Thieves raiding city galleries

Art experts have expressed concern at the increase in thefts from galleries and museums around the country in the past few years.

At least 12 artworks have been reported stolen from South African galleries this year.

The managing director of Artinsure, Gordon Massie, attributed the rise to "the increasing value of South African art and the publication of this in the media, which has led to a greater awareness".

One of the high-profile thefts early last year involved the disappearance of unframed works by William Kentridge from David Krut Projects gallery in Parkwood, Johannesburg.

Fortunately, the stolen items were recovered.

"The works were spotted coming up at a Pretoria auction house.

"The police went there to recover them on our behalf before the sale.

"Most stolen pieces seem to end up with intermediaries who have channels for disposing of the work," Krut said.

The Department of Arts and Culture's deputy director of heritage policy research and development, Reinette Stander, said the department, the police and Interpol have established the National Forum for the Law Enforcement of Heritage Related Matters to recover and protect art.

Last year, four bronze sculptures worth R500000 were stolen from the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

"We somehow made peace with the fact that we may never recover these artworks because they may have already been taken to scrap yards to be melted down on the days they were stolen ," said curator Antoinette Murdoch.

The gallery recently received a R1.5-million cash injection from the City of Johannesburg to beef up security .

National police spokesman Zweli Mnisi said art theft was often linked to syndicates whose primary purpose could be drug trafficking or copper theft.

ART HEISTS IN HISTORY

1911: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. It was recovered more than two years later in Italy. Police arrested a former Louvre employee.

2000: Thieves seized a Rembrandt self-portrait and two Renoir paintings from the National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. They demanded $10-million per painting in ransoms through a lawyer, who was then arrested. The paintings are still missing.

2003: To highlight security gaps at the Whitworth gallery in Manchester, UK, "thieves" took Van Gogh's The Fortification of Paris with Houses , Picasso's Poverty and Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape and hid them behind a public toilet.

2004: The Scream by Edvard Munch has been the target of several high-profile thefts. In 1994, the version in Norway's National Gallery was stolen. In 2004, it was stolen from the Munch Museum, also in Norway.

2010: Picasso's Le Pigeon aux Petits Pois was stolen from the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, with five other paintings. - Sourced from www.history.com and www.huffingtonpost.com