http://museum-security.org/
securma@museum-security.org
join the mailinglist
NOVEMBER 24, 1997
CONTENTS:
- Appraisers Association Of America Directory Now Available
- Phony cleric arrested in thefts from churches
- Sale at Sotheby's far short of $25m target ("too sophisticated for
American taste." ?!)
- stolen Art report: at http://museum-security.org/ there is a link to
images of artworks stolen and additional information.
- Man slashes Newman painting in Amsterdam museum
- Auction houses battle with artists over copyright fees.
- Professor urges halt to painting restoration
- Corporate art collecting slows but legacy remains
- British experts join Van Gogh 'fake' inquiry
- Is there a web site that lists openings for positions in museum
security?
- WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT A ROAD IN NEW MEXICO, EVEN IF YOU LIVE IN
NEW JERSEY... (National Park)
Appraisers Association Of America Directory Now Available
From: Appraiserl@aol.com
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Thought I would let everyone know that the Appraisers Association of
America has just published its new membership directory. This is an
invauable source book listing appraisers in the US, Canada, Europe,
the Middle East, Far East, Puerto Rico and the West Indies. The
Directory is available for $14.95 USD, plus shipping, and can be
purchased from the Appraisers Association of America, 386 Park
Avenue South, Suite 2000, New York, NY. Phone - (212) 889-5404, Fax -
(212) 889-5503.
Pamela Scoville
Appraiserl@aol.com
Phony cleric arrested in thefts from churches
BY HEATHER URQUIDES
Arizona Daily Star
TUCSON, Ariz. - Michael Dongarra was just a few minutes late for
morning prayers Thursday when FBI agents and local police arrested
him at a small Massachusetts abbey. But he was almost a year overdue
for his Pima County Superior Court date. Dongarra was wanted in Oro
Valley for stealing religious artifacts from churches and filing
bogus insurance claims. He was convicted in absentia of multiple
theft and fraud charges about six months ago, said Oro Valley police
Lt. Becky Mendez. Authorities arrived to find the monks in morning
prayer and asked a janitor if they knew which one was Dongarra. At
that exact moment a man came strolling down the hall, late, said
Avery Mann, a spokesman for ``America's Most Wanted.'' It was
Dongarra. A Pennsylvania priest had tipped off authorities to his
location after seeing Saturday's segment of the TV show, which
featured Dongarra. The Rev. Nicholas Morcone, abbot of the Glastonbury
Abbey, said he and the other monks were shocked to learn that
Dongarra, who had been studying to become a monk, posed as a priest
while stealing religious artifacts from at least three California
churches and one in Tucson. ``It's going to take a little while to
accept,'' he said. Morcone described Dongarra, believed to be 51, as
a hard-working man who arrived at the Benedictine monastery in April
with the intent of joining the group. He was well-read, intelligent
and personable, Morcone said. Morcone had no way of knowing that
Dongarra had skipped bail and failed to show up for a court date in
November 1996. Dongarra ate three meals a day with the 12 monks and
attended prayer services, Morcone said. He lived in a small room in a
house reserved for monk candidates on the abbey grounds. His meager
quarters contrasted sharply with the rented house he left in Oro
Valley. ``It looked like a museum,'' said Detective Bud Novak of the
Oro Valley Police Department. ``He had all kinds of fancy-looking
things. He had an actual altar set up in one of his rooms.'' Novak
first went to Dongarra's Oro Valley home on Sept. 11, 1994, after
Dongarra claimed that religious items had been stolen from his house.
Novak became suspicious when Dongarra filed a second burglary report
on Dec. 25, 1995. He called the National Insurance Crime Bureau,
which keeps tabs on all insurance claims in the United States, and
found that Dongarra had reported some of the same items stolen in
1993 in Kansas City, he said. After talking to church officials in
California, detectives recalled seeing some of the churches' missing
pieces in Dongarra's house when they responded to his burglary calls.
