Sections

After 28 years, stolen Picasso returns to `U'

Twenty-eight years after leaving the University in a traveling exhibit, sketches by Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore are coming home.

Federal Bureau of Investigation officials in California recovered the two drawings Wednesday at the residence of a Los Angeles woman. The artwork was stolen from a University exhibit on loan to Delta College in Bay City, Mich., during the summer of 1967.

The discovery, the result of a lead received by the FBI last year, ends a lengthy search that began in 1967, said John Hoos, director of the Los Angeles FBI media relations department.

Charlie J. Parsons, special agent in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said the two pieces of art are valued at approximately $100,000 each.

Special Agent Greg Stejskal of the FBI's Ann Arbor field office said the artworks were recovered after the Los Angeles woman tried to sell the Henry Moore piece, titled "Study of a Seated Figure," to a major consignment agency in California.

"Early in 1995, a consignment agency in California contacted the Henry Moore Foundation in England to check on the autenticity of the drawing," Stejskal said. "The Foundation determined that it was in fact authentic and that it was also stolen. They eventually contacted the University's Department of Public Safety, who in turn contacted (the Ann Arbor FBI office)."

Stejskal then contacted the Los Angeles FBI, whose officers located the woman in the Hollywood Hills area, along with the University's Picasso, titled "Sketches from a Window."

No arrests have been made in connection with the case and the woman is not a suspect. "She said that she recieved them from a family member," Stejskal said.

Stejskal said the statute of limitations "is long gone," but "we will attempt to find the connections," Stejskal said.

Bill Hennessey, director of the University's Museum of Art, said the University is just glad the art has been recovered.

"The Museum is in every way delighted to have these two wonderful works of art back with us again after so many years," Hennessey said.

Both works were on display from June 19 to July 14, 1967 at Delta College in a show originally titled "Thirty Contemporary Drawings." After the theft, the show was renamed "Twenty-eight Contemporary Drawings."

DPS Capt. Jim Smiley said it is unclear when the pieces of art will be returned to the University. The Los Angeles FBI office has possession of the artwork.