Latest news with #artheist
Telegraph
27-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Churchill ‘Roaring Lion' photo thief ‘breached trust' of nation
A thief who stole a photograph of Sir Winston Churchill was told he had 'breached' the trust of the nation as he was sentenced to just shy of two years in jail for one of the most brazen art heists in Canadian history. Jeffrey Ian James Wood, a 44-year-old small-time art collector, removed the famed 'Roaring Lion' print of Britain's wartime leader from Ottawa's Fairmont Château hotel in January 2022. The 20 x 24 portrait of Sir Winston outside Canada's House of Commons, taken by by Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1941, features on £5 banknotes and is estimated to be worth millions of pounds. The theft was not discovered until months later, as Wood had replaced the original with a fake. After a two-year international search, the original print was discovered in the possession of a private buyer in Genoa, Italy, who bought it for £4,200 believing it was a signed copy. The picture had been taken to Europe and sold at Sotheby's, the British fine art broker which was not aware it was stolen. Wood, a failed philosophy student that struggled to keep steady employment, made approximately £2,700 from the theft. He had hatched the plot in December 2021 to try and financially support his brother, who he says was debilitated with mental health problems. He told the court: 'I had never in 40 years gone to bed or woken up considering committing a crime. 'I never even had a speeding ticket and some day in the first 10 days of December 2021... I knew that I had to intervene in a meaningful way and I had an obstacle. That obstacle was money.' Ninety minutes after he sold the painting, his brother was found dead in a bathtub, Wood told the court. Wood described lying in bed at night racked by guilt and 'formulating and reformulating apologies' to Karsh's family. Justice Robert Wadden said Wood had breached the nation's trust and that the print was 'irreplaceable'. 'It is a point of national pride that a portrait taken by a Canadian photographer would have achieved such fame.' 'There is an element of trust in our society that allows such properties to be displayed, to be enjoyed by all Canadians. To steal, damage and traffic in such property is to breach that trust,' he added. Lawrence Greenspon, Wood's defence lawyer, told reporters outside the courthouse that he would be launching an appeal within 10 days. He said: 'It was an unnecessarily harsh sentence. Given that he's a first-time offender, it's a property crime and he pleaded guilty.' Nicola Cassinelli, the Genoa buyer and a prominent lawyer, said an interview with The Telegraph last November that Sotheby's called him three months after the purchase imploring him not to sell or transfer the work to any third parties as an investigation was underway. Scotland Yard detectives, with the assistance of their counterparts in Italy's Carabinieri, had traced the portrait to Genoa following the Sotheby's sale. After a few Google searches, Mr Cassnielli realised he was unwittingly embroiled in the Canadian art heist mystery of the century and returned it to the Fairmont Château hotel. He said: 'This was the emblematic photo that captured his anger, the strength of the free world – good that triumphs over evil. It's historic. 'All my friends and guests who came to my house, we would joke about having such an important piece of artwork right before our eyes. 'Like having a Mona Lisa... because I paid a few thousand pounds but online I had read it was worth millions. It was as if I was in a film.' In 2023, Wood was successfully identified as the seller after Detective Akiva Geller of the Ottawa Police found a DNA match between a toothbrush left by Wood in a locker and the piece of duct tape used to fix the fake on the lounge wall. Inside the locker they discovered a second fake printout of the 'Roaring Lion' with an invoice from the online company Redbubble, Canadian media reported. The receipt was in Wood's name. Geneviève Dumas, the general manager of the Château Laurier hotel, said: 'We're very happy to see that Canadian history is recognised.'
