Rockwell Painting Stolen From Art Storage Facility

The NY Times is reporting that Norman Rockwell's oil on canvas, "Sport" has recently been stolen from a Queens art storage facility. The painting recently sold (May, 2013) for over $1 million at Sotheby's and it originally appeared on teh April 29, edition of the Saturday Evening Post.

The NY Times reports

The New York Police Department is asking for the public’s help in finding the painting, which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on April 29, 1939. The painting, “Sport,” shows a fisherman in a boat, holding a fishing rod and wearing a yellow raincoat.

Though the painting is not one of the artist’s most famous works, it sold for $1,085,000 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York City on May 22. The police declined to identify the owner of the painting, which was sold from a private collection in Birmingham, Ala.

The painting was found to be missing from Welpak Art Moving and Storage in Queens on the evening of Sept. 13, the police said. The warehouse, at 58-60 Grand Avenue in Maspeth, provides shipping and storage services for museums, art galleries and private collectors, according to its Web site.

A video on the company’s Web site said that the warehouse had top-notch security, with an armed response available if necessary. The company did not return calls for comment on Tuesday evening.

The painting is oil on canvas, with a gold-colored wooden frame, the police said. Rockwell, who died in 1978, signed the painting in the lower right corner.

Sotheby’s is holding a high-profile auction of seven of Rockwell’s paintings in December. The company estimates that one of those paintings, “Saying Grace,” which also appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, could bring in at least $15 million.

Jonathan Stuart, a son of Rockwell’s longtime art director at the magazine, said on Tuesday that he was shocked to learn that “Sport” had disappeared. Although he did not know who owned this painting, he said that Rockwell’s paintings had been popular in recent years, bought by celebrities, including Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

He predicted that the thief would have a hard time selling such a well-known painting.

“How are they going to sell something that was just publicly sold for $1 million?” he said. “If someone came to me with that, I’d call Sotheby’s or the police.”

Source: The NY Times