ALR Quarterly Newsletter Issue 14 – June 2019
Stik stolen from Hackney Gardens
As profiled in the Financial Times at the end of May, the Art Loss Register would like to warn the public and art trade that three artworks created by the renowned street artist Stik have been stolen from the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, a social enterprise garden in Hackney.
The three pieces were stolen in the night of 25/26 November 2018 and have not yet been recovered. It is believed that they may be being offered to innocent buyers who could unwittingly find themselves holding stolen art.
These three stolen artworks should be returned to the Garden, and anyone with any information about their whereabouts is asked to contact the Art Loss Register.
Alternatively, if you have unwittingly found them in your possession, they can be returned directly to the Dalston
Eastern Curve Garden.
Heywood Hardy artwork recovered after 20 years and a long journey!
A painting by the renowned British equestrian and animal portraits artist Heywood Hardy has been recovered by
the ALR after it was stolen from a private house in Cheshire in 1999. The theft victim inherited the painting from his
aunt in the 1980’s and was distraught when it was taken in a burglary. Thinking that the painting was lost forever, he
painted his own copy which hung in place of the stolen piece.
Much to his surprise and delight, the stolen painting was identified by the ALR as coming up for sale at a UK auction
house earlier this year. Investigations revealed that the painting – which had probably lain dormant for 20 years – had suddenly been the subject of no less than five different transactions since June 2018, the first at a sales price of just £300. The painting is in fact worth many times that value. Not only had its selling price changed dramatically, but so had its location – moving from the North to the South of England, and then on to Sweden and Belgium – before returning back to the UK for re-sale. The ALR successfully negotiated a settlement on behalf of the theft victim with the consignor to the auction house, which provided for the painting to be returned to the rightful owner.
Upon collection of the piece, the theft victim’s son commented:
“Amazingly it doesn’t seem to have suffered any damage. It’s made a 92 year old man extremely happy”.
ALR incorporated into Parcours des Mondes
We are excited to announce that the ALR will now be checking objects exhibited as part of Parcous des Mondes 2019.
The ALR will check all objects displayed in the catalog, and is available to search any others on behalf of exhibitors during the this renowned Parisian gallery walk, founded in 2002.
Parcours des Mondes also coincides with La Biennale Paris, at which the ALR will be incorporated into the vetting this year.
In the News…
A couple of interesting news stories that have stood out to us in the past week or so:
Study indicates scale of GDR-era provenance issues within German museums
The results of the German Lost Art Foundation study investigating losses under the GDR have recently been profiled Catherine Hickley in The Art Newspaper. The study suggests that up to 8% of GDR-era museum acquisitions may be works that were either seized by the East German government, or received in lieu of invented taxes. Read more here.
The study raises the question as to whether these works will be subject to claims from the original owners over the coming years.
Stolen but damaged objects recovered from Museum of East Asian Art theft
Also in the news is the welcome report that some of the 48 objects stolen from the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath last year have been recovered in Gloucestershire. Sadly, all 18 of the items recovered have been damaged which indicates the limited care to preserve these objects for a prospective sale – or perhaps there are other reasons that only these now-less-valuable ones have been recovered?