|
The First Art Newspaper on the Net |
![](/images/instagram.png) |
Established in 1996 |
|
Saturday, September 7, 2024 |
|
What do you do with a stolen van Gogh? This thief knows |
|
|
Octave Durham, who stole two van Goghs in 2002, near the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, May 15, 2020. I didnt have a buyer before I did it, he said. I just thought I can either sell them, or if I have a problem I can negotiate with the paintings. Ilvy Njiokiktjien/The New York Times.
by Nina Siegal
|
AMSTERDAM (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The televised security footage clearly showed the man smashing glass doors at the Singer Laren Museum, then walking out moments later with a painting by Vincent van Gogh under his arm.
Look at that, Octave Durham said as he watched. His gear is not even professional. If youre a professional youre fully in black. Hes got jeans and Nike sneakers on.
Durhams exasperation is not that of some couch potato who has seen one too many crime shows. Hes a thief who 18 years ago stole not one but two van Gogh paintings from Amsterdams famous Van Gogh Museum.
One of two burglars convicted of the crime in 2004, he served just over 25 months in prison. In 2016, Italian police found the two paintings he stole in the kitchen wall of a house in the town of Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, belonging to Raffaele Imperiale, a member of an Italian drug trafficking gang. They were returned to the museum.
This is the easiest art heist Ive ever seen, Durham, 47, concluded of the Singer Laren theft, which took place in the early morning hours of March 30.
Police in the Netherlands declined to comment on their investigation. But Arthur Brand, a private art crime detective who has helped recover many stolen artworks, said that he was working with the police on the case and that he saw some similarities in this theft and Durhams crime.
Both were quick break-ins, committed in under five minutes by men with a sledgehammer. Both the painting stolen from Laren, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, and one of those taken by Durham, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, depict the church where van Goghs father served as pastor.
My strong suspicion is that this is a copycat, Brand said. (By the way, he has verified that Durham was in the hospital at the time of the theft.)
Durham, who goes by the nickname Okkie, doesnt like the copycat theory. People say hes an Okkie wannabe, but I dont know, he said in an interview. I wouldnt do it this way.
Now the thief is in very much the same situation as Durham was decades ago. What to do with a stolen van Gogh? Who buys a painting widely publicized as stolen?
I just did it because I saw the opportunity, Durham said. He noticed a window at the museum that he thought would be easy to smash. I didnt have a buyer before I did it, he said. I just thought I can either sell them, or if I have a problem I can negotiate with the paintings.
By negotiate with the paintings, Durham meant using the paintings as a bargaining chip with law enforcement officials, in case he got into trouble for something else.
Durham has been charged several times with thefts and break-ins, including a bank job for which he was acquitted but he now admits he committed. He has in recent years spoken a good bit about his past, agreeing to participate in a 2017 documentary about his life.
In a 2018 biography, Master Thief, by Wilson Boldewijn, Durham confessed to committing other thefts as well, but insisted that he never committed any violence against people to commit his robberies. (Under Dutch law, criminal prosecution records are sealed.)
My No. 1 rule is talk smooth, be cool, have a fast car and never touch anyone, he said.
Durham said that, growing up, a neighbor of his had been a Dutch criminal: Kees Houtman, who had returned two stolen van Goghs in his possession to the Dutch judiciary in 2005, hoping to get a lighter prison sentence in a drug smuggling case. The early van Gogh works had been stolen from another small museum in the Netherlands, in 1990. Durham said, That always stayed in my mind.
Durham said he first offered the van Gogh paintings he had stolen to two criminals, but both of them were murdered before the deal could go down.
Im religious, and Im superstitious, Durham said. I thought that these two paintings were cursed. I said, I dont want to do anything with these paintings.
Ultimately, he and his co-conspirator, Henk Bieslijn, sold the paintings to Imperiale, who owned an Amsterdam coffee shop and was a leader of the Camorra drug ring in Naples. He took the paintings to Italy and hid them in his mothers kitchen, apparently for safekeeping, according to Willem Nijkerk, a prosecutor with the Amsterdam public prosecutors office.
Meanwhile, Durham ran from Amsterdam to Spain, where the police arrested him in 2003 in Marbella, a southern resort town. Dutch forensic investigators were able to match DNA from a baseball cap he left behind at the Van Gogh Museum to convict him, but he refused to reveal the location of the paintings.
