Warhol’s sports superstars stolen from LA home

September 12, 2009

Court: Holocaust survivor can sue for painting

September 12, 2009

Los Angeles police said Friday the collection of 10 silk screen paintings of famous athletes of the 1970s was taken from the home of businessman Richard Weisman sometime between Sept. 2 and 3.

Weisman commissioned the iconic pop artist in 1977 to create the portraits, said Brenda Klippel, the director of Martin Lawrence Galleries in Los Angeles, which has a large collection of Warhols.

A commissioned portrait of Weisman was also stolen, said Detective Mark Sommer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s art theft detail. A $1 million reward was offered for information leading to the return of the paintings.

“This was a very clean crime,” Sommer said. “(The home) wasn’t ransacked.”

Art recovery expert Robert Wittman, a former investigator for the FBI’s national art crime team, says most rewards are offered for about 10 percent of a stolen collection’s value.

“A million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a hefty reward for a collection,” Wittman said.

The art was on display in Weisman’s dining room and his house was locked up. It wasn’t clear exactly when the paintings were taken or how the thieves got into the home.

The theft was discovered by the family’s longtime nanny who arrived at the home to find the large prints missing from the walls. She immediately went to a neighbor’s to call police, Sommer said.

It wasn’t known exactly how much the prints were worth.

“The theft of Warhol’s ‘Athlete Series’ represents a profoundly personal loss to me and my family,” Weisman said in a statement.

Weisman, who published a book about his art collection called, “From Picasso to Pop,” declined to comment further. The other valuable art in his home was untouched.

A neighbor saw a maroon van in the driveway of Weisman’s home around the time of the robbery, Sommer said.

Warhol became internationally famous in the 1960s for his iconic image of a Campbell’s soup can, his avant-garde films and his parties that mixed celebrities, artists, intellectuals and other beautiful people at his New York studio called “The Factory.”

“Warhol was always a portraitist and fascinated with anyone of fame or fortune, anyone in the public eye,” Klippel said. “If Weisman was in his circle and had the money, he could commission what he wanted.”

Wittman said about 95 percent of stolen art, especially well known pieces, are recovered.

“The real art in an art theft is not the stealing but the selling,” he said. “People know what they are. You can’t sell it to the industry, it’s not going back to the market and you also can’t sell it at auction.”

Court: Holocaust survivor can sue for painting

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON | Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — An elderly Holocaust survivor from San Diego can continue his legal battle against a Spanish museum to reclaim a valuable painting he says was taken from his grandmother by the Nazis, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that 88-year-old Claude Cassirer’s case against the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and the Spanish government can go forward.

Cassirer claimed his grandmother was forced to sell the 1897 painting by French impressionist Camille Pissarro for what was then $360 to get a visa to escape from Nazi Germany in 1939. He filed suit in California’s Central District in Los Angeles in 2005, and the defendants appealed in June 2006.

The painting, “Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie,” depicts a Parisian boulevard lined with dark carriages, a few bare trees and a scattering of people braving the weather. Its value is estimated at $20 million.

The painting apparently changed hands several times after World War II, and its whereabouts were a mystery to the Cassirer family until a friend spotted it in the Madrid museum in 2000.

The Spanish government bought the painting as part of the Baron Hans-Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza’s collection, which was worth $327 million. It has been on display at the famous government-owned museum since 1993.

Baron Thyssen bought the painting from a New York art dealer in 1976. Cassirer tried to negotiate its return through Spain’s Ministry of Culture, but his request was denied.

Tuesday’s opinion was written by Judge N. Randy Smith with a partial dissent by Judge Sandra Ikuta.

The ruling means the district court will have to determine whether Cassirer has exhausted all other legal options outside U.S. courts, said his attorney, Stuart Dunwoody.

“We’re confident we can do that, but it’s another step which slows things down, and a point upon which they can appeal,” Dunwoody said. “He hopes to see justice in his lifetime. He’s 88 years old, so we need to keep things moving along.”

Thyssen-Bornemisza officials could not immediately be reached for comment. However, the managing director of the Thyssen Foundation has said that the museum possesses documents that prove Baron Thyssen was the legitimate buyer in 1976.

“It is ours until proven otherwise,” Carlos Fernandez de Henestrosa has said.

In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to allow Los Angeles resident Maria Altmann, 88, to sue the government of Austria to retrieve $150 million worth of Gustav Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis. The five Klimts were handed over by Austria in January to Altmann and other family members following a seven-year legal battle.

An estimated 600,000 works of art were looted by the Nazis during Adolf Hitler’s rule in Germany.