They discovered most of the ``stolen'' items belonged to the
California churches, including a 19th century German Gothic altar
adornment valued at $36,000, a tabernacle, candelabra and sanctuary
candles, Novak said. Novak said Dongarra had been moving from church
to church to steal items. ``Every time his past would catch up with
him, he'd have to move to another church,'' Novak said. Oro Valley
police arrested Dongarra in April 1996. In all, more than $100,000
worth of religious artifacts were recovered from his home, including
two paintings on his living room wall that had been reported stolen
from St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church. Dongarra was
convicted about six months ago, said Lt. Mendez. His parents, who
live in New York, posted his $40,000 bond. Most of that was returned
after they wrote to the court saying it was their life savings, said
Cindi Ryan, an assistant state attorney general. At one time,
Dongarra was a priest at St. Jude's Anglican Church, but officials
there removed his priest status after they discovered he had been
convicted in 1983 of Medicaid fraud in Massachusetts, Novak said.
``There's no question in my mind that he was definitely a fake,''
said Robert Wilkes, a priest at St. Jude's. Before his 1996 arrest,
Dongarra was working on plans to start his own church, called St.
Thomas More Guild, Novak said. He planned to use a $450,000 home that
he was building near Silverbell and Sweetwater roads for services,
Novak recalled. Novak said Dongarra was living off money from his
insurance fraud - ``until we stepped into his life and ruined it
all.''
©1996-7 Mercury Center.
(Times of London)
Sale at Sotheby's far short of $25m target
BY DALYA ALBERGE ARTS CORRESPONDENT
SOTHEBY'S in New York has been bruised by a sale of medieval art
which totalled $5.57 million (£3.4 million) against an estimate of
more than $25 million. By value, only 28 per cent of the collection
was sold. The news came days after the auction house was hit by a
disappointing sale of modern art. This time, however, scholars,
curators and dealers were as shocked as the auctioneers. Many of the
objects were masterpieces - caskets, crosses and candlesticks that
once adorned European abbeys, churches and cathedrals. One dealer
said: "It is too sophisticated for American taste."
stolen Art report:
at http://museum-security.org/ there is a link to
images of artworks stolen and additional information.
From: "Laura Lengyel"
To:
Attention: Ton Cremers
Thank you for answering my inquiry about reporting stolen works. I am
sending JPG images of two works on paper stolen from and office
building hallway in San Francisco. The work was uninsured.
Regards,
Laura L. Lengyel
Stolen artworks:
Artist: Laura La Foret Lengyel
Title:
"Blue Night, I've Got you on my Mind"
Size: 33"x29.5"
Medium: Pastel and custom metallic on Rives Tan Etching Paper.
Year: 1990, Sound Suite/Visual Music Series
Date Stolen: Around Oct. 8, 1997, San Francisco, CA
Artist: Laura La Foret Lengyel
Title:
"Holst's Planets"
Size: 24"x26" Framed
Medium: Pastel and metallic gold leaf on Rives Etching paper.
Year: 1987, Sound Suite/Visual Music Series
Date Stolen: October 24, 1997, San Francisco, CA
Man slashes Newman painting in Amsterdam museum
AMSTERDAM, Nov 21 (Reuters) - A man slashed a painting by American
artist Barnett Newman on display in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum on
Friday, police said. A 44-year-old man was arrested after security
guards saw him attack the 5.5 by 2.5 meter (18 by 8 feet) work
'Cathedra', painted in 1951, with a carpet knife. Police said he
appeared dazed, but his motive was unclear. The Stedelijk museum
would not put an exact value on the painting, which was slashed
across its entire width. Newman, who died in 1970, was an
influential member of the abstract expressionist movement, which also
included artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem De
Kooning. He particularly influenced Jasper Johns, two of whose
paintings sold earlier this month at Christie's for around eight
million dollars each. The attack is the second on a work by Newman
in the museum. In 1986, his 'Who's afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue
III' was slashed by a frustrated local artist unable to get an
exhibition at the Stedelijk.
Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited.
Auction houses battle with artists over copyright fees.
By GEOFF MASLEN
Australia's art auction houses are fighting moves that will force them
to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in copyright fees to
reproduce the work of artists in their catalogues. Although the
Australian copyright act has been operating for almost 30 years,
auction houses and commerical art dealers have never paid fees to
artists whose works they use for catalogue illustrations. The
international salerooms of Sotheby's and Christie's will put more than
800 paintings, prints and drawings under the hammer in Melbourne this
week, with most reproduced in the profusely illustrated catalogues.
But now Viscopy, a company set up two years ago to ensure that visual
artists receive fees each time their work is reproduced, has told the
salerooms they must comply with the act. Under a proposed scale of
fees, the salerooms will have to pay up to $2000 for a catalogue cover
illustration and $1000 for a full-page color photograph of an artwork.
