[CPProt.net] How a cache of valuable art by legendary Italian painter Alberto Burri vanished without a trace

Sun May 1 21:06:59 CEST 2005

 Disappearing Act 

May 2005

How a cache of valuable art by legendary Italian painter Alberto Burri vanished without a trace
BY BERNHARD WARNER | ROME

In Italy, they called it Arte Povera, elsewhere "junk art": turning refuse — burlap sacks, globs of tar — into popular works. For artists like Alberto Burri, who began producing Arte Povera in the '50s, such trash would eventually become treasure. Museums and galleries such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York City and the Pompidou Center in Paris vied for his works for decades. In 1989, a collector shelled out $2.8 million for one of his prized Sacco (Sack) paintings called Umbria Vera. At the time of his death in 1995, Burri's most famous pieces, including the Sacks and Plastics series, could be found in modern art museums in London, New York, Venice and, most proudly for the artist, in his hometown of Città di Castello in the foothills of central Italy's Apennine mountain range. 

But today, the town of Città di Castello — and part of Italy's art establishment — is in turmoil, because a large cache of Burri's work is missing. The 15th century palazzo that houses much of his output had been expecting a shipment of 30 more Burri works, kept at the artist's country cottage in the south of France. But the works have disappeared, Time has learned. Italian police believe the art was stolen and smuggled out of Europe to the U.S., but neither they nor officials from La Fondazione Albizzini, which exhibits the artist's work, will speculate about suspects. The collection includes a 3-m-tall Sacco, a piece experts estimate could fetch over €1 million. "It's a sin," says Tiziano Sarteanesi, a La Fondazione Albizzini board member and a close friend of Burri's. 

Sarteanesi and other Albizzini officials went to collect the art in November 2003, shortly after the death of the artist's American wife, Minsa Craig Burri. "When we entered the house we found nothing, no paintings, no jewels, no documents, nothing," Sarteanesi says somberly. Since then, police in France and Italy have traced the works back to America, but there the trail went cold. They declined to provide any details of their investigation. "It's a bit of a mystery," an investigator for the cultural heritage protection division of Italy's Carabinieri police force says. Over the past two years, the foundation had hoped the missing works would be found, eliminating the need to make the theft public. 

If the Burri collection was stolen, as police believe, it represents one of the biggest heists of Italian art in years. Around the world last year, more than 12,000 pieces of collectible art, jewelry and antiques were reported missing or stolen to the London-based Art Loss Register, whose database of stolen works is the largest in the world. When the stolen object is a rare masterpiece — such as Edvard Munch's The Scream, which was lifted from The Munch Museum in Oslo last year and is still missing, though three men have been arrested in connection with the crime — the theft grabs headlines. But hauls of large numbers of works are less common, says Alexandra Smith, the Register's operations director. Whenever possible, foundations like the Albizzini tend to keep such bad news quiet, fearing the negative publicity could hurt ticket sales. 

The disappearance represents a sad coda to Burri's remarkably colorful career. Born in 1915, Burri did not set out to be an artist. He earned a degree in medicine from the University of Perugia, and, at the outbreak of World War II, was shipped to North Africa as an army doctor. Captured by the British army, Burri was turned over to American forces and interned at a prison camp in Hereford, Texas. Depressed and dispirited, Burri abandoned medicine for art. Short of materials, he turned to the abundant supply of burlap in the camp and used it as a canvas. After the war, Burri returned to Italy, where he and contemporaries Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni forged their own unique style to grab attention from the American and French modernists then in vogue. 

It was the burlap paintings that first drew the attention of American art critics to Burri in the early '50s; a young Robert Rauschenberg came to Rome to watch him work. "To his peers, Burri was seen as an absolutely crucial figure to the Italian art scene," says Matthew Gale, curator of a new exhibition at London's Tate Modern dedicated to Burri, Fontana and Manzoni. 

Growing increasingly disenchanted with the international art scene in the 1970s, Burri decided to cut back on exhibiting new work; instead, he created La Fondazione Albizzini to house and promote many of his favorites in his beloved hometown. Locally, it has been reason to celebrate. "Burri's artworks represent Umbria in its deepest and most intimate nature," says Maria Rita Lorenzetti, president of the Umbria region. However, Burri's wife did not share her husband's affection for Città di Castello. After the artist's death, she tried to gain control of all of Burri's works. But in 1998, Italian courts ruled in favor of Albizzini as the guardian of Burri's art. 

Right now, the only record of the missing work is a photo-catalogue. In addition to the art, the collection contained intimate pieces Burri gave to his wife. "Some of them were little gifts he used to give his wife on Christmas or birthdays with little dedications," says Sarteanesi. "They are important for the foundation because they are unique." Police have alerted galleries and collectors to be on the lookout for the works, but most American museums and dealers contacted by Time say they were unaware of the warning. 

Although investigations into art thefts can sometimes last decades, the foundation takes some comfort in the hope that, if a collector were to buy one of the missing Burris, he or she would likely have it authenticated, and thus Albizzini would presumably be notified. But Sarteanesi prays it doesn't come to that. "It is very important that these artworks are not sold or dispersed," he says. "It would be a sin, not only for the foundation, but for Italy's and the world's cultural heritage, and for the name of Burri." 

http://www.time.com/