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Arts and Culture

Five Famous Paintings Swiped in Paris Museum Heist

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Posted on May 20, 2010
painting
bbc.co.uk

Stolen scene: “Pastoral,” painted by Henri Matisse in 1906, was one of the five paintings pilfered from Paris’ Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday.

Somehow, a lone art bandit—or a band of bandits—managed to pull off an impressive five-finger-discount maneuver at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris on Wednesday night, making off with five masterpieces worth a grand total of close to 100 million euros. Sacré bleu!  —KA

BBC:

“This is a serious crime to the heritage of humanity,” Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary at the Paris Town Hall, told a news conference.

The theft was committed by “one or more individuals who were obviously organised”, Mr Girard said.

He added that investigators were looking into how the museum’s security system and several guards were outsmarted by the thief or thieves.

Mr Girard put the value of the stolen paintings at just under 100m euros (£86m; $123m). They had earlier been estimated to be worth some 500m euros (£431m; $618m).

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By NYCartist, May 21, 2010 at 9:58 am Link to this comment

I leave it to others to make the connection between the baseball owners’ monopoly/business (elsewhere on TD homepage) and the business of art.

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By NYCartist, May 21, 2010 at 9:57 am Link to this comment

My art is only in one museum’s archives, and in images or multiples.  I know people who have tried to sneak their art into the MoMA in NYC, by leaving it hanging in the Ladies Room.  Lots of us would lend our art to various museums ....

One anecdote: In the mid70s, the Brooklyn Museum of Art finally agreed to a show by Women in the Arts, a NYC women’s art group, large group.  We wanted an “open show” (no jurying), but the museum director insisted.  So we looked at each other’s work and said, “OK” and no one was excluded.  It was a great show of a couple of hundred, plus pieces of work.
(Women are still underrepresented in museums and galleries.)

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By WriterOnTheStorm, May 21, 2010 at 8:54 am Link to this comment

Is anybody else out there as surprised as I am at how easy and simple these art
thefts appear to be? I’m waiting for the Thomas Crown art theft masterpiece, and
all we ever get is malfunctioning alarms, or crude daylight robberies at gunpoint.
Where’s the artistry in that?

I guess all the smart thieves know the real unguarded treasures are on Wall Street.

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