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Twenty-six years ago Mark Perry raised his hand at his son’s soccer practice and volunteered to fill in for the head coach the odd weekend — here and there — when needed.
Art
Famous stolen paintings: Where high art and low deeds collide – CNN
In Hollywood movies, the art thief has become something of a romantic legend. But away from the big screen, art looting is big and ugly business.
From Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole the “Mona Lisa” in 1911, through to Adam Worth, the master criminal thought to be the inspiration behind the character Moriarty in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Tales of Sherlock Holmes,” art thieves have been pursued across the world by police and detectives.
Even in times of global crisis, art thieves have kept busy and made news — a painting by Vincent van Gogh was stolen during an overnight raid at a Dutch museum that was closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Here’s CNN Style‘s rundown of famous stolen paintings — some of which disappeared, while others made unlikely returns.
‘Madonna of the Yarnwinder’
Joe Hay, security guard at the National Gallery of Scotland, stands beside the Leonardo da Vinci painting “Madonna of the Yarnwinder.” Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Europe/Getty Images
Back in 2003, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Madonna with the Yarnwinder” was stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch’s home in Scotland. One of the very few surviving works by the Italian master, the painting was recovered in 2007 a month after the duke’s death.
Painted between 1520 and 1530, the artwork can now be found at the the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Daring heist of four masterpieces
Lukas Gloor, president of the Buehrle Foundation museum, and Zurich police hold a news conference in 2008 after two of the four stolen paintings were retrieved Credit: AFP/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
In 2008, four masterpieces — by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet — were stolen by masked raiders at the Buehrle Foundation museum in Switzerland.
The artworks, “Poppies near Vetheuil” by Monet, “Count Lepic and his Daughters” by Degas, “Blossoming Chestnut Branch” by Van Gogh and Cézanne’s “Boy in a Red Waistcoat” were estimated to be worth a combined $163 million at the time.
Police recovered the works by Monet and Van Gogh a short time later. The Degas was retrieved with slight damage in 2012, and the Cézanne was found in Serbia in the same year.
‘Portrait of the Duke of Wellington’
Experts discuss the condition of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington Credit: Douglas Miller/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Francisco Goya’s painting, “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington” was stolen in 1961 and was missing for four years. A retired bus driver, Kempton Bunton, later confessed to the crime and was jailed for three months. The painting was recovered.
“I went up to it, took hold of it, and carried it back to the toilet,” he reportedly told police.
“I climbed over the wall, still holding the picture in one hand … I put the picture on the back seat of the car and drove back to (my furnished room in) Grafton Street. I then put the picture under my bed.”
‘La Coiffeuse’
Picasso’s “La Coiffeuse” (“The Hairdresser”) went missing in 2001, though it was recovered when it was shipped from Belgium to the United States in December 2014.
The shipper had listed the item as a $37 piece of art being sent to the United States as a Christmas present. But it was actually the stolen Picasso, which had been missing for more than a decade and is worth millions of dollars.
‘Landscape on the Banks of the Seine’
A Renoir painting from 1879 was stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1951. It remained missing for decades but eventually showed up at a flea market in 2010.
The tiny painting, titled “Paysage Bords de Seine” (or “Landscape on the Banks of the Seine”) was then bought for $7 by a Virginia woman, though in January 2014, a judge ruled that it should be returned to the museum.
The estimated value at the time of its recovery was between $75,000 and $100,000.
Kunsthal Museum heist
Seven famous paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2012, including two Claude Monet works, “Charing Cross Bridge, London” and “Waterloo Bridge.”
The other paintings, in oil and watercolor, were Picasso’s “Harlequin Head,” Henri Matisse’s “Reading Girl in White and Yellow,” Lucian Freud’s “Woman with Eyes Closed,” Paul Gauguin’s “Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, dite la Fiancee” and Meyer de Haan’s “Autoportrait.”
Several people were convicted in connection with the theft but the paintings have not been found. In 2018, Romanian authorities believed they had found the Picasso, though their discovery was later dismissed as a fake.
Nazi looting
The Nazis plundered countless precious paintings during World War II. Here are just three examples:
“Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, was confiscated from its owner when he fled from Austria. It was recovered and is in New York’s Neue Galerie.
Pierre Auguste Renoir’s “Deux Femmes Dans Un Jardin,” painted in 1919, was stolen by Nazis from a Paris bank vault in 1941.
It belonged Alfred Weinberger, a prominent art collector in prewar Paris. It was returned to his last surviving heir, granddaughter Sylvie Sulitzer, in September 2018.
