Latest news with #sculpturetheft
Daily Mail
22-06-2025
- Daily Mail
Mystery as huge $2.1M sculptures vanish from LA warehouse
A sophisticated art heist left a profound sculptor in shock when he discovered two enormous pieces were swiped from his warehouse. Sir Daniel Winn's two prized sculptures, Quantum Mechanics: Homme, and Icarus Within, were stolen from a warehouse in Anaheim Hills, California, on or around June 14. The massive sculptures were crafted with bronze and stainless steel. Icarus Within weighs a ton and stands at eight feet tall. The piece is valued at $350,000, while Quantum Mechanics is worth a massive $1.8 million. Winn told the Los Angeles Times that moving the sculptures for exhibitions requires a massive operation including a forklift, a dozen men, and a truck. The heist has also left police dumbfounded, as Anaheim Police Sergeant Matt Sutter admitted to the publication that authorities had little information. 'I have no idea where these sculptures are,' Sutter told the LA Times. 'They could be in somebody's house or in a shipping container somewhere. That's what we're trying to find out.' The officer added that in his 25 years with the department, he's never seen a burglary of this scale. 'We've had our share of high-end homes that were burglarized, but this type of crime, involving forklifts, trucks, crews and the sheer size of the sculptures is something I can't remember us having before,' he added. Warehouse workers told authorities that they last saw the sculptures on Saturday and arrived for their shifts the following Monday with the pieces nowhere to be found. Winn told local NBC affiliate, KABC, that the heist was a targeted attack and was doubtful that the thieves just wanted cash for scrap metal due to the scale of the operation. The thieves left other artwork and valuables in the warehouse. Winn is known as a 'blue-chip artist,' meaning he is internationally recognized and his work sells for high values. The artist came to the US as a child refugee fleeing the Vietnam War. He studied medicine at the University of California in Irvine, before deciding to pursue art. Winn is also the Board Chairman of The Academy of Fine Art Foundation and was knighted in 2018 for his non-profit work. He describes his art as Existential Surrealism, exploring themes related to his upbringing as a refugee. One of the sculptures stolen, Home, was featured in the film Creation in 2022 and was the only unsold work in his Quantum Mechanics series. Winn was gutted that his work was stolen and is now concerned the sculptures will be sold on the black market. 'These are my children. I have no physical, organic children. Every artwork I create is my child,' he told the LA Times.
Times
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
‘Irreplaceable' bronze statues stolen during manor house festival
It was the first day of the summer jazz festival at Iford Manor. The sun beamed on the blooming gardens and the sound of a saxophone filled the air but the contentment was about to come to an abrupt end. On Friday morning, the owners of the country estate near Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, woke to discover that four bronze sculptures had been taken from the grade I listed gardens overnight. Among the missing pieces was a copy of Rome's Capitoline Wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, including its plinth, which had been in the gardens for 120 years, a pair of symmetrical bronze fawns inspired by those at the ancient Villa dei Papyri in Herculaneum, and a bust of Antinous. Marianne Cartwright-Hignett, 42, who runs the estate with her husband William, also 42, said: 'The policeman asked for a victim statement and I said, 'well, you know, it's not my statue'. And he said, 'oh, who owns it?' I said, 'no, no, no, this is everyone's loss'. This is a huge loss.' The garden, which has been open to the public since about 1910, receives about 20,000 visitors during the six months of the year it is open. Cartwright-Hignett said: 'It feels a million miles away from everywhere. When you go into the garden, you're not sure which country you're in, you're not sure which century you're in. There's a cloister at the back which has a line from a Tennyson poem. The inscribed line says 'a haunt of ancient peace'. 'It's a really tranquil, healing space … it feels like someone's just ripped the soul out of the garden.' After she posted the news on Instagram, the BBC gardening presenter Monty Don replied to say he was 'very sorry and angry'. Cartwright-Hignett, who lives on the estate with her husband and two sons, Horatio, six and Freddie, three, added: 'Gardeners' World have been here a couple of times in the past and Monty Don did a lovely episode of his series of Big Dreams, Small Spaces here.' Wiltshire police are investigating, and asking antique dealers and auction houses to be on alert for the stolen pieces. Cartwright-Hignett is particularly keen to see the Romulus and Remus statue returned. She said: 'That's kind of irreplaceable. The curator of the Capitoline at the time, in the late 1800s, let the estate owner take a direct copy from the original. We believe it's the last time a direct copy was allowed to be taken. Ironically, it was here for safe keeping in case the one in the Capitoline ever got lost or stolen.' She added: 'My dearest hope is that no one's stupid enough to melt it down. I just hate the thought of this being in someone's private garden where one person gets to see it.' In 2011 a Henry Moore sculpture worth £3 million was stolen from his foundation in Hertfordshire. It was later believed to have been melted down. Earlier this year a bronze statue worth £60,000 was stolen from the home of the artist Anne Curry in Essex. A 17th-century 'Shepherd Boy' statue was stolen from an outbuilding in Pickering, Yorkshire, last year — it still hasn't been found — and in March two men were sentenced for damaging and stealing a Paddington Bear statue in Newbury in Berkshire.
