The artist Kenny Scharf was arrested in Williamsburg on on Friday night for spraying a signature snake creature on a wall, which led to, according to his Facebook page, “20 hours in 2 Brooklyn jails.” Read More
This is shaping up to be a pretty great workweek: day two delivers a second Rembrandt story. (Yesterday the Brooklyn Museum announced it was opening a small Dutch painting display with two Rembrandts.) The news today is that Serbian police have recovered the artist’s Portrait of the Father (circa 1630), which was stolen from a museum in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 2006. Four suspects were apprehended in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia. Three other works plucked from the museum—a Rubens, a Francesco Mola and a piece by an unknown artist—have not yet been recovered. Read More
Kevin Sutherland, the Florida pastor who was arrested last month for allegedly attempting to sell counterfeit work by artist Damien Hirst, has been indicted, according to an announcement today from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. The defendant was charged with attempted grand larceny in the second degree after bringing a piece he claimed was a spin painting by Mr. Hirst to Sotheby’s. The auction house determined that the signature on the back of the work, which would have been worth thousands of dollars if authentic, did not match that of the artist. Read More
The Houston, Texas, man accused of spray -painting Pablo Picasso’s Woman in a Red Armchair (1929) at the Menil Collection has said that he never intended to harm the painting. Read More
An oil painting by Henri Matisse, valued at $1 million, will soon return to Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art after 25 years at large. Read More
More developments today in the case of the art robbery at the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam last week that saw seven works by artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Lucian Freud and Claude Monet stolen. If you’re just joining us, last week museum officials dismissed the idea that the back door was left open, allowing the thieves to sneak into the museum that way. Read More
The Kunsthal gallery in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, today pooh-poohed the idea that flaws in their security could have led to the recent theft of seven paintings from the museum, including ones by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Lucian Freud and Claude Monet. Read More
Wlodzimierz Umaniec, 26, appeared in a London court via video conference today, having been charged with defacing a Mark Rothko at the Tate Modern over the weekend. Read More
Thanks to The Huffington Post for drawing our attention to this story about a cruise ship passenger who recently tried to steal a painting from the vessel, apparently saying his plan was to mail it to himself. Read More
