Results tagged “caper”

Who could have predicted an art caper ending with a stolen piece being returned to the scene of the crime? One of two Russian masterpieces lifted from the walls of an Upper West Side museum has now been mailed back in one piece. The NY Post reports that the Nicholas Roerich Museum staff "were shocked Friday when the mailman delivered the $70,000 painting" (pictured) in a manila envelope where it was pressed between two pieces of cardboard. One employee told the paper, "I thought it was some junk mail. I opened the envelope. Everybody started jumping up and down." The sender even left a name and return address on the envelope (which was mailed from Brooklyn), though there's no word on if it's legit.

The Nicholas Roerich Museum on West 107th Street near Riverside Drive has been robbed of two of its artworks (whilst the fat cats at the Guggenheim have people trying to give them art!). The Russian masterpieces were swiped off the walls at separate times, without anyone witnessing the act. The NY Post reports that a police officer first noticed a missing work when he was visiting on June 24th, seeing a label on the wall with no painting above it. Turns out it was a $20,000 sketch by Russian artist Roerich, circa the 1930s. Four days later an employee noticed another work went missing in the same hallway, this time a 70,000 painting. The paper reports that the NYPD has "few clues in the thefts, and surveillance video of the hallway has yielded little information." With an average of 25 visitors a day, could this be an inside job?

            

There's an update on the intriguing story of William Milliken Vanderbilt Kingsland, "a threadbare eccentric and an amateur genealogist of the Upper East Side" who died in 2006, only to leave behind a world of confusion. To sum up this UES Man of Mystery, the NY Times explains upon his death "it was discovered that his birth name was Melvyn Kohn, that he resided not on Fifth Avenue but in a small apartment on East 72nd Street, and that he had not — counter to his claims — attended Groton or Harvard, nor had he once been married to a French royal." However, along with the confusion came hundreds of works of art and no will.

A trio of helpful hustlers have hit the streets of New York and are pulling scams on city residents. All in the name of education! Hidden cameras catch their tricks and viewers of their show, The Real Hustle, can learn how to avoid and prevent the sketchy situations.

Everyone is abuzz about the latest art world scandal, and here's what is known about the life of the Warhol painting at the center of the controversy.

1981: Andy Warhol creates a number of his "Dollar Sign" pieces, using the same theme with different colors and sizes. Medium: polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas.

Continue reading "New Woes Over Stolen Warhol"

Silver and gold are so last season, if you're a trendsetting criminal -- you know it's all about the copper these days. And where better to find it than in brownstone Brooklyn? The Brooklyn Paper reports:

At least four heists of the once-cheap electrical conductor have been pulled off in Brownstone Brooklyn since June, and a few others were foiled when the cops caught the bad guys red-handed before they could make off with their ill-gotten orange gold.

Continue reading "Copper Capers on the Rise in Brooklyn"