The Story of Stolen Fine Art really starts with Reet Herder.  Reet was the first to let us know there was an issue. Reet wrote that she and others had suffered such a devastating loss. I shocked to hear just how bad it was. We always like to respond to artist request for features, or listen to their business issues, and look for ways we can assist. This practice has been wonderful for both the artists and for our development as a service. 

Peter Newell and I put our heads together and figured we could host the images of stolen art as a collection. The MyArtClub site was already set up to host artist groups, so we simply leveraged that as a way to focus on this awful issue.  What we did ask artists for was a police reference number of some kind and police and artist contact information.  We have a form for artists to fill out (available on our website). 

Over the years Reet has been really a founding member of our website and involved in creating the form. Karma has a way doesn’t it? She helped build a service that we host and hope it is of some use to artists, and voila – her art is the one found through the Internet! 

I telephoned Reet to congratulate her on the recovery. Reet is amazed at not only the painting’s recovery but the media attention! “All I did was paint it” she says. This was one of her earlier works, but she was happy with how it had turned out. It was based on a visit to Schooner Cove. The story continues: as might be expected the painting itself was not in the best of conditions. However with luck Reet had prepared to create giclees from this art, and so offered this kind family a giclee in return which they accepted. Reet says “ the giclee’s colours look better”.  She presents it tomorrow to the father at his work.

About us: My wife Heather Anderson and a neighbour Terry Newell, both artists, thought their husbands should get together and do websites for artists.  I was studying Internet Marketing and had many years in Sales and Marketing, and Peter Newell had many years in computer software and project management.

We created the site to be a fair deal. We believe artists deserve assistance with business issues, and we wanted on our part to give back to our community using our skills. Also we found and still do find so many who offer help to artists seem to be out to gouge them. Maybe that is reality – you have to charge high prices to survive, but as we have jobs, we don’t. But look at this example: in the year 2000 a company offered my wife an artist website with 10 images for $1,000. At the time too, most artist websites were static, artists had to repay the site creators to change an artwork. We wanted to fix that.  So we kicked off MyArtClub.Com in year 2000 ( such an early time! Artists then had no digital cameras, and used scanners to create images for their sites).

We set out to launch a service for what is now $45 per year that gives amazing value for an artist website. We had to follow our artist’s wives directive – they should be able to change anything they wished, anytime, instantly. In other words, be in total control.  However, just having a website is not the answer. You need traffic.  We advise artists what they can do to build traffic, and have through newsletters and our blog tried to keep them informed about ideas and opportunities.

We felt a “portal” into the art world would help visitors see more art, and drive traffic to artists’ sites. And yet we provide each artist a standalone website. We thought the name MyArtClub fit as we are here to help both artist and art patrons connect. We also know that many artist belong to collectives, sometimes called clubs although many feel that is a little beneath the professional artist. We decided MyArtClub even if controversial had the right motivations, and buyers liked the name, so we launched it.

While we appear to be local to BC, in fact we have artists who have posted art from all over the world. Some load a free 3 images, so they can link from our portal back to their website. It is our form of links. Others sign up for an artist website, we have many across Canada and some in UK, Australia, Europe even Asia. Sadly we have had very little take up in the USA. We have really not tried hard, but I think the out of country aspect maybe an issue. Anyway, big opportunity when retired!

We are here to help artists with their Internet marketing.  We give free presentations on what artists need to know.  We host a large database which we advertise to increase artists chances of being found online. We have researched the customer base to help our artists understand the who, what, where, when and why of art buyers, and we give this report free to all who ask.  All this and so far we have not taken a single dollar of commissions.

Either we are crazy, or we really do just want to help artists progress with their business.  

Palais Fesch in Adjaccio, Corsica

The National Archives here in Washington contain some historical American records and translations of captured Japanese records. Records on wartime and occupation looting in the Pacific Theatre parallel the European records, but the records on events in Europe have been closely studied and due to the interest in Holocaust-related events. Archives on looting in the Pacific have been largely untouched, but we will have as speakers the people with the most knowledge about those records and how they can be put to use by scholars.

Miriam Kleiman will talk about the history of these archives and how they developed. Greg Bradsher has produced a finding aid for the National Archives and he will discuss the records that exist and how his finding aid can be used.  Marc Masurovsky will discuss the history of losses and restitution in the Pacific.

Okinawa was devastated in one of the worst battles of the war, on the level of Stalingrad.  Whatever wasn’t destroyed was stolen later. Japanese soldiers are believed to have looted throughout the Pacific theatre that stretched all the way to India. The scope of Allied looting in Asia/Pacific region is not well understood. Recently an auction in Michigan attempted to sell 125 objects that shared the same provenance – that of an American sergeant who claimed that the pieces had been a gift to him after the Korean War. Fortunately the art market is getting more knowledgeable and more careful and these events are more commonly identified, followed up and referred to Homeland Security.

