Elizabeth Gibson was out walking one day 4 years ago in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in New York City when she spied a brightly colored painting put out with the trash. The painting effected her so much so that she took it home with her and adopted it as her own.
Little did Ms. Gibson know that the painting was a 1970 painting entitled Tres Personajes (Three People) by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo and that the painting had been stolen from an anonymous Houston Texas couple in 1987. Ms. Gibson will get a reward of $15,000 (US) and the painting will go on auction at Sotheby’s in November 2007 where it is expected to bring approximately $1 million.
So how on earth did a painting missing for 20 years resurface in New York City? There are several intriguing possibilities but most likely the thief knew that the painting had little or no resale value since it is a painting whose theft was investigated by the FBI. The painting was also featured on the Antiques Road Show as a missing masterpiece. Unless the thief could find a stolen art collector (of which I imagine there may be a dozen or so in the world) the painting is virtually valueless. Hence the painting’s near end with a Manhattan garbage truck.
Art theft has been taken more seriously in recent decades, perhaps because it was becoming more lucrative. There is even an international company that is one of the repositories of information on stolen art called the Art Loss Register.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA) also has an art theft unit and web site, though the website is cumbersome, organized by geographic region and then further broken down into art genres.
You can also search for stolen art here.
Source: Associated Press
