July 16, 2000

International Committee on Museum Security annual meeting,
will take place in Athens, Greece October 7 - 14 2000

Additional Information:
Hellenic National Committee of Icom
15 Agion Assomaton Str.
Athens 10553
Greece
e-mail: icom@otenet.gr
or:
Dr. Guenther Dembski
guenther.dembski@khm.at
Wilbur Faulk
wfaulk@getty.edu

from: Ton Cremers

RE: Austria's Stolen Art Listings Now On-Line

Friday July 14, Jonathan Sazonoff wrote:

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Date sent: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 10:44:05 -0500 From: Jonathan Sazonoff saz@kwom.com Subject: Austria's Stolen Art Listings Now On-Line
We just got a note of interest from the Austrian Ministry of the Interior (BMI). The Austrian government is now posting images of stolen artworks on their web site.
http://www.bmi.gv.at/Kriminalpolizei/
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You can reach the Stolen Art Page directly via:
http://www.bmi.gv.at/Kriminalpolizei/GruppeD/II_10/Kultur/k00_uebersicht.html
The last time this page was updated was March this year.
A few weeks ago we informed you about another new internet endeavor at http://www.findstolenart.com/
There are numerous more on line sources of information, small extensive, some very small. See: http://museum-security.org/reporting_stolen_property.html
What will be the future: will good faith buyers and sellers of art be forced to visit numerous sites to perform their 'due diligence' obligation? Isn't it about time that all this information will be available at just one (by preference) or only a few online databases?
Ton Cremers

'Shame of Aboriginal art fakes'

By PETER GOTTING
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri looked at his signature on the back of an Aboriginal painting yesterday and told a Sydney court he was ashamed. The painting was not his, the Aboriginal artist said, but "I was made to sit down and sign my name on it". "I done that because Mr O'Loughlin wanted to take my picture with it," Mr Possum said, speaking through a Luritja interpreter. In a statement tendered to the court on Tuesday, Mr Possum said he had signed forged paintings for an Adelaide art dealer, John O'Loughlin, because he was drunk and frightened. O'Loughlin is facing charges over 22 fake paintings at a committal hearing at Sydney's Downing Centre local court. He has made no plea. Some of the forgeries have hung at the Art Gallery of NSW and Museum of Contemporary Art, the court has heard. A former de facto partner of Mr Possum, Ms Milanka Sullivan, said yesterday that she had visited a gallery in Adelaide and had seen some Possum paintings she suspected were forgeries. She told the court that she pretended she wanted to buy one in order to get some photographs. When she showed them to Mr Possum, he tore them up in anger. Family members were sometimes allowed to help with the background of Mr Possum's paintings, she said. "They are only allowed to really do the dotting or help with the dotting," said Ms Sullivan, an art consultant and dealer who lived with Mr Possum from 1991 to 1994. "If an artist has done a story the family does the backgrounds." Mr Possum might have signed paintings his children had done, as his signed paintings were highly sought, she said. He did this because of his parental responsibilities, she suggested. "He's providing for them, and if he did not do that he would have had a spear through his head long ago." Many of the paintings Ms Sullivan was shown, with Clifford Possum signatures on the back, were not his, she told the court. His signature was easy to forge, she said, but later added: "They get him drunk and he signs them." When shown a number of paintings, Mr Possum said the signatures were not his. But when he was cross-examined about whether he had told police a particular painting was his, Mr Possum said: "I was getting confused at that time because there were too many things on my mind."
Sydney Morning Herald

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/thev14.shtml

National parks say that theft of protected artifacts is soaring

Last year's record attributed to looters and souvenir-seekers

Friday, July 14, 2000
By RICHARD POWELSON
The national parks are attracting record numbers of nature lovers -- and nature thieves. A record 287 million people visited the 379 national park units last year, and thefts of protected fossils, Native American pottery and Civil War relics, plants and animals rose 46 percent since 1998 to nearly 20,000 known violations. The extent of undetected violations is much higher, officials said. "The National Park Service takes resource thefts very, very seriously," spokesman Gerry Gaumer said, noting fines and prison time for more serious offenders.
Among stolen items in recent Park Service reports:

An estimated 12 tons of petrified wood from the dinosaur era about 230 million years ago, mostly in small pieces, is stolen annually from Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
Two men illegally hunting in Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina were caught with seven dead deer that had been shot. One man, a previously convicted felon, was sent back to prison for 12 months, fined $1,500 and barred from the park during five years of probation.
At Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas, a man with a metal detector was caught with 18 artifacts, including 15 bullets from the Civil War. He later surrendered 81 other artifacts that he had stolen on previous visits. Damage was estimated at more than $37,000.
At the South Florida Parks, Native American remains were looted from the Everglades. A Virginia man trying to sell Indian remains was arrested in a sting for violating federal law protecting Native American graves. Agents recovered two human skulls, a pair of human feet and bead necklaces. He was indicted on multiple charges.

"Logic tells you that national park status protects America's priceless wild and scenic areas from human degradation," said Thomas Kiernan of the National Parks Conservation Association. "But that logic is wrong. Like liberty itself, the protection of America's natural and historic heritage requires eternal vigilance on the part of U.S. citizens."