Art worth $50K found in the trash, but owner doesn't want it back, officials say
Artwork found in the trash was identified as one of five paintings stolen from a Canadian gallery in 2021, officials said.
Officers responded to a break-in at a gallery in Edmonton at about 3 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2021, where a business owner told them several items had been 'disturbed' and later reported several pieces of art missing, a spokesperson for the Edmonton Police Department told McClatchy News.
Police found a half-hammer welded to a metal pipe that they believed was used to pry the gallery door open, according to a May 26 Art Recovery International post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Art Recovery identified the recovered artwork as 'Untitled, Watercolour & Ink on Paper' by Jean-Paul Riopelle — a painter and sculptor regarded as one of Canada's most significant artists of the 20th century.
The business owner notified auction houses, galleries, museums and international organizations watching for stolen art, but no suspects were found, and the investigation was suspended, police said.
According to Art Recovery International, the possessor said he found the artwork in the trash and put it in his closet for four years before trying to sell it in New York.
Chris Marinello, CEO of Art Recovery International, told McClatchy News the possessor agreed May 10 to release the work to the insurance company 'unconditionally' after seeing a police report that confirmed the work was stolen.
The work was worth between $50,690 to $57,932 in 2022, Marinello said.
Three days prior to getting this work back, another artwork — 'Buste de femme,' by Alfred Pellan — was recovered in Canada after 32 years, he said.
That work was stolen from a private collector in Montreal in 1993 and found at BYDealers auction house, when it showed up in the Interpol database of stolen artworks, he said.
'We were very pleased to see the Canadian dealer doing due diligence and cooperating fully with our organization,' Marinello said about the Pellan. 'We were also very pleased to get cooperation from the Canadian police, who confirmed the theft and provided a limited copy of the original police report.'
What happens next?
After artworks are recovered, Art Recovery International offers the works back to the insured owners, but if they don't want it back then the insurance company will sell it, he said.
In both of these recovered art cases, the owners or next of kin said they didn't want it back, he said.
This happens occasionally when 'top dollar' was paid by the insurance company when the artwork was originally stolen, and it's possible the value of the work has decreased, Marinello said.
'That's when you usually find people declining to pay back the insurance company, and they say, 'Well, we're just happy with the insurance proceeds we've had all these years. You can keep it,'' he said.
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