A quarter-page reproduction will cost up to $500. The big auction
houses have warned that Viscopy's insistence on collecting copyright
fees for its 600 members could harm the entire art market. Christie's
painting department head, Ms Kathie Sutherland, said she doubted that
vendors would be prepared to pay any copyright fee. Should Christie's
have to meet the cost, only highly priced works (where the fee
represented a fraction of its value) would be illustrated, she said.
But the salerooms' dilemma is that illustrated works usually fetch
higher prices than those not pictured. Melbourne artist John Howley
yesterday said it was right that artists be paid copyright fees for
reproductions of their work in the same way musicians and writers
received such payments. "I've never in my life received any copyright
fees even though my work is regularly used in various forms," Mr
Howley said. Viscopy's executive officer, Ms Anna Ward, says the work
of all graphic artists is covered under the act, including painters,
sculptors, craftspeople, photographers, designers and cartoonists.
Representatives of Sotheby's and Christie's will meet with Viscopy
tomorrow to try to resolve the issue. They say Australia should adopt
Britain's policy of excluding artworks intended for resale from
copyright payments.
Published by The Age Online Pty Ltd ©1997 David Syme &
Co Ltd
Professor urges halt to painting restoration
BY DALYA ALBERGE
THE Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University has called
for a debate on the restoration of works of art after the National
Gallery cleaned and retouched a Holbein masterpiece that he believes
did not require treatment. Its condition did not cry out for
restoration, Martin Kemp said. "If I had been in charge of the
Holbein, I would have taken a decision not to clean it." He believes
that discoloured varnish and some paint loss on The Ambassadors, the
enormous 1533 double-portrait of two diplomats to the Court of Henry
VIII, did not justify a cleanse so deep and thorough that it lasted
three years. Although details such as the drapery were clearer now,
they had not previously been obscured. Professor Kemp called for
galleries across the country to have stiffer tests of whether a work
of art was really crying out for intervention. Arguing that returning
a picture to how the artist saw it was a "subjective business", he
asked: "Why are we happy to leave arms off sculptures when we are not
happy to have holes in paintings?" Professor Kemp, curator of the
Leonardo exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1989, called
for the National Gallery and other institutions to curb their
conservation programmes, even though cleaned pictures stood out from
those left untouched, such as the National's Claude landscapes. "They
are not remarkably filthy, but have yellow varnish," he said.
Emphasising that the National had not "done a bad job or seriously
damaged the Holbein", he added: "My criteria for cleaning or restoring
is if the structural integrity of the work is threatened and if it is
grossly disfigured ... I would generally not take that to mean dirty
varnish or some paint loss with earlier retouchings."
Copyright 1997 The Times Newspapers Limited.
Corporate art collecting slows but legacy remains
By Patricia Commins
CHICAGO, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The heady days of corporate art
collecting, when companies bought paintings, prints and sculptures to
decorate their walls and fill their lobbies, are largely gone in this
era of cost-cutting and downsizing. But the art collections remain, a
legacy from a time when corporate titans turned their personal passion
for art into a company asset. Much of Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp.'s
collection once belonged to company founder Nathan Cummings, who
rubbed elbows with the likes of Pablo Picasso and sculptor Henry Moore
and bought their works. Sara Lee's is among the most noteworthy
corporate art collections, with paintings by Pissarro, Gauguin,
Matisse and Degas. ``He (Cummings) was an enormous collector of art,''
Sara Lee Chairman John Bryan, himself a collector of decorative art,
recalled. ``After he died in 1985 ... we bought some of his major
pieces. It didn't seem like a lot of money back then. The art has
become more valuable.'' The art market has been kind to corporations
recently. Inflated by speculation in the 1980s and hit by a sharp
decline in the '90s, the market is sounder these days, said Richard
Gray, president of Richard Gray Gallery of Chicago and New York and
head of the Art Dealers Association of America. But most collections,
particularly those guided by a company executive with a personal
interest in art, were not intended for investment, Gray added.
