Evidence Ordered Released in Shepard Fairey ‘HOPE’ Case

NEW YORK.- Lawyers for artist Shepard Fairey must disclose the identities of anyone who deleted or destroyed records related to a copyright dispute over the Barack Obama “HOPE” image, a judge said Monday. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled in favor of The Associated Press in most of its requests for evidence, including when Fairey’s lawyers first knew the AP had asserted that it holds the copyright to a photograph the image was based on. He said lawyers must [...]

Fine Art Registry vs. Park West Gallery Lawsuit Begins its Fourth Week

PORT HURON, MI.- Fine Art Registry begins presentation of its case against Park West Gallery after the Michigan art gallery has spent three weeks presenting its case, claiming defamation, etc. The case is clearly a classic SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) lawsuit by the world’s self-proclaimed “largest art gallery” against web-based company, Fine Art Registry, which has been outspoken in its criticism of the Michigan gallery’s sale of inauthentic and vastly overpriced art at “auctions” primarily aboard cruise ships, [...]

Stolen Henry Moore Sculpture Found in Toronto

NEW YORK.- A Henry Moore bronze sculpture stolen from a New York City gallery in 2001 has been recovered. The $80,000 abstract sculpture of a reclining figure was found at Miriam Shiell (SHEEL) Fine Art in Toronto on Wednesday. Shiell says a man brought it in last week and she searched the Art Loss Register. The recovery came days after a Paul Klee (KLAY) painting was found in a Montreal art gallery. The executive director of the London-based Art Loss [...]

Painting by Paul Klee Stolen from NYC in 1989 is Found by Montreal Gallery Owner

NEW YORK, NY.- A painting by Swiss artist Paul Klee that was stolen from a New York gallery in 1989 been recovered after a Montreal gallery owner became suspicious and turned it over to U.S. authorities. Robert Landau turned the 1930 painting, “Portrait in the Garden,” by the neo-impressionist artist over to U.S. authorities after a Florida art dealer tried to sell it to him. It had been stolen from the Marlborough Gallery. “Once we found out it was stolen, [...]

$5 Million Reward for Recovery Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”

Boston, MA—When two men dressed as Boston police officers made off with 13 works of art valued at $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, it was an art theft of unusual and shocking scale. Now the Federal Bureau of Investigations has announced it will mount a similarly ambitious effort to retrieve the paintings, offering a $5 million reward for their recovery in a billboard campaign along Interstates 93 and 495 in Massachusetts. The signs, which are [...]

Ex-NY Art Dealer to Admit Nearly $100M Fraud

NEW YORK, NY.- A Manhattan art dealer who catered to celebrities and artists’ heirs apologized Thursday for bilking about $120 million from clients to finance a once-luxurious life now unraveled into bankruptcy, illness and a struggle with drinking. “I am deeply ashamed and sorry for my actions,” Lawrence B. Salander told a judge in a husky voice after acknowledging he stole millions from tennis star John McEnroe, the estate of actor Robert De Niro’s father and others. Salander, 60, admitted [...]

Dutch Police Arrest 2 Suspects Involved in 2009 Art Heist

THE HAGUE.- Dutch police say they have arrested two men suspected of involvement in an art heist last year in which masked and armed men snatched two paintings, including one by Salvador Dali, from a museum. The robbers stole “Adolescence,” a 1941 gouache by Dali and “La Musicienne,” an oil painting from 1929 by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka, on May 1 from the Scheringa Museum for Realism. Police say the paintings have not been recovered. The suspects, [...]

Stolen Juan Gris painting recovered by FBI

MIAMI, FL.- Jeffrey H. Sloman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, announced Robert C. Dibartolo was charged with the interstate transportation of stolen artwork. According to the criminal complaint and affidavit, on April 18, 2004, unknown subjects forcibly broke into a home in Saint Louis, Missouri. The unknown subjects stole a valuable painting hanging in the front foyer of the residence. The [...]

FBI Advertises Reward Money on Billboards for Clues to Gardner Heist

BOSTON.- It remains the most tantalizing art heist mystery in the world. In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two thieves walked into Boston’s elegant Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum disguised as police officers and bound and gagged two guards using handcuffs and duct tape. For the next 81 minutes, they sauntered around the ornate galleries, removing masterworks including those by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet, cutting some of the largest pieces from their frames. By the time they disappeared, [...]

Philadelphia Museum of Art seeks $1.5M for paintings lost in alleged scam

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.- A pair of lawsuits filed this week detail a swindle that appears to have cost the Philadelphia Museum of Art $1.5 million. The museum is trying to recover the money – not from the art dealer who swindled them, but from the insurance company that protects all of the museum’s artwork from “physical damage or loss.” The origin of the dispute goes back to 2006, when museum officials decided to sell two works by a couple of America’s [...]

FBI Recovered Antiquarian Library to Be Sold At Auction

CHICAGO, IL.- Leslie Hindman Auctioneers announces an auction featuring over 75 lots of early Italian and Latin literature from the antiquarian book library of John Sisto of Berwyn, Illinois. The books, maps and engravings comprise what remains of the over 3,500 items seized by the Chicago division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2007, of which 1,600 items were repatriated to Italy after being deemed unlawfully imported. The collection had been brought to the attention of the FBI [...]

FBI Hopes DNA can Help Solve 1990 Gardner Museum Art Heist

BOSTON.- The FBI is hoping advances in DNA technology can help solve a 20-year-old Boston art heist. A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Boston office tells The Boston Globe the lead agent in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum case is resubmitting evidence taken from the scene for DNA analysis. Agent Geoffrey Kelly said he could not disclose what evidence would be reviewed, but experts familiar with the case said it would probably include duct tape used to bind two museum security [...]

Woman Convicted in Case of Stolen Antoinette Watch

LOS ANGELES.- The widow of a notorious Israeli thief has been convicted of receiving stolen property from a 27-year-old heist that included more than 100 expensive timepieces and museum artifacts, including what’s been called “the Mona Lisa of the clock world.” Nili Shamrat, 64, of Tarzana, was convicted Feb. 23 and sentenced to five years’ probation and 300 hours of community service, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced Tuesday. In 1983, 106 timepieces, paintings and artifacts were taken from the [...]

Greek Police Arrest Two Men with Valuable Antiquities

THESSALONIKI.- Greek police arrested two men trying to sell several artifacts, including a bronze sculpture of emperor Alexander the Great from the 4th century B.C., for which the asking price was euro7 million ($9.5 million), authorities said Sunday. Police identified the suspects as a 48-year-old Thessaloniki businessman and a 51-year-old farmer, but did not provide their names. The men were arrested Saturday morning near the town of Kavala, east of Thessaloniki, police said. Police searched their car and found a [...]

Gold foetus sculpture stolen

An £8,000 gold-plated cast of an illegally aborted foetus has been stolen from a London gallery. Two thieves smashed into the Orel Art UK gallery in Victoria in what is thought to be a pro-life protest. If Jesus Had Been An Abortion How Happy Would We Be by American artist Stephen J Shanabrook is a bronze cast of a foetus from the Sixties, plated in 24-carat gold. Gallery owner Julian Farrow said no other exhibits were touched: “It will be [...]