or coloured ink on paper, Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu said.
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Romanian art expert Mariana Dragu was key witness in Dutch art heist probe

'Waterloo Bridge, London' by Claude Monet.

BUCHAREST (AFP).- A Romanian art expert said Monday she helped police identify the suspects of a spectacular heist from a Dutch museum after she was asked to appraise two paintings in 2012. In an interview with Romanian daily Adevarul and Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, Mariana Dragu of Romania's National Art Museum said she "felt she had to do something" when she realised that the paintings she had seen were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam. A total of seven masterpieces including a Picasso, a Gauguin and two Monets were taken from the museum in October 2012. The works are feared lost after the mother of the main suspect told prosecutors she had torched them in a bid to destroy evidence. In November, Dragu was asked by a friend to appraise two paintings that he planned to buy if they were not fakes. She was met in a Bucharest flat by the art collector and two other men, one of whom proved to be among the suspects of the robbery. "I had heard about the theft but I had not seen any images so I did not realise at once that it could have been the stolen paintings," she said. After closely examining the two canvases -- "Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite La Fiancee" by Paul Gauguin and "La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune" by Henri Matisse -- she was shocked to discover that they were original. "I was told they came from England," she added, stressing that by then she had understood they were stolen. When asked about their value, Dragu told the men their "only chance to make some money was to hand them to the police, claiming they had found them in a garbage can". She was allowed to take only one picture -- the back of the Matisse, which carried several labels indicating that it had been exhibited in several international displays. Back home, Dragu went online and discovered the two canvases were among the seven masterpieces stolen from the Kunsthal. The next day she called the prosecutor's office. When the Dutch police were told the paintings were in Romania "they could not believe it," she said. "But the picture I had taken was the best evidence that it was true." "My only regret is that I was not clever and strong enough to say I know a potential buyer. I might have saved the paintings," she said. Two months later, three suspects, including one of the two men she had met, were arrested in Romania. Their trial begins Tuesday.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

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