Thieves lift a two-ton sculpture in the night
"Why steal art? In truth, art thefts almost never have anything to do with love of art - instead, they are ways of acquiring small, portable, high-prestige objects which represent potentially enormous sums of money."
I would have agreed with the above quote until the theft of a two ton sculpture by English artist Henry Moore. The bronze statue was stolen on the night of December 15, 2005 by three men, two vehicles, and a crane from the Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire, England. The sad part is, the local authorities feel the Moore sculpture was stolen for scrap metal.
The value of the sculpture donated to the museum by the artist is $5.3 million dollars. A quick phone call to my local metal-buyer revealed that the 2-ton bronze sculpture melted down would only be worth about $7,000.
Police have been searching scrap yards in England in an attempt to find this artwork but feel the thieves may be lying low until the investigation has dissipated. There was a spate of other metal art and monument thefts in January 2006, none of which have been recovered yet.
So what does it all mean? First, the act of stealing art to melt down for a liquid commodity speaks of poverty that is both financial and cultural. The brazenness of their art theft makes one think of compulsive and addictive behavior. It's also a lot of work for not a lot of money. For one night of art-thieving a substantial sculpture the three men who committed the act would have received about $2,300 for a night's work.
What these art thieves are probably not aware of is that when they stole the Henry Moore sculpture, they stole from themselves and lessened the value of their culture. The Henry Moore Foundation is an art museum housed on the estate of the artist in Perry Green. The foundation is a non-profit begun and funded by the artist Henry Moore himself to "advance the education of the public by the promotion of their appreciation of the fine arts." If these art thieves are ever caught, as part of their sentences they should be forced to take art appreciation classes.
