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Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts

September 4, 2019

Wednesday, September 04, 2019 - ,,,, No comments

Recovered: Stolen portrait of William Chester of East Haddon recovered after almost 30 years

LAPD Detective Detective Mel Vergara with
recovered painting stolen in 1991
Sometimes art is stolen with little public fanfare with the loss to owners never making newspaper headlines in quite the same way museum thefts do. This was the case almost thirty years ago when a thief or a group of thieves broke into the home of Judy Karinen in Hollywood Hills in 1991.  During that burglary, the culprit made off with a portrait of William Chester of East Haddon, painted around 1664, which Karinen had purchased for $4,000 in 1985.  


The painting was recovered this past summer, one of 50 stolen paintings Los Angeles police identified via a lead related to an auction earlier this year.  Searching through years of old police records, this single lost portrait was eventually identified by Los Angeles Police Detective Mel Vergara, who then contacted the painting's owner who was happy to have good news from the police department.

As a reminder to all art owners, LAPD officials commented that without the owner's original photo of the portrait of William Chester of East Haddon, which had been attached to the old police report, the stolen painting might never have been identified by officers doing a thorough records search.  Photographing and documenting your collection is key for detective work, as well as for most insurance policies.  Photographic records are also mandatory for listing missing items within the FBI's National Stolen Art File (NSAF) and in some other art loss databases such as the ones managed by Art Loss Register and Artive.

For now, the LAPD's search for artwork owners continues and the squad is asking for help identifying the owners of the portrait of a woman pictured above.  

September 9, 2012

Sunday, September 09, 2012 - ,, No comments

Postcard from LA: Street Art at La Brea-Beverly amongst chic fashions and Hasidic Jews

Street art tucked away in corner of car wash at La Brea and Beverly in Los Angeles.
by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA blog editor-in-chief

Graffiti and street art can be found in the Los Angeles neighborhood around the intersection of La Brea and Beverly Boulevard of expensive beauty salons and clothing boutiques amongst a community of Hasidic Jews.

Yesterday a gas station and car wash displayed a rumored Banksy work that has been covered up for years.  When I took a few photos with my phone camera, a worker told me, "Ten dollars for a photo." I laughed and he didn't push the point.

Another artwork reputedly by Banksy boarded up is proposed for an auction sale according to one consultant.

Boarded up Banksy may be sold at auction


For your fun, here are a few photos of designs visible on September 6, 2012.

"SMILE YOUR BEAUTIFUL" by WhIsBe posted on a utility box in front of a sidewalk portrait.

Art pasted on utility box

Sidewalk portrait


March 11, 2012

Sunday, March 11, 2012 - ,,,,, No comments

FBI Arrests Collector in Wine Fraud After Investigation by the FBI Art Crime Team

LOS ANGELES - Museum Security Network disbursed the headline, "FBI Art (?) Crime Team - Wine collector accused of fraud, trying to sell fake French vintages." According to an article on The Los Angeles Times blog by Andrew Blankenstein, a resident of Arcadia, a suburb in the San Gabriel Valley, was arrested March 8 "by FBI agents assigned to the Los Angeles office after a years-long investigation by the FBI Art Crime Team".

The FBI's National Stolen Art File Search categorizes objects from "Altar" to "Wine Cooler" and includes traditional fine art (paintings, watercolors) and other valuables such as musical instruments, guns, prayer mats, and even ice pails.  The FBI's Top Ten Art Crimes range from Iraqi Looted and Stolen Artifacts to Theft from the E. G. Bührle Collection, Zurich.

In the fourth issue of The Journal of Art Crime (Spring 2011), James Charney reviewed The Billionaire's Vinegar (Three Rivers Press, New York, 2009) which discusses the issue of authenticating fine wines.

In the most recent issue of The Journal of Art Crime (Fall 2011), Noah Charney interviews Stuart George, an expert on fine wines, and the crimes committed in the wine world.
Noah Charney: How frequently do you suspect that fraud takes place in the world of high-priced wines? 
Stuart George: Leaving aside the 1787 Lafite mentioned above in "The Billionaire's Vinegar), I have never knowingly seen a “genuine fake” bottle of fine wine. Nonetheless, merchants’ and auctioneers’ outrage at fake wine is like Claude Rains’ shock at learning that there was gambling at Rick’s place in Casablanca. Anything that is valuable is in danger of being faked. 
More attention is being paid to preventing fraudulent wine than ever before, which suggests that as the Hong Kong/China market has gone supernova, the amount of fakes and forgeries being sold has increased significantly.According to some sources, fake wines flow in and out of Hong Kong like the cheap and illegal Irish reprints of books that allegedly flooded the British market in the eighteenth century. I was told that China’s government officially deplores the country’s inexorable production of fakes but in practice turns a blind eye.

November 15, 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - ,, No comments

LA Times' Richard Winton Reports on the LA City Council's Mural Ban and the Lost Art

Street art and advertising mix (Beverly & La Brea)
Photo by Catherine Sezgin
by Catherine Schofield Sezgin,
ARCA Blog editor-in-chief

Richard Winton reported for the Los Angeles Times on October 24th "L.A. to draw a finer line on murals as art, not ads". In his article, Winton reports that Los Angeles' City Council "is revising a 2002 law regulating the artworks as a commercial signage. He reported:
"Officials estimate that more than 300 murals have been painted over in the last several years, a fact that has frustrated artists as well as property owners who commission murals."
The issue is not graffiti, but the rights of building owners to commission art for the exterior buildings which apparently conflicts with the rights of advertisers to monopolize billboards and building façades in the city. Mr. Winton reports:
Mural near Gold Line stop in Little Tokyo
(Photo by Catherine Sezgin)
"City officials said they need to make a better distinction between art, which should be protected under the 1st Amendment, and commerce, which should be covered by the sign ordinance."
He identifies the destruction of "some of Los Angeles' most famous murals on public and private property".

Los Angeles' streets, filled with cars and slowed by traffic, are more interesting and more human with the display of public art.

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