[MSN] California. Art heist leaves empty wall, hefty bill. Plein Air painting stolen; two women had expressed interest.

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Art heist leaves empty wall, hefty bill

 
 
Plein Air painting stolen; two women had expressed interest

By Reilly Capps

Around noon yesterday, Ronnie Palamar had to make a terrible phone call. She
dialed the digits for Jeannette Le Grue, an artist who lives in Northern
California.

"Jeannette? It's Ronnie at the Sheridan Opera House," she said. For a minute
she hemmed and hawed, delaying the inevitable. Then she blurted out the
news. "Somebody stole your painting, right off the wall."

It was the rare art heist this weekend in Telluride, a town with lots of
drunken bike thefts and careless hit-and-runs and almost no Thomas Crown
Affairs.

But the wall in the Gallery Room on the lower level of the Opera House is
just a stretch of empty drywall now. The spotlight above shines down on a
lonely hook, and a placard reads: "Courthouse 5:30 p.m. $900."

There used to be a glowing but simple work of art there, crafted by a woman
who makes her living painting and teaching others how to paint.

The police say they are investigating. And the Opera House is offering two
tickets to their New Year's Eve bash for information that leads to the
painting.

 
 
Le Grue was in Telluride for the Plein Air festival in early July. She left
behind the painting as part of a Plein Air After Sale of about 15 unsold
works.

It hung just inside the entrance to the gallery, where it would have been
easy to grab and dash.

Though they can't be certain, the Opera House staff believes the painting
was stolen sometime Friday, during a Chamber Music Fest event.

In the morning was a free children's concert. And at night there was a
classy concert event, with drinks and conversation and milling around the
Plein Air paintings. With people breezing in and out of the gallery and not
much security, heading upstairs to hear Cesar Frank's "Sonata for Violin and
Piano" and James Winn's "Nocturnes for Piano Trio," the gallery might have
been left empty.

"I think this is so bad, that someone would walk in here . and do this,"
Palamar said. "It's sad because we're a nonprofit, we get 40 percent of [the
sale]."

There are no concrete suspects.

But there was interest in the painting. A couple of weeks ago, two women
approached Palamar to ask about the painting's price. Palamar had never seen
them before - they were in their 40s, with blond hair, wearing exercise
clothes. One of them asked Palamar to e-mail her about a discount, but when
Palamar tried the address, it came back as bogus.

Palamar is suspicious that one of those women might have returned for her
own discount - of 100 percent.

The thief apparently wasn't a Philistine, and wasn't out for pure profit.
The painting on the other side of the door, which could have been stolen
just as easily, was priced $600 higher than Le Grue's painting, which was
smaller and subtler.

"It was one of those paintings that take a sophisticated eye to appreciate,"
Le Grue said. "Whoever that person is has a bit of an eye."

So does Telluride have a sophisticated art thief on its hands, paying a
compliment to Le Grue in a backhanded way? Or just a lowlife trying to make
a quick buck?

Whoever it was, and whyever they took it, Palamar and Le Grue are not happy.

"Somebody is very rude to take a painting," Le Grue said, "especially when
it's a work of love."
 
http://www.telluridegateway.com/