ABC News
27-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Thief of iconic Winston Churchill portrait 'Roaring Lion' sentenced to jail
A Canadian man who stole an iconic portrait of a scowling Winston Churchill in a brazen international art heist has been sentenced to jail, according to local media. The portrait, known as Roaring Lion, vanished from the walls of Ottawa's Fairmont Château Laurier in 2022, sparking a multi-year police investigation. According to Canada's public broadcaster CBC, the man, Jeffrey Wood, pleaded guilty in March to forgery, theft, and trafficking property obtained by crime. He was sentenced to jail for almost two years on Monday, local time, at an Ottawa courthouse. CBC reported that Justice Robert Wadden told Wood that he was guilty of stealing a "cultural and historical" portrait that was a "point of national pride". The judge said Wood planned to use the money he received from selling the portrait to help his brother, according to the Toronto Star. "But his brother died that spring before Mr Wood received the proceeds from the sale," Mr Wadden said in his decision. The famed portrait was snapped by Armenian-born Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1941, just after Churchill gave a rousing wartime address to the Canadian parliament. The image is arguably the most recognised of Churchill and widely circulated, even appearing on the British five pound note. Mr Karsh gifted the photograph to the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel in 1998, where it hung in a reading room next to the main lobby. But in August 2022, staff member Bruno Lair noticed an issue with the frame — a wire where specialised locking bolts should have been. Ottowa police said a fake print, complete with a forged artist's signature, sat where the original once hung for several months before it was discovered. "At the beginning, we had nothing but a big hole in the wall where this portrait was supposed to be, and no leads," lead investigator Detective Akiva Geller said. Police said a piece of tape attached to the fake, torn with teeth, had retained traces of saliva, but no matches were found in the national DNA database initially. Mr Geller began scouring auction houses and online listings around the world. He discovered a suspicious Roaring Lion print, claiming to be from the Karsh estate, which was marked for sale at Sotheby's in London. Police said it had no history, the wrong frame, slight damage and was sold in May 2022, within the period of the theft. Meanwhile, the hotel called for people to submit photos from their visits to the venue. This allowed police to determine the real Roaring Lion had been stolen and replaced sometime between December 25, 2021, and January 6, 2022. To pinpoint the seller, Mr Geller initiated a "mutual legal assistance treaty" request. Almost a year later, a trove of documents confirmed the suspect's identity as Jeffrey Wood, a 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ontario. Police said Wood had fabricated a fake persona, attempting to sell the stolen portrait under a pseudonym. Mr Geller obtained a search warrant for Wood's storage unit, where he uncovered another Roaring Lion print and a toothbrush with a DNA match to the torn tape. Wood was arrested on April 25 last year. The buyer of the portrait, an Italian lawyer who was unaware it was stolen, worked with police to return it to Canada, where it was reinstalled at the hotel on November 15. Mr Karsh previously said making the portrait "changed his life", adding he captured Churchill's expression immediately after plucking a cigar out of the British leader's mouth. "By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me," Mr Karsh said. "It was at that instant that I took the photograph."
CBC
26-05-2025
- CBC
Man behind Churchill portrait heist going to jail
The man behind an international art heist that began in Ottawa is going to jail. Some time between Christmas and New Year's Eve 2022, Jeffrey Wood stole the world-famous portrait of a scowling, wartime Winston Churchill, titled The Roaring Lion, from Ottawa's Château Laurier hotel, replacing it with a fake. In March, Wood pleaded guilty to forgery, theft over $5,000 and trafficking property obtained by crime. Three additional charges were withdrawn. At the Ottawa Courthouse on Monday, Wood was sentenced to two years less a day in custody. The celebrated photographer Yousuf Karsh, a longtime resident of the Château Laurier, gave the portrait to the hotel in 1998. It has now been returned to the hotel following its disappearance, and the international hunt that followed. Before stealing the portrait, Wood had reached out to Sotheby's auction house about selling a print of The Roaring Lion from the Karsh estate. He also posted on social media about his plans to leave Canada, and days before the theft he placed a two-minute phone call to the hotel. The framed portrait had been affixed to a wall with special bolts that required specific knowledge and unique tools to unfasten. The crime went unnoticed until the following August when a hotel staff member saw something amiss with the replacement portrait. The theft made international headlines and launched an Ottawa police investigation spanning several countries and two continents. Investigators eventually determined that a man in Genoa, Italy, had purchased the portrait through a London auction house. The buyer had no idea he had acquired a cherished piece of Canadian history — let alone a stolen one — and when contacted by police, he quickly agreed to return it.
