FBI Recovers Rockwell Paintings From 1978 Theft
Billie
years ago in the biggest U.S. theft of the artist's work have been recovered
from their hiding place in a Brazilian farmhouse, the FBI said on Wednesday.
The three paintings -- ``The Spirit of '76,'' ``So Much Concern'' and ``A Hasty
Retreat'' -- will be returned to their owner, Brown & Bigelow Co., the
Minneapolis-based calendar publisher. The works are worth between $700,000 and
$1 million.
U.S. and Brazilian authorities recovered the paintings earlier this month from
a Rio de Janeiro art dealer who had them hidden in a farmhouse 60 miles from
the city near the town of Teresopolis, the FBI said.
The Brazilian art dealer has not been charged and will not be prosecuted in the
United States.
The three Rockwell paintings were among seven stolen in 1978 from the Elayne
Galleries in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. It was the largest-ever theft of the
original works of Norman Rockwell.
The artist, best known for his paintings of small-town American life that were
reproduced on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, died later that same year
at the age of 84.
Two paintings -- ``She's My Baby'' and ``A Lickin' Good Bath'' -- were
recovered two years ago when a Brazilian man tried to have them appraised by a
Philadelphia art dealer. Two others were later found in a Rio de Janeiro art
gallery.
Authorities said the works first resurfaced in 1994, when the Rio de Janeiro
art dealer offered to sell several works to the Norman Rockwell Museum in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. They were finally recovered by a special
Philadelphia-based FBI art theft recovery team.
According to federal authorities, international trafficking in stolen art and
antiques is an illegal industry surpassed in size only by illicit trafficking
in drugs and arms.
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