Stolen Matisse turns up in Britain; to be returned to Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm

LONDON (AFP).- A Matisse painting stolen 25 years ago from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm has turned up in Britain, where a dealer had hoped to sell it on behalf of an elderly Polish client, it emerged on Monday. Henri Matisse's "Le Jardin", an oil on canvas from 1920 which is now worth about $1 million (760,000 euros), was found when art dealer Charles Roberts ran it through a global database of stolen art -- standard practice before a sale. The team at the Art Loss Register quickly identified the painting as the one stolen from the Swedish museum on May 11, 1987, when a burglar broke in with a sledgehammer and made off with the artwork in the early hours of the morning. Several attempts were made to ransom the painting or sell it back to the museum for a huge sum, according to reports at the time, but the museum refused, and the trail went cold -- until last month. Within a few days of matching the Matisse with the stolen painting on the database, a specialist had taken possession of the work and put it in his safe, where it is now awaiting delivery to the Swedish museum. Roberts, who runs Charles Fine Art in Essex, east of London, said he had been asked to sell the painting by an elderly man in Poland who had owned it since the 1990s and now wanted to raise money for his grandchildren. Given that the dealer did not know who owned the Matisse before that, Roberts ran it through the Art Loss Register to check its provenance. "I didn't anticipate hearing that it had been stolen. It came as quite a shock to find that out," Roberts told AFP. "It would have been good all round, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. As soon as I was informed of its status there was no question about doing anything but returning it." The Polish man had bought it "in good faith", Roberts said, and when he told him it was stolen and could not be sold, the man "was bewildered, taken aback, although he did say, 'So it definitely is a real one?'" The director of the Swedish museum at the time of the theft had told reporters that the painting was too well-known to sell on the open market, and this is likely why it had been missing for so long. Christopher A. Marinello, the art recovery specialist and lawyer who has locked the work in his safe, said: "Stolen artwork has no real value in the legitimate marketplace and will eventually resurface.... It's just a matter of waiting it out."

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Two Greeks jailed for life over illegal antiquities, two more men for 20 and 16 years

THESSALONIKI (AP).- A Greek court has imposed life sentences on two men convicted of dealing in ancient treasure worth an estimated €12 million ($15.85 million), which had been illegally excavated from a cemetery in northern Greece. The court in the northern city of Thessaloniki jailed two more men for 20 and 16 years, respectively, after finding them guilty of digging up and transporting the antiquities. The severity of Friday's sentences was due to the high market value of the loot — more than 70 artifacts from the 6th century B.C. These included gold masks, four helmets, a glass perfume bottle, small clay statues, part of a gold diadem and parts of an iron sword decorated with gold leaf. Archaeologists are currently excavating an ancient cemetery near Thessaloniki where the finds came from. Antiquities in Greece are all state property by law. But smuggling is a major problem in the country, where relics of a rich ancient past often lie just inches beneath the surface. Looting deprives archaeologists of valuable contextual information that would emerge from a proper excavation. Without such clues, finds — however impressive — are little more than pretty artifacts with a high commercial value.

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Man jailed for two years for defacing Rothko work in London's Tate Modern gallery

LONDON (AP).- A Polish man who defaced a Mark Rothko painting in London's Tate Modern gallery with black ink was sentenced Thursday to two years in jail. Wlodzimierz Umaniec, also known as Vladimir Umanets, was arrested after visitors discovered a scrawl across the bottom of Rothko's "Black on Maroon" on Oct 7. The 26-year-old later said he had written the words "a potential piece of yellowism" on the abstract painting to draw attention to Yellowism, an artistic movement he co-founded. He pleaded guilty to criminal damage over 5,000 pounds ($8,000). Prosecution lawyer Gregor McKinley said restoring the painting would cost around 200,000 pounds ($320,000) and take up to 20 months. "Complications to this work include the unique painting technique used by the artist and the fact the ink used by Mr. Umaniec has permeated the paint layers and the canvas itself," he said. Passing sentence at Inner London Crown Court, judge Roger Chapple said it was "wholly and utterly unacceptable" to promote the movement by damaging a work of art that had been "a gift to the nation." Russian-born Rothko, who died in 1970, was a leading figure in American abstract painting, renowned for large-scale works featuring bold blocks of color. The defaced painting was one of a series intended to decorate the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. Rothko changed his mind about the commission and gave the works to galleries, including the Tate. McKinley said auctioneer Sotheby's had valued "Black on Maroon" at between 5 million pounds and 9 million pounds ($8 million and $14 million). This is not the first time an artwork at Tate Modern has been interfered with. In 2000, two Chinese performance artists attempted to urinate on Marcel Duchamp's urinal sculpture "Fountain." Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Italian police recover 2,000-year-old Egyptian sphinx stolen from Etruscan necropolis of Montem Rossulum