More than a decade later, when Italian police were investigating the Camorra Mafia family, Imperiale confessed by letter to having the paintings, in apparent hopes of negotiating a more lenient sentence for himself.
At least 34 van Goghs have been stolen worldwide since 1975, said Nienke Bakker, a senior curator of van Gogh paintings for the Van Gogh Museum. That number includes 20 paintings stolen in 1991 from the museum where she works; they were recovered within a few hours, from an abandoned car.
Ursula Weitzel, the lead public prosecutor on art crimes for the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service, said that in general, art is stolen for the same reasons people steal cars.
Unless its a crime of passion, usually the motive is to make money, she said. Its as simple as that. People dont steal it because they want to hang it on the wall. That kind of theft for pride or status, I havent seen that. Its usually for money. Or, for safekeeping, in the event that it may be necessary.
Brand said many thieves think they will be able to sell paintings on the open market, and then quickly discover that there are not legal buyers.
More than half of my cases have been like that, he said. You have thieves who think there are buyers who would really like to have stolen art on their wall. That doesnt exist; that is only from the movie Dr. No. But some thieves think these people exist, and then they have a rude awakening when they cant sell the work.
Thats when they offer them to other criminals, he said, often for much less than their real value.
Brand estimates that a work of art in the criminal underworld is worth about 10% of its value in the legitimate art market so if a painting might sell for $10 million at auction, it can be traded among criminals for a value of about $1 million. Durham said the value is even lower than that about 2.5% to 5% of market value.
Weitzel, who handles about 10 cases of stolen art a year in Amsterdam alone, said sometimes a criminal might hold on to a work in hopes of using it as collateral or a bargaining chip with law enforcement authorities.
In the end, its an investment, even if its an illegal investment, Weitzel added.
It often take decades before stolen paintings resurface, and few works, less than 10% of those stolen are returned, Brand said. In cases where paintings are worth millions, the chance that the works will finally be returned is significantly improved. Its still not very much, he said. My guess is that people destroy less valuable art because they cant do anything with it.
The Singer Laren painting, an oil-on-paper work from 1884, was on loan from the Groninger Museum in the northern Netherlands.
Durham said he would not steal another van Gogh, and described the theft 18 years ago as the act of a younger man.
Its not like doing a bank job, he said. I understand now that people really like art, and if you steal it people are going to get mad and get hurt. I understand that now, even if I still dont have that feeling myself.
|
|
Today's News
May 28, 2020
What do you do with a stolen van Gogh? This thief knows
Exhibition at Hauser & Wirth explores a concept that Maria Lassnig coined as 'body awareness'
Sotheby's to offer the first work of classical African art in any Contemporary Art Evening Sale this June
Paul Cadmus and His Circle: Property from the Estate of Jon F. Anderson achieves $1,163,055
Legendary Los Angeles artist Peter Alexander dies at age 81
Online auction spans Pablo Picasso's entire oeuvre
Rijksmuseum given unique painting to remember virus victims
A rare Chinese Red Revenue Stamp Collection hammers $170,195 on iGavelauctions.com
Xavier Hufkens opens an exhibition of drawings by Pierre Guyotat
Will Cotton offers a new take on the myth of the cowboy in new exhibition at Galerie Templon
Sperone Westwater showcases a group of recent paintings and photographs by Rochelle Feinstein
'Shelter in Place' organized by Ryan Muller on view at Metro Pictures
France names first indigenous director of top museum
Anthony Bailey, biographer with restless literary spirit, dies at 87
Chris Levine releases new portrait edition of the Dalai Lama through Jealous Gallery
Works by Dürer, Hockney, and Warhol lead sales at IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair Online
Rare Northern Irish penny sets worldwide auction record at Dix Noonan Webb
The National Gallery extends 'Titian: Love, Desire, Death'
Lehmann Maupin announes representation of Billie Zangewa
Reid Shier selected as curator for the Canada Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale
Baltimore Museum of Art launches initiatives to directly support local galleries, artists, & community
After rare silence, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar prepares to reopen
Larry Kramer, author and outspoken AIDS activist, dies at 84
MIT Press and New Museum to publish "Saturation: Race, Art, and the Circulation of Value" this June
How to Convert YouTube to mp3 in Corona times
Different Types of Olive Oils and Their Significance in Italian Cuisine
Yowhatsapp apk is the best android application
|
|
|
|
|
Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography, Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs, Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, . |
|
|
|
Royalville Communications, Inc produces:
|
|
|
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful
|
|