'WE DO NOT COLLECT FOR INVESTMENT'
``Most corporate collections are basically accumulations. We do not
collect for investment,'' said Suzanne Lemakis, vice president and art
curator for New York-based Citicorp. Citicorp's collection is
``complete eclectic,'' she said. ``We have antique mechanical banks,
coin collections, paintings, sculptures. I've been recently collecting
photography because it's less expensive.'' First Chicago NBD began
collecting contemporary art in the 1970s to decorate what was then a
brand-new landmark headquarters building in Chicago. Its collection is
largely contemporary and includes sculpture, paintings, drawings,
prints and even some textiles from quilts to ceremonial robes. But the
consolidation in the banking business has put a lid on First Chicago's
art collection. ``We are currently not adding to the collection,''
said John Ballatine, executive vice president and chairman of the art
committee at First Chicago. ``We have enough objects for display
purposes and rotation.'' The refrain is repeated by many companies
that are actively maintaining -- but not expanding -- their
collections. Those that do make purchases say they often buy prints or
photographs for a few thousand dollars rather than spending millions
on a Van Gogh. ``I don't see corporate buying being abundant,'' said
Naomi Baigell, vice president and director of corporate collections at
Sotheby's auction house in New York. The roots of corporate art
collections go back to the turn of the century, when railroad
companies commissioned artists to paint scenes of the West to lure
travelers, said Judith Jedlicka, president of the Business Committee
for the Arts Inc., which was founded by David Rockefeller.
BUYING ART FOR THE WALLS
Unlike a museum, which displays only about 10 percent of its
collection at any given time, companies have virtually all their
pieces on exhibit. Buying art for the walls has been a major impetus
for starting corporate art collections. ``The reality is that
corporations are going to spend money to put things on the wall anyway
so they might as well spend money on quality,'' said Keith Davis, fine
arts programs director for Kansas City-based Hallmark Cards Inc.
Hallmark began collecting contemporary art in 1949 but it also has
vintage posters from the 1890s and a large photograph collection that
tours museums and galleries extensively. ``The art collection has
already had a dual significance for Hallmark,'' Davis said. ``It has
been seen as an educational resource for Hallmark (employees). ... No.
2, the development of an art collection expresses something very
important about a company's philosophy of why the arts are
important.'' Maggie Smith, president of Milwaukee-based ArtSource
Inc., said the aesthetics are equally important whether the art is a
fine oil painting or a framed poster. Smith, who buys art for nursing
homes and hospitals as well as offices, said it has both a
psychological and a physiological benefit. Michael Bzdak, curator for
Johnson & Johnson, said he believes the Henry Moore sculpture Mother
and Child outside corporate headquarters helps to define the
pharmaceutical and personal care company. ``It puts a human face on a
company.'' Johnson & Johnson's collection includes contemporary works
on paper, some of them from artists in New Jersey, where the company
is based. In addition to exhibiting art at its corporate headquarters,
the company is among many that loan works to museums and galleries for
public display. ``It's not uncommon these days for companies that have
very fine collections to work with museums so that there is a wider
audience,'' Jedlicka of the Business Committee for the Arts said.
``It's PR but it's also a lot of good community relationships that
they're building.''
Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. A
British experts join Van Gogh 'fake' inquiry
by John Harlow
EXPERTS from the National Gallery are to join an international
commission set up to investigate allegations that the Yasuda
Sunflowers, one of Vincent Van Gogh's most important paintings, is a
fake. The Sunday Times revealed last month that there is growing
conviction in the art world that the painting is a copy of a similar
painting by an embittered French art teacher. The Van Gogh Museum in
Amsterdam, which first loftily dismissed the charges as unworthy of
comment, announced yesterday that it is now taking the allegations so
seriously that only a panel of independent experts can rule on them.
If it finds the work is a fake, up to 45 other paintings attributed to
the artist since his death in 1890 will come under scrutiny. A similar
commission has classified many Rembrandts as copies. The study of 14
sunflowers against a pale green background became the world's most
expensive painting when it was sold at Christie's 10 years ago for
£24.75m to the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Company of Japan. The
National Gallery has been invited to join the commission, due to start
work early next year, because it owns the unchallenged original study
of sunflowers painted from life in August 1888, of which the Yasuda
Sunflowers is supposed to be a copy made by Van Gogh in January 1889.