Many other works of art taken by the Nazis were never recovered, and others were returned only after years of legal battles. “Christ Carrying the Cross” by Italian artist Girolamo de’ Romani, for instance, was finally returned to his family in 2012.
‘The Scream’
“The Scream” was one of two Edvard Munch paintings that were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 2004. Three men pulled off the raid in broad daylight before being arrested in 2006.
Munch in fact created multiple versions of the famous image, including two in paint and two in pastel. Recalling how the idea for the famous painting came about, Munch, who died in 1944, once wrote: “I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood.
“I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.”
‘Mona Lisa’
More than a century ago, “Mona Lisa” was taken from the Louvre in Paris and hidden away for a couple of years. Credit: LOIC VENANCE/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
The world’s most famous painting owes much of its notoriety to thievery.
Before the 20th century, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” wasn’t especially well-known outside art circles. But in 1911, an former employee of the Louvre pilfered the portrait and hid it for two years.
Public fascination with the theft helped cement the painting’s place in popular culture ever since.
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On Sunday, Perry accepted the Volunteer of the Year Award at the Owen Sound Arts, Culture and Volunteer Awards inside the Tom Thomson Art Gallery.
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“It’s funny how things can evolve,” Perry said.
Owen Sound Minor Soccer registered more than 1,000 kids last summer, and even though Perry’s children have grown up he’s still the backbone and president of the steadily run organization, his nominators said.
Perry is the Rogers TV Grey County station manager and said his day job constantly reminds him of how important volunteers are to Owen Sound.
“I see it every day,” he said.
The Owen Sound Arts, Culture and Volunteer Awards celebrate excellence in the arts, culture and heritage in the greater Owen Sound area. This year, the celebration event included awards for Volunteer, Youth Volunteer, and Senior Volunteer of the Year.
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Local poet, filmmaker and climate activist Elizabeth (Liz) Zetlin won the Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of work promoting the arts and climate action in the region.
“Lifetime kind of sounds a little bit like you’re done, but I’ve still got a few years left,” said Zetlin, who used part of her acceptance speech to promote and recruit volunteers for her new venture Pollinate Owen Sound, in partnership with the OPEN team consisting of the Owen Sound and North Grey Union Public Library, Billy Bishop Museum, Waterfront Heritage Centre and the art gallery.
Zetlin helped create the city’s poet laureate position and the Words Aloud festival. More recently, she produced, directed and edited the documentary Resilience
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Neyaashiinigmiing’s J.D. Crosstown earned the Emerging Artist award with a $500 cash prize. The singer/songwriter grew up in the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation with Cree and Ojibwe heritage. His music has roots in folk, country and blues and he’s fresh off a tour in Germany supporting local musician Matt Epp.
Raquell Yang won the Outstanding Individual Award. Originally from Taiwan, Yang is now a mainstay in the Owen Sound arts community where she mixes eastern and western styles in her brush paintings. She also supports the community with pop-up workshops and gallery events. Her best-known work is likely the impressive mural painted on the side of the Grey Gallery in downtown Owen Sound entitled Transformation.
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The Georgian Bay School for the Arts won the Cultural Catalyst Award and Dean McLellan earned the Cultural Heritage Award for work restoring the Saugeen Amphitheater.
Sweetwater Music Festival won the award for Outstanding Group. The Emancipation Festival won the award for Outstanding Event, and the Owen Sound Memoir Series won the Most Promising New Event award.
Sandy Stevenson won Senior Volunteer of the Year while Junior Optimist Shayla Adamson won Youth Volunteer of the Year.
Musicians Magenta and Simon Dawes provided musical interludes throughout the ceremony.
More than 100 people attended the ceremony inside the TOM’s North Gallery. MPP Rick Byers, Mayor Ian Boddy and several city councillors attended.
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Diana Meder from Grey-Bruce’s Bounce Radio was host for the ceremony. Performers from the Roxy Star Company opened the event.
To be eligible for an award, nominees had to live in the greater Owen Sound area and make a significant local contribution or a national/international impact.
Full-time city employees and elected officials are not eligible to be nominated, nor are posthumous nominations accepted.
The award’s jury is made up of previous event winners.