Image of Nefertiti

Our foremost concern has been for our neighbors and friends who have suffered so much hardship and damage.  A MoMA curator and the director of MoMAPS1 put out a call for volunteers from the art community and together they filled a bus with donated supplies and headed to one of the many areas in need of help today.  This is but a small part of the relief effort, but we were humbled by the incredible commitment of the volunteers.  Our staff will continue to play a role in the recovery, and we invite those of you who are able to join us in these efforts.

They will provide suggestions and answer questions on how to safely handle damaged paintings, drawings, books, sculptures, and other artistic and cultural materials.  Visit MoMA.org for more information on this program.  MoMA has also issued Immediate Response for Collections, a document offering step-by-step guidelines for dealing with artworks damaged by flooding, and we will continue to lend knowledge and support to those carrying for collections affected by the storm.

If you are in a position to help others, you may want to visit nyc.gov for information on making donations and nycservice.org for information on volunteer opportunities.  Visitors to MoMA will also find a collection box in the Museum's lobby, with proceeds to be donated to relief efforts in Greater New York.

In this, and the last, issue of The Journal of Art Crime, we have seen excellent academic articles on aspects of counterfeit money (see Mihm, Stephen in the Spring 2012 issue, and Judson and Porter in this issue).  While counterfeit money is its own field of study, it has many parallels with art forgery, and we therefore have seen fit to consider it in this journal.  In doing so, I thought that it might be of interest to present a brief history of counterfeit money, for those unfamiliar with the subject. 

Perhaps the most well-known sort of forgery is the faking of money, whether counterfeiting coins, dollar bills, or treasury bonds.  The United States Secret Service, before they became best-known as the bodyguards of the president, were established in order to investigate counterfeit money printing operations and close them down.

Haida artist Bill Reid's art safely back on display  at UBC's Museum of Anthropology (Photo Sezgin)

Newly released RCMP and university campus security records obtained by Postmedia News through federal and provincial access-to-information laws, plus court documents, offer a fuller picture of the mysterious theft and its bizarre fallout.

At about 4:40 a.m. on May 24, 2008, thieves removed "a glass panel" from the back of the museum, "unleashed a cloud of bear spray, presumably to repel any guards who might try to intervene" and smashed a glass showcase to steal $2 million of jewelry designed by Haida artist Bill Reid (Quan, quoting campus security report).  The heist was estimated to have taken less than 3 minutes (compared to the more than 2-minute Kunsthal Rotterdam heist on October 16).  According to Quan's review of the report, "security cameras stopped recording before the break-in".  UBC's Museum of Anthropology has since been renovated and expanded.

Quan points out that in 2008 the security guard at the Museum of Anthropology had been widely reported to be on a smoking break at the time of the robbery:

Contrary to media reports that suggested he had been on a smoke break and apparently oblivious to trouble, the guard alerted dispatch when the alarms started wailing, the former security officer said.

Protocol at the time dictated that the guard stay put and that dispatch send another officer to walk through the museum.  But the walk-through never happened, the former security officer said.

An alarm falsely attributed to "invalid"and a "false sense of security" (Quan) were problematic.

According to Quan, the investigation, led by the RCMP major crimes section, involved an anonymous tip within days of the theft; police surveillance of the suspect; background checks on construction workers involved in the renovation of the museum, a fired security guard, and "disgruntled" artists who had worked with Reid.  A search of a home connected to a man with "at least 11 convictions for property crimes" led to the recovery of "all but two of the stolen items" on June 8 (just a little more than two weeks after the theft).  By August the other items were recovered: "The last piece, the argillite pipe, was dropped off anonymously. (Quan)"

Then in January 2009, CBC reported the RCMP had paid $20,000 to a criminal informant for "help with the investigation."  According to Quan, the RCMP "would not say this week who received the money or how much was paid" and the case is "unresolved" and that "two years after charges were recommended in the museum heist, Crown counsel notified RCMP there wasn't enough evidence to lay charges."

Reward Poster

The "Head of a guard" (fragment of a low relief) is estimated to as old as 5th century BCE from Persepolis (Persia), the capital of the Achaemenid dynasty (558-330 BC).

Assyrian low relief Sandstone, 21 x 20.5 x 3 cm

A marble head dating from the Roman  Empire 20,2 x 13,3 x 8,5 cm

The second object, Head of a Man (Egypto-archaizing style) of yellow Numidian marble, is dated from the Roman Empire around 1st century A.D.

Neither of these objects was highlighted in the MMFA's museum guide.

In 1972, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was the site of Canada's largest art theft when three thieves stole 18 paintings, including a painting attributed to Rembrandt.  The theft remains unsolved after an aborted ransom attempt and 17 of the paintings are still missing.