Results for “picasso”
The Kunsthal Rotterdam Heist
In a two-minute raid in 2012, thieves took seven works — by Picasso, Monet, Matisse, Gauguin and Freud — from the Kunsthal. The mother of one suspect later claimed she burned them.
The São Paulo Museum of Art Theft
Thieves used a car jack and crowbar to break into MASP before dawn in 2007 and took Picasso's 'Portrait of Suzanne Bloch' and Portinari's 'O Lavrador de Café'. Both were recovered months later.
The Gurlitt Hoard
A routine tax inquiry uncovered some 1,500 artworks hidden in a Munich apartment — many looted or sold under duress during the Nazi era. The discovery reignited the global reckoning over restitution.
The 1911 Theft of the Mona Lisa
On the morning of 21 August 1911, the Mona Lisa vanished from the walls of the Louvre. For twenty-eight months it was gone — and in its absence it became an icon.
Istvan Kantor's Blood X
For over four decades Istvan Kantor — Monty Cantsin, founder of Neoism — has hurled his own blood in a great X across the walls of major museums, courting arrest as part of the artwork itself.
The Whitworth Gallery Theft
Works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Gauguin taken from Manchester's Whitworth in 2003 were found days later behind a nearby public toilet, with a note claiming the point was to expose lax security.
The Brugnara Art Fraud
San Francisco real-estate figure Luke Brugnara accepted $11 million in art — Degas, Picasso, de Kooning, Miró — then declared them gifts and refused to pay. His 2015 fraud trial became a courtroom spectacle.
The Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris Theft
In 2010 a lone burglar removed five paintings — Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Léger, Modigliani — from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. The thief was caught; the paintings never resurfaced.
Istvan Kantor (Monty Cantsin)
Founder of the anti-art movement Neoism and adopter of the shared alias Monty Cantsin, Kantor is best known for his 'Blood Campaign' — drawing his own blood and hurling it in a great X onto the walls of museums. His 1988 intervention beside two Picassos at New York's Museum of Modern Art drew a felony charge and a (disputed) $10 million damage claim, and got him banned from MoMA — a distinction he wears with pride. He has staged similar blood-X actions at the Whitney and Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof. Kantor on Neoism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT-PoSxooTo buy his book!: https://autonomedia.org/product/the-book-of-neoism-the-revelations-to-amen-assembled-by-istvan-kantor/
Arthur Brand
Dubbed the 'Indiana Jones of the art world', Arthur Brand is a Dutch art detective who has recovered a remarkable string of stolen and looted works by working the grey zone between the underworld and the market. His finds include the monumental bronze horses sculpted for Hitler's Reich Chancellery ('Hitler's Horses'), a Picasso portrait of Dora Maar missing for two decades, Oscar Wilde's ring, and a Van Gogh spirited away during the pandemic. He operates through informants and patient negotiation rather than force, arguing that most stolen art is never sold but circulates as underworld collateral.
Luke Brugnara
A San Francisco real-estate figure who, in 2014, took possession of roughly $11 million in art — works attributed to Degas, Picasso, de Kooning, Miró and George Luks — and then refused to pay, claiming they were gifts. Convicted of mail and wire fraud in 2015 after a chaotic trial in which he represented himself, briefly escaped custody, and was cited for contempt, he was sentenced to seven years. A $3 million Degas bronze remained unaccounted for after the FBI raid.
Elmyr de Hory
Hungarian-born painter who became one of the 20th century's most prolific art forgers, producing hundreds of works passed off as Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, and other modern masters. His story, and the dealers who sold his fakes, was immortalised in Clifford Irving's book 'Fake!' and Orson Welles's film 'F for Fake'. Check out this documentary @ Great Documentaries YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zurHc4itBXg And this Trailer for Orson Welles' "F is For FAKE": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAwgt2Z-3Y
Guy Ribes
French forger who produced thousands of convincing fakes attributed to Chagall, Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and others, many of which still circulate with false certificates. After serving prison time he went straight, later painting the on-screen artworks for the film 'Renoir'.
Geert Jan Jansen
Dutch forger who flooded the European market with fakes attributed to Karel Appel, Picasso, Matisse, and others — reportedly so convincing that Appel himself once authenticated a Jansen forgery. Arrested in France in 1994, he was released on a technicality and now sells signed 'Jansen' works openly.
David Stein
French forger who dashed off convincing Chagalls, Picassos, and Mirós at extraordinary speed in 1960s New York. He was caught when a real Chagall he had faked was spotted by the artist himself; after prison he sold work under his own name.
Le Pigeon aux Petits Pois
A Cubist Picasso among the five works taken in the 2010 Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris theft. The thief later claimed the paintings were destroyed.
Woman Dressing Her Hair
A wartime Picasso whose ownership and provenance have been the subject of competing claims and legal disputes.
Femme Assise
A seated-woman composition by Picasso caught up in wartime displacement and later recovered.
São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP)
Brazil's iconic elevated museum, from which a Picasso and a Portinari were stolen in a swift 2007 heist.
The Fakes Fight Back!
More than 50 counterfeit Norval Morrisseau paintings have been permanently removed from the market—but experts say thousands are still out there.
Warhol Collectors Get Bitten By The Dane!
So You Stole a Masterpiece. Now What?
The Visitor Who Fell Into a Picasso
During an adult education class at the Met, a woman lost her balance and fell directly into Picasso's 'The Actor', opening a six-inch tear in the lower canvas.