PAST WINNERS:
2022 winners:
Cultural Catalyst – Christy Eaglesham (Taylor)
Cultural Heritage – Potters Field Monument Volunteer Steering Committee
Outstanding Event – Georgian Bay Symphony Virtual Sessions
Outstanding Group – Reconciliation Garden Project
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Outstanding Individual – Tyler Boyle, Spirit Artist
Emerging Artist – Paige Warner
Most Promising New Event – Earth Day Grey Bruce
Lifetime Achievement – Shirley John
2020 winners:
Cultural Catalyst – Community Foundation Grey-Bruce
Cultural Heritage – Wiidosendiwag+Walking Together+Marchons Ensemble Tour
Outstanding Event – Scenic City Film Festival
Outstanding Group – Lookup Theatre
Outstanding Individual – Stephanie Fowler
Emerging Artist – Kevin Griffin
Most Promising New Event – Owen Sound Art Walk
Lifetime Achievement – Wilmer Nadjiwon
2018 winners:
Cultural Catalyst – R. Michael Warren
Cultural Heritage – Maryann Thomas
Outstanding Event – 42nd Annual Summerfolk Music & Crafts Festival
Outstanding Group – Georgian Bay Symphony
Outstanding Individual – Steve Ritchie
Emerging Artist – Chris Morton
Most Promising New Event – Awesome Sydenham Riverfest Extravaganza
Lifetime Achievement – Stephen J. Hogbin
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What’s the deal with Leonardo’s harpsichord-viola? Why were Impressionists obsessed with the color purple? Art Bitesbrings you a surprising fact, lesser-known anecdote, or curious event from art history. These delightful nuggets shed light on the lives of famed artists and decode their practices, while adding new layers of intrigue to celebrated masterpieces.
From Just Stop Oil to Free Palestine to P.A.I.N., recent times have seen art museums coopted as staging grounds for high-minded protest.
In 2015, however, the group of protesters that picketed outside Museum of Fine Arts in Boston had a simpler, less lofty target: Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Their demand? That museums remove his paintings from their walls. Their reasoning was rather straightforward: they argued Renoir was bad at art. (A protest at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was soon to follow.)
The Renoir Sucks at Painting movement (if one can call it that) was the brainchild of Max Geller, and came to life after he encountered the sizable collection of Renoir paintings at Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation. Its central outlet is an Instagram account that features close-ups of Renoir paintings accompanied by satirical, often long-winded critiques.
Armed with snobbish hipster fury and signage that read “God Hates Renoir,” “ReNOir,” and “We’re Not Iconoclasts, Renoir Just Sucks At Painting,” the group briefly received considerable media attention—though none from the institutions it was heckling. Fellow Renoir haters expressed their aesthetic sympathy online by posting photographs of themselves giving the middle finger to Renoir paintings, often accompanied with the hashtag #renoirsucksatpainting.
Renoir haters outside Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Lane Turner via Boston Globe
The furor prompted Renoir’s great-great-granddaughter Genevieve Renoir to chime in. She argued the free market had spoken clearly in favor of her ancestor’s talent. The market said something that sounded like, “$78 million at Sotheby’s for Bal du moulin de la Galette na na na-na na.” Geller responded by saying the free market lacked judgement and taste, citing TV commercials, climate change, and the destruction of sea otter habitats as evidence. Fair enough.
This points to the deeper purpose of Renoir Sucks at Painting, one that was generally lost beneath the media noise and pithy takedowns. Geller wasn’t trying to censor Renoir through ridicule. He was hoping to force museums into reconsidering the artistic merits of the paintings on their walls and make change, ideally in favor of non-white male painters. He called it “cultural justice.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bathing Group (1916). Courtesy of the Barnes Collection.
Though Geller’s approach was decidedly contemporary, his root sentiment wasn’t. People have long hated Renoir. The loathing has both moral and aesthetic substance. On moral grounds, Renoir’s innumerable dumb-faced, unflattering female nudes have seen him posthumously charged with sexism. Adding to the ignominy was his anti-Semitism, as shown by his stance in the Dreyfus affair.
And yet even the aesthetic charges are somewhat personal. Renoir, a ceramicist by training, fell in with a Parisian clique that included Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet, anti-academic artists who would become part of the Impressionist movement. Bold color and depictions of modern life were in. Formalism, florid rococo details, and grand mythological scenes were out.
The problem was, Renoir quite liked these old things—“I am of the 18th century,” he once said—and when times got financially tough, he backtracked and began painting saccharine, bourgeois portraits. It made him rich, an international star even. In short, he’s seen as a sellout.
Critics argue Renoir paid no attention to line or composition (he painted as though on a pot, the charge runs) and ignored the contemporary concerns of his day. Most damning, seemingly, is the accusation that Renoir’s paintings are pretty. Good art, of course, cannot simply be pretty.
One fan of Renoir’s pretty little paintings? Donald Trump. He claims to own Two Sisters (On the Terrace). It’s a fake, mind you.
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