“We have stolen the Pablo Picasso from the National Gallery”, said the ransom note sent to Victoria's Arts Minister Race Mathews in 1986. The Weeping Woman painting, bought by the National Gallery of Victoria for c$1.6 million a year earlier, was lost. But this was no normal theft, declared these Australian Cultural Terrorists. This was a crime of protest against the niggardly funding of the fine arts in this hick state and against the clumsy, unimaginative stupidity of the administration and distribution of that funding. Authorities had 7 days to meet the thieves' demands, or the painting would be destroyed. Picasso’s Weeping Woman was later found in a locker at the Spencer St Railway Station, after a tip-off - undamaged!
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I was fascinated in art crimes, but Holsworth actually did something about them. Long interested in art crimes, he had been building up a file of newspaper clippings since he first heard Picasso’s Weeping woman was stolen from the NGV. He included the first break-in at the Adelaide Art Gallery, an entire exhibition of forged Pollocks, paintings stabbed, art prosecuted as pornography and decapitated statues. There were great artists, including Renoir, Brett Whitely and Albert Tucker and some infamous criminals, including people who had been once respected.
Weeping Woman by Picasso, 1937
National Gallery of Victoria
In 1986 Mark Holsworth wrote a long essay on the aesthetic issues of art forgery in his uni studies, but it was a true-crime book. Then his academic interest grew. He attended seminars on forgery, his interest in Melbourne’s public sculpture introduced the theft of bronze sculptures for scrap metal. His first book was Sculptures of Melbourne. I (Helen) was not very interested in sculpture, but Mark Holsworth is the writer of an excellent blog, Black Mark.
Holsworth was constantly sitting in the Supreme Court conducting interviews and exchanging messages with convicted forgers, graffiti writers, defence lawyers and courtroom artists. He thought there might be enough crimes involving art in Melbourne alone to fill a book, from the attempted destruction of Serrano’s Piss Christ and Liberto forgeries, to art stolen from Albert Tucker’s home. While the Weeping Woman crime was noted globally, other stories of crimes, from colonial to modern, were less well known. And Mark soon learnt of crimes in other Australian cities that could not be omitted. There were intriguing art thefts in South Australia, an early attempt of prosecution for forgery in Sydney and an entire exhibition of fake Jackson Pollock in Perth. Over a century of art crimes across Australia!
Holsworth was constantly sitting in the Supreme Court conducting interviews and exchanging messages with convicted forgers, graffiti writers, defence lawyers and courtroom artists. He thought there might be enough crimes involving art in Melbourne alone to fill a book, from the attempted destruction of Serrano’s Piss Christ and Liberto forgeries, to art stolen from Albert Tucker’s home. While the Weeping Woman crime was noted globally, other stories of crimes, from colonial to modern, were less well known. And Mark soon learnt of crimes in other Australian cities that could not be omitted. There were intriguing art thefts in South Australia, an early attempt of prosecution for forgery in Sydney and an entire exhibition of fake Jackson Pollock in Perth. Over a century of art crimes across Australia!
I was fascinated in art crimes, but Holsworth actually did something about them. Long interested in art crimes, he had been building up a file of newspaper clippings since he first heard Picasso’s Weeping woman was stolen from the NGV. He included the first break-in at the Adelaide Art Gallery, an entire exhibition of forged Pollocks, paintings stabbed, art prosecuted as pornography and decapitated statues. There were great artists, including Renoir, Brett Whitely and Albert Tucker and some infamous criminals, including people who had been once respected.
The Picasso Ransom (2023) was Mark’s second book, a collection of 45 true-crime stories about the visual arts in Australia, appealed enormously. He included art theft, forgery, censorship, vandalism and protest. Later he launched the book at Coburg’s Woodlands Hotel in Mar 2023 - I would have loved to have heard the Q & A with the author.
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The book is available from the usual online sellers eg in Australia and New Zealand through Amazon, Dymocks and Booktopia; in Canada and US through Barnes and Noble, and in Europe and UK through Blackwells.
Now read Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice series: General Editor Dr Adam Graycar, Director of Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra
Mark Holsworth and his book,
The Picasso Ransom
Q & A session, 2023
When I was choosing a chapter to include in this blog post, I felt it had to be about an art-family my late parents were very close to i.e Joseph Brown or Victor Smorgon. So here is my favourite Melbourne chapter in the book, Loti’s Renoir. When immigrant butcher Victor Smorgon promised his wife a Renoir at their 1937 wedding, she had to wait 41 years to see it. The Smorgons were doing very well when, in 1978, Victor could afford to buy a small Renoir oil called Coco With Fan (1906). The painting proudly hung in the Smorgons’ Toorak home, with the rest of their collection.
But while the couple were away on holidays, their treasure was stolen! A Kew art dealer acted as a go-between and offered the owners the painting back for a huge ransom, but the insurers and police advised the Smorgons not to pay. 5 years later, Dutch police raided a hotel, found the painting and arrested five thieves. The Renoir was returned to Melbourne, in 1985! Who had gained entry into the Smorgon home and what role did the art dealers play? Holsworth’s writing was based on broad research in newspaper archives, observing trials, interviews and experience in the art world. But he couldn’t answer every detail.
When Victor Smorgon passed away in 2009, NGV Director Frances Lindsay noted that he was a great Australian. With his wife Loti he was one of the NGV’s greatest benefactors (60+ works) and a true friend to the visual arts in Australia.
A "Picasso Ransom 2" is already suggested with more stories emerging, including the protests in museums and stolen garden sculptures. Should Mark include a story about an art dealer stealing work from artists? The police don’t often get involved in what were business disputes. But if readers know of other art crimes in Australia, please email Mark.
Renoir
Coco with a Japanese Fan, c1906
Bridgeman