Posted on 03/03/2007 5:48:33 AM PST by Puppage
LOS ANGELES -- A Norman Rockwell painting stolen from a suburban St. Louis gallery more than three decades ago has turned up in Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday.
Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom" was nabbed during a late-night burglary in Clayton, Mo., on June 25, 1973.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement
After Spielberg's staff brought it to the attention of authorities, an FBI agent and an art expert from the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino inspected the painting at one of Spielberg's offices and confirmed its authenticity Friday morning. Early FBI estimates put the painting's value at $700,000, officials said.
"The second anybody said, 'I think we have that painting,' (our) office got a hold of the FBI," said Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy.
Spielberg is cooperating with the FBI and will retain possession of the Russian Schoolroom until its "disposition can be determined," the bureau said.
The oil-on-canvas painting shows children in a classroom with a bust of communist leader Vladimir Lenin. It was nabbed in a gallery heist and then resurfaced briefly in legitimate art forums before disappearing again. At the time of the theft, the work was 16 inches by 37 inches.
Mary Ellen Shortland, who worked at the long-closed Clayton Art Gallery, recalled Friday that someone from Missouri paid $25,000 for the painting after seeing it during a Rockwell exhibition featuring mostly lithographs.
The client agreed to keep it on display, she said, but a few nights later someone smashed the gallery's glass door and escaped with the painting.
"That was all they took. That's what they wanted, that painting," Shortland recalled.
The gallery refunded the client's money, and there was no sign of the work for years. Then in 1988, it was auctioned in New Orleans.
In 2004, the FBI's newly formed Art Crime Team initiated an investigation to recover the work after determining it had been advertised for sale at a Rockwell exhibit in New York in 1989.
It wasn't immediately known whether Spielberg purchased the painting at that New York exhibit.
Spielberg is a long-time Rockwell collector. He helped found the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., where he is also on the board of trustees.
"He's certainly one of the collectors of Rockwell," said Levy, who wasn't sure how many of the artist's paintings Spielberg owns. "We have a few in our office on the Universal lot."
Rockwell's work often resonates with people because much of
Oh I agree, I wonder if the lefties see the same thing as conservatives do in that painting.
I would assume that a "legitimate dealer" would know the art work was stolen.
Oh surely Spielberg isn't that stupid as to think anyone believes that story. He's supposedly "in the know" about ol' Norm but he doesn't bother checking on the history behind a painting he plops down several hundred thousand dollars for? Perhaps I could interest him in a bridge I have for sale...
Seems to me it's Norman Rockwell he admires. Why not criticize Rockwell for doing the piece in the first place? He's the one who chose the theme.
An unusal composition, given most of Rockwell's canvases are generally in classic portrate format. To my eye, the key kid is the one in the back looking "off message" and "to his right" (ged it?) dreaming of what it could be.
It's a great picture IMHO. Too bad it is hot.
Actually, the good Dominican Sisters at ole CtK were more "Lillies of the Valley" than the fustrated tyrants of popular fiction, very sweet women, actually. I've come to appreciate them more and more. I just hated school for the same reasons Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken and Thomas Edison hated school. We were boys.
What makes you think Rockwell particularly admired Lenin?
Well except he is looking to his left.
ET...
Before I get postings, I was wrong, the kid is looking to his left. I had to turn the computer around to get it right and I ged it. LOL at me.
I think the poster meant Spielberg.
He was taking a silly shot at Spielberg, because he bought the painting.
The boy in the third row sure doesn't look like he wants to be in that classroom
Funny how this news comes out a few days after Spielberg hosts a fundraiser for Obama Osama Hussein.
Hillary just put Hollywood on notice...
Give him a break. He bought it 20 years ago, before the internet and easy access to information. He bought it from a legitimate art dealer. If I buy a car from a legitimate auto dealer I'm not going to wonder if it was stolen.
Yep. They can't track down (won't) illegal aliens, that cost us all billions of dollars, but they can track down paintings worth billions that only affect those rich enough to purchase $700,000 paintings.
Oh I knew who the poster meant. I just find it amusing that he attributes leftist leanings to the purchaser and not the artist.
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