Reuters
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Reuters
Josh O'Connor drawn to flawed protagonist in Cannes entry 'The Mastermind'
CANNES, France, May 24 (Reuters) - Rising British actor Josh O'Connor was drawn to how normal his character in "The Mastermind", a suburban dad who cooks up an art heist, seemed when he signed on to U.S. director Kelly Reichardt's new film that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. "When we go to the theatres, we see often times the most extreme versions of characters, of human nature. And that's what we know is drama," O'Connor told journalists on Saturday. However, "I find now that I often want to see ordinary people put in kind of extraordinary positions," said the actor who played Prince Charles in the TV series "The Crown." O'Connor's James Mooney is an unemployed carpenter with a wife, played by Alana Haim, and two children in 1970s Massachusetts who decides he wants to steal four paintings by early American modernist Arthur Dove from the local city museum. The plan begins to unravel almost from the get-go as Mooney, with no criminal experience, steals the art but is forced to hide out, away from his family, while police search for him. "The Mastermind" is one of two films in competition for the festival's top prize that star O'Connor, the other being the gay period romance "The History of Sound" with Paul Mescal. The actor described Mooney's overconfident plan as a "work of art in itself," one that comes from privilege and "from generations of men being told that they deserve something more." For the film, director Reichardt said she was interested in exploring New Hollywood's typical "bumbling jerk" character who can do whatever he wants and still be liked by the audience. Examples include Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" or any Jack Nicholson character, said the director of films including "First Cow," "Old Joy" and "Wendy and Lucy." "I'm interested in that tradition, but I'm also interested in breaking it down a little bit and looking at how the parts of it work and then kind of fall apart," she told journalists. Streaming platform Mubi, which bought "The Mastermind," gave the film the resources needed and then did not impose on how it was made, said Reichardt, calling it a "very fortunate thing". "All the arts in America are, like science and education, are really obviously in a very precarious situation right now," said Reichardt, adding: "America's in such a dark place."
Forbes
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
At Cannes, Kelly Reichardt And Josh O'Connor Discuss ‘The Mastermind': ‘I Like Ordinary People In Extraordinary Positions'
CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 24: Josh O'Connor and Kelly Reichardt pose during "The Mastermind" photocall at ... More the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 24, 2025 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Daniele Venturelli/WireImage) Kelly Reichardt's latest film, The Mastermind, starring Josh O'Connor and Alana Haim was presented last night at the Cannes Film Festival. The film marks Reichardt's second movie in competition at the festival. In The Mastermind, O'Connor plays an out of work carpenter in the 1970s, Massachusetts, who decides to organize an art heist. The movie was received with an almost 6-minute standing ovation, during which the director said, 'It's special to be here, obviously America is in a ditch right now, maybe we'll get out of it. In the meantime, we have the movies, for a little while at least. But don't give up on us.' During the press conference held this morning at the festival, Reichardt mentioned that she was scouting for a while for a good art heist story, and she finally found the seed of the story when she heard about the 50th anniversary of two teenagers who got caught while pulling a heist. She also praised Mubi, which will distribute the movie later this year. She said, 'Mubi got behind us, we went to Ohio, Cincinnati to film. Then Josh, that part came with him on my mind, it happened really fast.' She added: 'Thank you to Mubi, they gave us the resources to do it, standing there, they were here if we needed any help, they didn't impose in any way, that's a very fortunate thing.' CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 23: (L-R) Anish Savjani, Christopher Blauvelt, Alana Haim, Kelly Reichardt, ... More Josh O'Connor, John Magaro, Neil Kopp, Amy Roth and a guest attend the "The Mastermind" red carpet at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 23, 2025 in Cannes, France. (Photo by) On working with Reichardt and portraying ordinary characters, O'Connor said, 'I was a big follower of Kelly's films. I find myself drawn to the ordinary. When we go to the theaters often times, we see the most extreme versions of characters, that's drama. I like ordinary people in extraordinary positions. Mooney puts himself in an extraordinary position, which is of his own doing.' Reichardt's films are often marked by the desire to pay tribute to certain genre and at the same time to deconstruct them. For The Mastermind, the filmmaker made sure to have all the ingredients of the heist movie, especially the ones made during the Hollywood New Wave, towards the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, in order to deconstruct it better. She said, 'Jean-Pierre Melville is a favorite filmmaker of mine, I love the Hollywood New Wave, but that genre is made of films about men made by men. So there is this tradition of the bumbling jerk in a way, that is also a hero in some respect, some of that is just the nature of narrative. If you follow any Jack Nicholson's character, he can do whatever he wants and somehow you're on his side.' She added: 'I followed this tradition but also showed how to break it down a little bit. The genre deconstructs as Mooney's plan does.' O'Connor then explained the psychology of his character, Mooney, who follows the tradition of men having 'low self-esteem and a big ego.' He said, 'One of my favorite aspects of the movie was when we were going to the garage, as Terry is taking the kids to school, and Mooney is in his underwears, that felt like a very Mooney thing to do. He has these grand expectations for his life, he feels he deserves better. His great plan is a work of art in itself.' He added: 'It comes from a place of privilege, from generations of men being told they deserve something more, it's an interesting time in history about male roles in that period, and the shifting, the changing tide of that. From the first two world wars, you have men going to war and dying. Then the Vietnam War, and it's about what he thinks his role should be. I was kind of led by that in some ways.'
