Sometime between September 2nd and 3rd of 2009, an art theft took place in Los Angeles, California. To be specific, the burglars hit a residence on Angelo Drive in an area that has been been described as "West Los Angeles" and "near Benedict Canyon" but actually sits within the 90210 zip code, which we (interested outsiders who follow pop culture) all know pretty much means "Beverly Hills/Holmby Hills/Bel-Air." The end result of the burglary is that eleven original Andy Warhol canvases have gone missing: ten (of ten) from the 1977-79 Athlete Series and one of the Series' commissioner, art collector Richard L. Weisman.
In case you've never heard of Richard L. Weisman, he was a friend of Andy's who is mentioned with semi-regularity in The Andy Warhol Diaries. Weisman also seems to have been born with a collecting gene. His mother, Marcia Simon Weisman (1918-1991), was a major collector, patroness, founding member of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, trustee and benefactor of several other major US art museums and also had her portrait done by Andy Warhol. His father, Frederick R. Weisman (1912-1994), did likewise (both during and after his divorce from Marcia) and created an art foundation that bears his name. Richard Weisman's uncle, Norton Simon (1907-1993), was less into AbEx and Pop than he was the Old Masters and Impressionists, but you've probably heard of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.
Plutocratic family ties aside, the thieves who broke into Richard Weisman's LA property--despite lots of other valuable works of art being lodged within the premises--cherry-picked the Warhol canvases. So be on the lookout for a stack of 3+ ft. sq. unframed silkscreens on stretchers ... think: gigantic pizza boxes (only a LOT more valuable than pizza boxes) that take two guys to carry. The LAPD Art Theft Detail wants to hear from you if you've seen one or more of the lot and, by the way, there's a cool $1 million (US) reward in it for you if your information leads to recovery.
If you'd like to have a visual point of reference, the stolen works in all their original, glorious color schemes are here in the "Stolen from the Richard L. Weisman Collection" image gallery. (And if you collect the $1 million through my efforts, I could seriously use a new ball point pen by way of thanks.)
Image credit:
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Willie Shoemaker, 1977-79
Part of the Athlete Series
Silkscreen and polymer paint on canvas
40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
On stretcher, unframed
© Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York
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