ROME (AFP).- Italian police on Thursday said they had recovered a 2,000-year-old Egyptian sphinx statue that was stolen from a necropolis near Rome and was about to be smuggled out of the country. "The investigation began with a random check of an industrial vehicle during which police found a decorative ceramic object from an excavation as well as many photos of the Egyptian sculpture," the police said in a statement. A search of the driver's residence turned up the statue from the Ptolemaic era (4th-1st centuries BC) packed into a crate and hidden in a greenhouse. The statue is believed to have been stolen from the Etruscan necropolis of Montem Rossulum near Viterbo, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Rome. The police "prevented the sculpture, as well as a series of ancient objects from being put on the clandestine international market," the statement said. The granite statue measures 120 centimetres and 60 centimetres. Egyptian sculptures began to be shipped to Italy following the Roman conquest of Egypt in the 1st century BC.

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Greek police crack Olympia robbery, recover artefacts after three Greek men offer them

Greek police crack Olympia robbery, recover artefacts after three Greek men offer them An array of ancient artifacts are displayed by police after they were recovered. Greek police say they have arrested three people in connection with an armed robbery that targeted the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympics. The three men were arrested Friday in the western Greek city of Patras, close to Ancient Olympia, after they tried to sell the most ancient of the antiquities to an undercover policeman. AP Photo / Greek Police. PATRAS (AFP).- Greece officials announced on Saturday they had solved an embarrassing museum robbery in Olympia in February after a police sting operation netted three suspects and recovered dozens of archaeological artefacts. Earlier Saturday, police said they had arrested three Greek men aged between 36 and 50, and were seeking another two suspects. The three were arrested at a hotel in the city of Patras late on Friday after one of them tried to sell the Bronze Age gold ring for 300,000 euros ($387,000) to an undercover officer posing as a potential buyer. The original asking price had been 1.5 million euros, the police said. Officers were then dispatched to a village near Olympia where they found the remaining artefacts buried inside a sack in a field. "The discovery and arrest of the perpetrators of the robbery and the recovery of the stolen items are a great success," deputy education minister responsible for culture Costas Tzavaras said in a statement. Back in February, a pair of armed robbers made off with nearly 80 artefacts from a museum dedicated to the ancient Olympic Games. The stolen treasures included a 3,300-year-old gold ring, a bronze statuette of a victorious athlete, a 2,400-year-old oil jar, clay lamps, bronze tripods and miniature chariot wheels, as well as dozens of idols of charioteers, horses and bulls. "All the items were recovered," the ministry's general secretary, Lina Mendoni, told reporters in Athens. "Next week they will regain their place at the museum," she added. In February, police had described the robbers as amateurs who had turned up at the wrong museum. A female guard who confronted them said they had been looking for a pair of golden wreaths, which were not kept in that particular collection. Greece, rich in archaeological heritage, has been targeted by antiquity smugglers for decades. But the financial crisis rocking the country has brought hundreds of staff layoffs among archaeologists and guards, leaving museums vulnerable to theft. The Olympia robbery badly embarrassed authorities at the time. The then culture minister offered to resign but was allowed to keep his post. It came a month after thieves broke into the Athens National Gallery and stole a painting personally gifted to Greece by Spanish-born master Pablo Picasso, in addition to two other artworks. No arrests have been made in that case.