Geraldine Norman, an art expert who studied the background of the
sunflower series, believes the Yasuda work was faked by Claude-Emile
Schuffenecker, a turn-of-the-century painter and friend of Van Gogh
and Paul Gauguin, for whose house the original Sunflowers was
intended. Norman argues that Schuffenecker had plenty of time to study
the originals when he was asked to restore them after Van Gogh's
death: he created the fakes to bulk out a Paris show of
post-impressionists in 1901. Schuffenecker died in 1935. The Van Gogh
Museum, the protector of the artist's legacy and the beneficiary of a
£20m donation from Yasuda as thanks for helping the company to buy its
Sunflowers, has appointed two senior officials to lead the
investigation: Sjraar van Heugten, curator of paintings and drawings,
and Louis van Tilborgh, an archivist. Van Heugten, who still argues
that the Yasuda Sunflowers is authentic, said x-rays and forensic work
could take many years. "We shall be looking at the jute material upon
which Sunflowers is painted," he said. "It is unusual, but we do know
that Van Gogh and Gauguin jointly bought a 20-metre roll of it at that
time. The aim is to account for it all."
Copyright 1997 The Times Newspapers Limited.
Is there a web site that lists openings for positions in museum
security?
From: Kris Hegle
To: securma@museum-security.org
Subject: job openings in museum security - boston mass. area
To whom it may concern:
Is there a web site that lists openings for positions in museum
security? I am a recently retired FBI agent (28 plus yrs), formerly
college instructor, relocating back to Boston, Massachusetts. I am
seeking professional employment in museum security, and I am familiar
with the administrative milieu of art museums thru both personal &
professional dealings.
Sincerely,
P. Francis Sheridan
(ACRA-L)
From: Dogoszhi@aol.com
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT A ROAD IN NEW MEXICO, EVEN IF YOU LIVE IN
NEW JERSEY...
Here in New Mexico, the City of Albuquerque wants to blast
(literally) a six-lane commuter highway through Petroglyph National
Monument, which contains over 10,000 examples of Native American
rock art. The history of this issue is highly complex, but the issue
itself is very simple: do we diminish a National Monument and a
National Register district for the same of commuter convenience?
The Park Service, not surprisingly, has told the city "No." In
response, Senator Pete Domenci (R-NM) has introduced Senate Bill 633,
which would remove the proposed road corridor from the national
monument and is worded in such as way as to remove the road project
from NEPA. The new mayor, Jim Baca, who takes office Dec. 1, is
against the road, but Senator Domenici plans to push Senate Bill 633
through Congress anyway. A congressional staffer who is watching the
bill says that unless something changes, the bill is likely to pass,
and he's doubtful that Interior Secretary Babbitt can deliver on his
threat to secure a Presidential veto. "So how does this affect me in
New Jersey (or South Carolina, or wherever)?" You ask. The e-mail
responses I've received indicate that Paseo del Norte isn't a local
problem, it's a national problem. Somewhere in your region, a city
is growing up against a park or monument, and transportation planners
are lusting after all that "empty space" as a good place to put a
commuter road. This is like the beginning of an epidemic, where the
pattern isn't there -- unless you know to look for it. We need to
stop this epidemic before it becomes pandemic. To use a different
analogy, there's a wedge aimed at every park and monument that's near
an urban center, and Paseo is about to feel the thin edge of that
wedge. If Congress decides that Petroglyph National Monument is only
to be preserved until someone wants the land for something else, what
decision is Congress going to make when someone wants to put a road
through YOUR favorite archaeological park?
If anyone wants to know more about Paseo del Norte, please email me
(Dogoszhi@aol.com) and I'll send you a 14-page technical brief on the
project. (This is a revised version; if you have the November 3
version and would like the newer one, please let me know.) If you are
ready to do something, the greatest need is to convice Senator Jeff
Bingaman (D-NM) to oppose the bill. You can contact him at:
Senator Jeff Bingaman
703 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Tel. (202) 224-5521
Email: Senator_Bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov
If you e--mail the senator, please remember to include your snail-mail
return address. While you've got your word processor cranked up,
please also contact your own two senators and let them know that you
oppose Senate Bill 633. A couple more things to do. First, if you
know an organization through which you can spread the word, please do
so (or get them to go on record as opposing the road extension).
Second, if you want to know about further developments on Paseo,
please send me your e-mail address and I'll keep you posted of
critical developments.
Thanks. I know that acra-lytes would much prefer to dis SHPOs and
each other, but what happens here in New Mexico will have
repercussions all over the country. Pretty soon, road planners are
going to conclude that they either can or cannot run their roads
through those "empty" parks and monuments -- what they decide will be
up to the likes of us.
Dave Phillips, President
New Mexico Archeological Council