Man steals Picasso drawing this week, and other art thefts from history

On Wednesday, San Francisco police arrested a 31-year-old man who allegedly snatched a Picasso sketch, valued at $275,000, from a ritzy downtown art gallery. Pegged on that news, the excellent Bay Citizen presents a gallery of famous art crimes and the masterminds behind them. From the Bay Citizen:

In 1911 Vincenzo Peruggia worked at Paris’ famed Louvre museum, where he stole a little painting you might have heard of--the Mona Lisa. Peruggia hid overnight in the museum only to emerge in the morning when the museum was closed. Much like the suspected Picasso thief, Peruggia simply walked up to the painting, took it off the wall, stuffed it under his clothes, and exited the building.

"Inspired by the Picasso Art Heist: Gallery of Famous Art Crimes"

• [missingpiece]

  If you want to know the true story of Vincenzo Peruggia, join the mailing list for my upcoming documentary about him — The Missing Piece: The Truth About the Man who Stole the Mona Lisa. http://www.monalisamissing.com

  In the film we find the real story behind his unthinkable theft and we present it to his 84-year-old-daughter Celestina. By the way, Peruggia did not hide in the museum overnight and he did not slip the Mona Lisa under his clothes (it’s too big). And Picasso was questioned in the theft.

  • [chgoliz]

    With the frame, maybe. The painting itself is actually rather small.

• [Michael Leddy]

  The great French poet Guillaume Apollinaire was jailed on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa.

• [chgoliz]

  The thief took a cab afterward…for 4 blocks, to the hotel. It was the cab driver who told the police the thief’s location.

  Moral of this story? If he had been Green instead of lazy, he might have gotten away with it.

• [Anonymous]

  i love the bay citizen and am glad they reported this story. it was super interesting!

• [MacBookHeir]

  Isn’t real world art theft the ultimate form of copyright infringement? Not only do art thieves steal actual images, but the art thief now technically “owns” the image and if brazen enough can reproduce the image on t-shirts, mugs, etc – not much difference between stealing museum art and downloading music

  • [querent]

    “not much difference between stealing museum art and downloading music”

    the latter would be more like sitting in front of the painting, and sketching it.

  • [Anonymous]

    Two critical differences:
    1. A downloader does not remove the original.
    2. An art thief does not make the item less rare.

• [I, Lion]

  And from my hometown comes this terrible news:

  http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/student+loses+thesis+work+pieces+artwork+missing/5069701/story.html