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Saturday, December 10, 2005 Page: 2D
IN THE WEE HOURS of the morning on Nov. 18, two works of art were stolen
from the Everhart Museum in Scranton.
A non-objective drip painting by Jackson Pollock (1912-56) in the abstract
expressionist’s mature and characteristic style, on loan to the Everhart from
a private collector, was stolen from the Everhart’s galleries along with a
1984 late-career silkscreen by pop-art icon Andy Warhol (1930-87) from the
museum’s permanent collection.
Scranton police said the sophisticated heist took less than 10 minutes from
start to finish. After breaking into the museum through a glass door at the
rear, the thieves removed the two major 20th-century American works of art,
leaving all other artwork and areas of the museum undisturbed. The heist took
place not far from a gallery where the Everhart was hosting an exhibition of
Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings on loan from Doylestown’s James A.
Michener Art Museum. The paintings in the Pennsylvania Impressionist exhibit
remain intact.
Selling stolen art
As a specialist in 20th-century American art, a former museum director and
a certified art and antiques appraiser, I was asked to comment on the Everhart
theft for WNEP-TV Channel 16. I think that, as is the case with the horrifying
and growing number of art thefts on the world stage, it is unlikely the
Everhart pieces will surface anytime soon or that the thieves will have an
easy time reselling the masterpieces. Typically, stolen artwork is stashed
underground for many years, and within hours, it becomes nearly impossible to
resell. Why? Because stolen art is posted on the FBI’s Art Crimes List and the
New York and London-based Art Loss Registry very quickly. These art-crime
watchdogs publicized the Everhart robbery to the mass media, appraisers,
auction houses, art dealers, curators and museums worldwide just hours after
the theft took place in Scranton. With such art crimes, it is much easier to
steal a major work of art from a museum than it is to sell a famous and highly
publicized stolen work of art.
The ABC WNEP TV interviewer asked me, “What did the Everhart Museum staff
do wrong in this case?” In my opinion, the Everhart did nothing wrong, but
security could ALWAYS be tighter in every museum.
Historically, every museum needs tighter security; however, budgets don’t
always allow for the most updated technology or desired number of qualified,
round-the-clock staff. Everhart officials said that while an alarm sounded,
surveillance cameras were not working at the time of the 2:30 a.m. theft.
Unfortunately, the non-working cameras are only part of the security problem
in any museum and in the case of this museum robbery.
In most cases, art thefts in museums and other public institutions are
usually directly linked to insider information, knowledge of possible security
breaches and ease of access. In short, it’s probable that the thieves most
likely knew the museum, its security shortcomings and that valuable artwork
was inside even though many locals were surprised to learn that such precious
and high-priced works of art were in their neighborhood museum.
FBI’s Top Ten
Based on actual sales records of similar pieces, the value of the stolen
artwork has catapulted the Everhart Museum theft to the FBI’s Top Ten Art
Crimes list. The Everhart theft will be listed along with such major art
crimes as Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (1990, loss of $410
million), Sweden’s National Museum (2000, $49 million), the Van Gogh Museum
(2002, $41 million), and the Iraqi National Museum (2003, $100 million-plus).
The FBI unveiled its Top Ten Art Crimes list only days before the Everhart
heist took place. Interpol estimates that art crimes rank third among
worldwide property theft, costing an estimated $8.2 billion annually.
Comparative sales records indicate that another, somewhat similar Jackson
Pollock drip painting also produced in 1949 like the stolen Everhart piece set
an auction record for Pollock when it sold in 2004. Pollock’s Number 12, a
1949 oil on canvas sold from the vast collection of New York’s Museum of
Modern Art, set an auction record for Pollock when it sold for $11,655,500 in
2004. Based on actual sales of similar Pollocks, the stolen Everhart painting
called “Spring’s Winter,” also an oil on canvas from 1949, has an estimated
value between $8 million and $10 million. The stolen Pollock, “Spring’s
Winter,” was one of only a few masterworks completed by the post-war artist
during a brief period of sobriety in the late 1940s. The stolen Andy Warhol
piece, a typical pop-art serigraph called “Le Grand Passion” from 1984, is
worth about $10,000.
Everhart history
The Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science & Art, in Scranton’s Nay
Aug Park, was founded by Dr. Isaiah Everhart in 1908. A Scranton physician,
Dr. Everhart served in the Civil War and assembled a nationally recognized
natural-history collection of birds and animals native to Pennsylvania that he
donated along with estate funds to the museum that bears his name. After Dr.
Everhart’s death in 1911, the Everhart Museum grew into the diverse
educational institution that appropriately serves its community with exhibits
from its esteemed natural-history and science component and permanent
collection of American art.