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Dutch police investigating art heist probe tips; heist was more "smash and grab" than "Ocean's 11"

AMSTERDAM (AP).- In Hollywood movies, heists usually feature criminals who plan meticulously and use high-tech equipment to avoid detection. But the thieves who snatched seven paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Monet worth millions from a gallery in Rotterdam appear to have taken a less glamorous approach, relying mostly on speed and brute force. In other words, the theft from the Kunsthal exhibition on avant-garde art was more "smash and grab" than "Ocean's 11." Dutch police said Wednesday they had no suspects in the case, the largest art heist in the country for more than a decade, though an appeal to witnesses had produced more than a dozen tips for investigators to follow up. As questions arose about security at the museum, its director, Emily Ansenk, rejected criticism of the facility's safeguards. Speaking at a news conference Tuesday evening, she defended Kunsthal's security as "state of the art" and noted that insurance companies had agreed to insure it. And yet the thieves got away. The paintings they took are estimated to be worth roughly $100 million if sold at auction. Experts said the structure and location of the museum, which was designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, may have attracted criminals. "Speaking as a museum-goer, it's fantastic," museum security expert Ton Cremers said. "Speaking as a security expert, it's a total nightmare." The gallery is located along a large road that leads to a roundabout, less than a mile away, connecting highways heading in three directions. The display space where the paintings once hung is a large square area, at ground level, visible from outside through glass walls. Though police and the museum have declined to discuss aspects of the heist that might help thieves, the main details of what happened are clear. The break-in occurred at around 3 a.m. Tuesday, police say, after someone triggered an alarm. Investigators have focused on an emergency exit behind the building. The exit connects directly to the main exhibition hall, with paintings hung just a few yards away. Tire tracks can still be seen in the grass behind the building leading away from the exit. Police on Tuesday dusted the exit for fingerprints and took samples of the tire prints. The paintings were yanked from the walls, leaving only white spaces and broken hanging wires dangling behind. Officers were on the scene within five minutes of the alarm being triggered, according to museum director Ansenk, but the thieves were already gone. Police spokesman Henk van der Velde said Wednesday that 25 officers have been assigned to the case, but the getaway car has not been found and there are no suspects. Agents were reviewing videotape from museum cameras. It is unknown what will happen to the paintings if the thieves are not caught. The thieves may "wake up and realize they can't sell the paintings easily" now that museums around the world have been alerted to their theft, said Chris Marinello, of the Art Loss Register. But the thieves may also sell them on the black market for a fraction of their true value, or try to extract money from insurers in exchange for returning them. Anthony Roman, a New York-based security analyst, said the Kunsthal's level of defenses appeared so basic as to be "astounding," given the value of the art it was housing. He said an alarm system alone would never be enough to stop criminals. Thieves "learn the distance the police have to travel," he said. "They understand the mechanism and the amount of time between when the alarm goes off and the time of a physical presence of law enforcement." Security expert Cremers said the museum was not at fault for relying on cameras and motion detectors, rather than human guards. Having guards on site is costly, and they would be instructed not to confront robbers during a break-in anyway. "The only thing they can do is call police," he said. Cremers said the museum should have looked at ways to slow potential thieves down. That might have prevented them from attempting to break in in the first place, or at least limited the size of their haul. He said the paintings should have been hung inside behind a second makeshift wall with doors, creating a "box within a box" in the gallery. In addition, the museum could have set up a barrier or fence preventing cars from being able to drive up right to the emergency doors. "I'm sure they'll be looking at that now," he said. Later Wednesday, museum spokeswoman Mariette Maaskant confirmed that the museum was installing stone planter boxes big enough to block cars "as an extra security measure." - AP reporter Lori Hinnant contributed to this story from Paris. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
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Lost Roy Lichtenstein painting "Electric Cord" surfaces in a warehouse in New York City

NEW YORK (AP).- A painting by the late pop artist Roy Lichtenstein that disappeared 42 years ago has turned up in a New York City warehouse and is in legal limbo. Lichtenstein's black and white "Electric Cord" was reported stolen after it was sent out to be cleaned by owner Leo Castelli in 1970 and never returned. The painting shows a tightly wound electrical cord. Court papers say it re-emerged last week when the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation notified Castelli's widow, Barbara Castelli, someone was trying to sell it. Castelli's court filings say the painting recently was on display at a museum in Colombia. They say Castelli is "deeply concerned" the painting may disappear again. A judge on Tuesday signed an order barring the Manhattan warehouse from selling or moving the painting until a hearing next week. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. More Information: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=56867#.UCFrA6PhdI0[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org