OT: Picassos snatched during eatery's lull ( one waiter heard to say "That's not my table."
Rimbaud35
By Steve Lipsher
Denver Post Mountain Bureau
Dec. 1 - Inexpensive posters of Picasso exhibits now hang on the walls
of a classy Eagle County restaurant after three originals by the
master were swiped in a bold daytime theft recently.
The loss of two etchings and a selfportrait on a ceramic tile by Pablo
Picasso have robbed Restaurante Picasso in the exclusive Cordillera
Lodge of its namesake artwork and left authorities without leads.
"It was obvious, in addition to being well-orchestrated, they had some
knowledge of what they were looking for,'' said Sean Derning,
marketing coordinator for the resort just outside of Edwards.
The pieces, valued at $41,500 and insured by the resort, are
considered midrange works by the Spanish dean of the School of Paris,
whose masterpieces routinely sell for millions of dollars. But they
were an invaluable part of the ambiance surrounded by the white-linen
tablecloths at the restaurant.
"In five years from now, it probably would be pretty tough to remember
the meal you had, and you might not even remember the name of the
restaurant, but you would remember, "Oh, yeah, that place had Picassos
in it,' '' Derning said.
Authorities believe the thief or thieves snatched the work during the
lull between lunch and dinner on Nov. 20, wrenching them from the
walls and somehow eluding notice by people in the living room at the
lodge.
"They were secured to the wall . . . and it's a fairly high-traffic
area,'' Derning said, adding that the restaurant would have been all
but empty between 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
"We can take as many preventive measures as we can, but we can't keep
an eye on it all the time, and if someone wants something bad enough,
there's only so much that can be done.''
And while reputable art dealers would have nothing to do with stolen
artwork - and its lack of clear lineage of ownership - observers
agreed that there could be a lucrative market among unscrupulous or
unknowing private investors.
"They were certainly nice pieces of art, nice, collectible pieces of
art,'' said Bob New, director of the Beaver Creek Fine Art Gallery,
which specializes in Picasso and other masters.
"It sounds as if whoever was taking this was picking cherries.''
The culprit ignored the less valuable prints and copies of work by
other famous painters hanging in the five-star restaurant, Derning
said, adding that several employees have been interviewed by sheriff's
investigators.
Contrary to Picasso's more renowned abstract work with oil and canvas,
the stolen pieces included a traditional 1968 self-portrait on a
ceramic tile called "Visage d'hote,'' and two less-rare etchings
produced by inscribing an image on a metal plate, inking it and then
pressing it to paper.
"When I first heard Picassos, I thought "You've got to be joking,' ''
said investigator Doug Winters of the Eagle County sheriff's
department.
Derning, whose wife is an art teacher at a local elementary school,
said that, like most people, he enjoyed the artwork but couldn't
understand their finer nuances.
"Picasso tends to be a little obscure, and his paintings to me -
although I appreciate them as fine art - I need somebody like my wife
to explain them to me,'' he said.
"When I look at a Picasso, I wonder why are their eyes on the same
side of their head.''
Copyright 1999 The Denver Post.