[MSN] Police are investigating the theft of $1 million worth of bronze sculptures from a North Troy home and studio in an incident experts say is among the largest art heists in Vermont history.

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Police investigate $1 million sculpture heist

By Adam Silverman
Free Press Staff Writer

December 5, 2007

Police are investigating the theft of $1 million worth of bronze sculptures
from a North Troy home and studio in an incident experts say is among the
largest art heists in Vermont history. 

The 30 pilfered bronzes, some standing as tall as 8 feet and weighing 1,000
pounds, span 25 years and represent the majority of internationally
exhibited sculptor Joel Fisher's lifework. The pieces are in danger of being
melted for the valuable copper they contain, experts said, and the artist,
supporters and enthusiasts are hoping to recover the statues and save them
from the smelter. 

"I'm starting over," said Fisher, 61, who lives and works out of the rural
Northeast Kingdom house near the Canadian border. "It's like chopping off
all of somebody's effort over a number of years." 

The sculptures were not insured because Fisher couldn't afford the premiums,
he said.

Fisher's works have been displayed in collections including the Museum of
Modern Art in New York; The Tate Gallery in London; The Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and at the White House, where a sculpture was
part of an exhibition in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden during the Clinton
administration. 

The sculptures appear abstract, but Fisher describes them as "the reverse of
abstraction," beginning formless and growing during creation to reflect the
shape of "things in the real world." 

Among previously reported major art thefts in Vermont was a 1985 heist at
the Bennington Museum in which thieves made off with pieces including rare
Tiffany and Steuben glass, Vermont-made silver works and pottery
collectively valued at more than $1 million, according to news accounts. 

The Fisher burglary, though, appears to have stronger roots in a desire for
raw materials rather than for artwork, said George Pearlman, executive
director of the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson. Bronzes are composed
mostly of copper, and the metal's increase in price from less than $1 per
pound in December 2002 to $3 per pound today has prompted thefts nationwide.


"Nobody's going to try to sell these items for art, I'm sure," Pearlman
said. "It's the cost of the materials."

The cost of creating the sculptures, in raw materials and casting expenses,
totaled $100,000, Fisher said. The gallery price of all the pieces would
reach about $1 million, Pearlman said. One of the stolen works was by
another artist. 

Pearlman, whose center runs an international residency program in which
Fisher is a visiting artist, has notified local scrap yards about the theft.
A group of Fisher's friends has posted a $2,000 reward for information
leading to the return of the sculptures, Pearlman said. 

"We're just trying to get them before they get to the smelter," he said. "We
don't really care if they catch them, as long as we get the works back." 

The break-in occurred in November, while Fisher was teaching and studying in
England and his home was empty. A number of larger sculptures were displayed
outside, and smaller pieces, some about 1 foot tall and 30 pounds, were kept
inside, the artist said. Thieves would have had to wrestle the bigger pieces
one at a time into the bed of a pickup truck, Fisher said. 

Burglars had broken into the house earlier this fall, Fisher said, and stole
a few pieces. Thieves forced open a lock on a door and smashed a window to
gain access, he said. They also took a coin collection and power tools. 

The burglary was reported last week, said Senior Trooper Callie Field of the
Vermont State Police in Derby. Law enforcement has "no idea what the heck is
going on," she said. She has received no evidence to establish clearly what
was stolen, or even whether the works were on the property, Field said. 

"A lot of stuff's not adding up," she said. "Who knows what was taken?"

Many of the stolen sculptures were one of only two or three in existence or
were items in a series, Fisher said. 

"I'm losing the realization of several bodies of work that I've been working
on for a considerable period of time," he said. "If these things had been in
stone, they might have left them." 

Fisher vowed to continue sculpting, but is he considering a switch in
material?

"Maybe," he said. "Or becoming a poet."

Contact Adam Silverman at 660-1854 or asilverm at bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com