Museums Turn Blind Eye To Stolen Art

A New York Times article suggests that museum curators are so greedy to build their collections that they will accept artifacts even though they might be tainted. One deputy director of collections admitted to an undercover investigator that she was supposed to feign resistance, but eventually accept antiquities, even without proper paperwork.

“Museums are in a sense just turning a blind eye to what everybody knows in their heart of hearts is going on,” said the specialist, Patty Gerstenblith, a professor of law at DePaul University.

“By not thinking about what they buy, they are putting money into an international network of smugglers, looters, thieves and destroyers. As educational institutions, museums have a responsibility to look beyond that particular object” that they may be acquiring.

I could not agree more.

Chicagoan Tapped in Stolen Art Investigation

The same day as four Southern California museums were raided, authorities searched the private museum of Barry MacLean, a trustee of the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago. A Los Angeles Times article said:

The affidavit suggests that MacLean built his well-known art collection with substantial help from Robert Olson, an alleged smuggler of illicitly excavated American Indian, Thai and other Asian artifacts.  

In a phone interview Monday, Olson confirmed that MacLean was his biggest client, saying the Chicagoan purchased as much as $50,000 to $100,000 in Asian antiquities a year during the eight to 10 years they did business.

California Museums Raided

Four Southern California museums were raided late last week in the continuing effort to crack down on stolen artifacts being offered as donations to museums. According to an Associated Press story, federal agents raided the museums mostly in search of artifacts allegedly taken from Thailand’s Ban Chiang, one of the most prehistoric settlements ever discovered in Southeast Asia. The artifacts were likely smuggled into the U.S. and donated at inflated prices to collectors could claim fraudulent tax deductions.

The story also says that some museum officials initially questioned how the artifacts were obtained, but eventually accepted them.

In the past year some of the largest institutions in the nation (The Metropolitan Museum in New York, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California) have been found to have knowingly accept looted artifacts. If the crackdown on stolen art and artifacts is to ever be successful — and if museums hope to improve their tarnished reputations – they need to better investigate where the art comes from and how it got to the U.S.

Precious Art Used As Scrap Metal

Blame it on my limited knowledge of the criminal underworld, but I thought that thieves stole art to sell on some sort of art black market.

While this is likely the case, a blog post on The Portland Oregonian’s Web site says criminals also want art (particularly scultpures) to cut up and sell as scrap metal. Apparently, any metal that doesn’t attract a magnet and can be easily melted down is profitable commodity.

It is sad to know that some stolen art may truly never be found because it has already been made into car parts, office equipment and industrial supplies.

Stolen Art On Display

Portfolio Magazine has a slideshow called The Gallery of Stolen Art, which features six stolen paintings that have never been recovered. They say this online format may be the only way art lovers will ever see the pricey paintings again. Most were stolen years ago and though many of the thieves have been captured the art is still missing.

What I found most interesting about the slideshow is how much art increases in value when it is stolen. Two of the paintings were worth about $3 million prior to the theft, and now total $10 million in value. Another was only worth $134,000 when stolen in 1988 — now it is worth at least $7 million.

Thieves Target Unguarded Art At Churches

When most people think of stolen art they most often think of museum heists, but as this Time Magazine article shows churches are an even bigger target. According the the article, in 2005 there were 1,785 reports of artwork stolen from places of worship, as compared with 281 robberies from museums and 232 from art galleries and dealers the same year. (Thefts from private residences still rank highest with double the amount of robberies when compared to churches).

Cheaper security systems made homes, museums and galleries easier to protect, but churches still remain mostly unguarded. And while sacred art has always been big on the black market, targeting Christian art in Europe is relatively new.

“After all, churches exist to help worshippers experience their faith more fully, and one way to achieve this is by giving them intimate access to religious paintings, sculptures and ceremonial items. Unfortunately, that’s the equivalent of putting all your valuables in your front yard and hoping nobody takes them.”

The U.S. has the largest art market in the world and so much of the stolen sacred art ends up in the hands of collectors here. By the time hot art reaches legitimate collectors they may not have any clue that it was stolen.

One blogger speculates that art crimes at churches will increase at U.S. churches in the future. A quick search shows this may be the case. I found stolen art at churches in Reno and Omaha.

Perhaps in the wake of these thefts churches should invest in security systems to protect the art they hold sacred.