Art Theft: The Gardner Museum, Boston

In case you were getting the impression that these art thefts always had happy endings, here’s installment three. You can read the first here and the second here.

In March of 1990 two guards were on duty late at night at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Two thieves came in, dressed like police officers, and tricked the guards into trusting them. The thieves tied up the guards and locked them in the basement before spending over an hour taking paintings from the walls. Then they took the security tape.

It’s not clear why the thieves stole the painting. Some think they had a list of works they were stealing for a collector because they took a wide variety of items from throughout the museum: 3 Rembrandt paintings, a painting by Vermeer, some sketches by Monet, a vase, and few other paintings and objects. The thieves cut the paintings out of the frames though, which damages the artwork. This is not something a collector would want. In fact, a collector would probably insist against it.

The total value of the works stolen was $300 million so the reward issued by the museum for the safe return, $1 million, was not as huge as it seems. In any event it didn’t bring the artwork back. The police had two suspect but both died before they could be tracked down. Later, the Gardner Museum upped the reward to $5 million.

So far, 18 years later, the art is still missing.

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Art Theft: Edvard Munch's The Scream

What follows is the second installment in a series about art theft. You can read the first here.

In 1994, a group of thieves broke into the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway. In the chaos of the Winter Olympic Games, they took one of the four versions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. A few months later, police recovered the painting and arrested the men involved.

A later heist involving another version of Munch’s The Scream would not conclude nearly as swiftly or neatly. In August of 2004, two thieves in masks entered the Munch Museum in Oslo. One of them men controlled the crowd with a gun while the other took The Scream and another Munch painting, The Madonna, off the wall. A third man waited in a getaway car and the three were able to disappear before the police arrived.

The car was found not far from the museum. The thieves had left the frames in the car and sprayed the interior with fire extinguishers so the police would have a difficult time finding clues such as fingerprints. Their efforts worked and the men were able to get away with the paintings.

In late 2005, more than a year after the theft, police captured three men believed to have been involved in stealing, transporting, or hiding the paintings. Police continued to search for another three men.

In August of 2006, the paintings were finally recovered, though the two gunmen were never found.

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Art Theft: The Mona Lisa

Sorry for the delayed posting. I'm in my fourth day of fever. I just can't seem to stay healthy. Anyhow, here it is.

Museums house some of the most valuable and recognizable items in the world. Because a given painting can be worth millions of dollars, thieves sometimes risk the dangers of getting caught stealing artwork so they can cash in. For the next few days I will be posting about art theft.

Sometimes the thief’s main goal in stealing a painting is not to make money. This was the case when, in 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia stole Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris. Peruggia, like da Vinci, was Italian, and he believed the Mona Lisa was an Italian treasure that should be kept in Italy.

So on August 21, 1911 he went to the Louvre (where he worked) and took the painting off the wall. The museum was closed that day for maintenance and the other workers assumed the Mona Lisa had been taken somewhere to be photographed or cleaned. Peruggia took the painting into the stairwell, took it out of the frame, and hid the masterpiece in his smock. He left the frame and glass in the stairwell and took the painting.

It wasn’t until the next day that the museum employees realized that the painting was missing. By that time, though, the painting was hidden and there was only a slim chance of finding it. There were many theories about who might have taken the painting and where it could be. The police even investigated Pablo Picasso because he was rumored to have bought stolen artwork and some people thought that might have included the Mona Lisa. Of course, he didn’t have the painting.

Two years later, Peruggia tried to sell the Mona Lisa to an art buyer, Alfredo Geri, who contacted the director of the Uffizi (a prominent Italian art museum). Peruggia was willing to sell the painting only if it would be hung in the Uffizi and never returned to France.

But it didn’t work out that way for Peruggia. The painting was returned to the Louvre, after being displayed briefly in Italy, and Peruggia went to prison.

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Learning from the Masters

I promised this post in December and, finally, here it is. When I went to Paris I took the picture shown below. Here, a student imitates a painting created by a master. This is a common and useful method of learning to draw or paint because it allows a student to practice many artistic techniques and to learn different styles.

In 1784, all the schools of drawing in Italy were combined to create the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. At the Accademia, works by great masters of art were (and still are) kept so that students could draw them. These works included sculptures by Michelangelo. Today his famous David is on display in the gallery. This is an excellent example of student learning from the work of the masters.

You can use this method to learn to draw, too. Find a book with illustrations you admire. Try to keep it simple at first. Maybe choose a book about snakes and focus on making your drawing realistic. Then move on to a book about dogs. Choose more difficult images as you gain practice, confidence, and skill. Don’t forget to color in your pictures.

When you want an even bigger challenge, create paintings instead of drawing.

I have posted before on another method of learning art, learning through apprenticeships. Artist who learned through apprenticeships probably would have imitated the paintings of masters also. If you’re interested, The Young Artist, by Thomas Locker, is a good picture book about a young artist who becomes an apprentice.

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Links!!

I kind of hate when people put up entire posts based on links to other sites but that is what’s in store for you today. I’m working on something really cool (at least I think so) that will be a series of posts beginning on Monday. I’m excited about it and I hope you’ll enjoy the series as much as I’m enjoying researching and writing it!

Also, you'll notice the new blog layout. It may change again in the next few days but I thought it was time to rearrange things. I rearrange my apartment routinely and it always make me feel better, so there you go.

Anyhow, Happy Valentine’s Day! There are tons of Valentine craft projects on the web. You won’t find any on my site, but I’ll point you in the right direction if you’re interested. The first is an art project on one of my favorite art project sites (which you can also find in the sidebar under Art Projects for Kids). Here you will find a Valentine based on the art of Jim Dine, an American pop artist. It’s a fun project and you will end up with a beautiful Shiny Valentine.

Another fun Valentine’s Day craft: create a bouquet of tissue paper roses. The directions at Kinderart are pretty good but I would amend them a little. Their instruction say to use masking tape to connect the stem to the flower, then paint the tape to match the stem. It would be much easier (and less messy) to use tape that is already green. You can buy painters’ tape and electrical tape in green and I suggest you use one of those instead of painting masking tape. In any event, a bouquet of tissue paper roses in an assortment of colors can brighten the recipient's dining table for weeks.

And finally, a site unrelated to Valentine’s Day, and the inspiration for this links post: Teaching Drawing Skills. This page is meant as a resource for teachers and homeschoolers. Carolyn provides simple instructions for drawing objects like a box, coffee mug and saucer, and even a sneaker. Her page helps explain how an artist sees an object and then simplifies it into the lines and shading that form a drawing. It’s a very valuable site for students who want to improve their drawing skills.

I hope you’ve found something useful and I promise tomorrow’s post will be more interesting!

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