Art thievery usually boggles the mind — you can’t resell a truly valuable piece — and yet it flourishes. Do you know where it thrives, and where it’s rising?
The Art Loss Register, which tracks reported thefts, sent out a notice at the end of October about the theft of three paintings by Pierre Gavreau in Toronto (coincidentally, I just mentioned Gavreau the other day in my post about the Automatistes):
The window of the gallery was smashed and the paintings removed during an early morning burglary. The paintings [at left] were part of a 30-year retrospective of the artist’s work, commemorating his first solo show in Toronto in 1979. All three paintings are abstract works dating from the early 1980s, and had a combined value of over $40,000 USD.
Then, ALR said:
Canada currently ranks #13 in reported art thefts, with over 2,000 lost artworks recorded on the Art Loss Register’s database. Reports of art thefts are on the rise in Canada. Between 2000 and 2005, only 82 stolen objects were reported. Since 2006, over 300 have been registered on the ALR’s database.
Well, I knew ALR kept track of thefts by country, but I’d not seen the statistics. So I asked, and here’s the current top 15:
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9) Iraq — 3,292
11)
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15)
Don’t read too much into the list: it’s likely that art theft is rampant in rich Asian countries, say, but it’s just not reported to ALR, which is based in London and New York.
The trends are important, though — they show changes in the theft rate, or the reporting of thefts, or both.
Let’s look at three numbers.
Total prior to 2000 Added 2000-2005 Added 2006-Current
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7)
8) Netherland 1,752 840 748
9)
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15)
Laurel Waycott, at ALR, compiled these numbers for Real Clear Arts: She points out that the dates reflect the time when a loss was registered, not when the theft occurred — so the German numbers probably include thefts from World War II. Brazil, she says, is an anomaly because ALR is currently entering into its database one case involving more than 10,000 items. The Iraq numbers reflect losses since war began in 2003.
I wonder what’s going on in France, though, and Italy, and…
Photos: The City in Turmoil, 1982, (top); Ballad for John Wayne, 1981, (middle); La Nuit coincee entre le jour, 1980, (bottom), ALR Case Ref # N09.435.