Los Angeles police seek 9 Warhol prints stolen from business

EXCLUSIVE*** The American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol with his paintings(1928 – 1987), December 15, 1980.

Nine Andy Warhol prints were stolen from a Los Angeles business and replaced in their frames with copies, police have revealed.

In 1980, Warhol created a portrait series of 10 leading Jewish cultural figures of the 20th century, which he called “Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century”.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Art Detail is investigating the theft and are looking for the original prints, Det.

The owners only realised they had been switched after noticing one of the prints was sagging and needed to be reframed. The staff noticed that the print was “fuzzy and lacked a print number and signature”.

A special tool was used to remove the frames in which the prints were hung at Moviola, because otherwise the walls would have been left damaged, according to the affidavit.

It appears whoever stole the prints replaced them with large color copies, Los Angeles police detective Brent Johnson wrote in the affidavit. A Bald Eagle print was sold through Bonhams auction house in October 2011, according to the affidavit cited by The Times. Bonhams spokeswoman Kristin Guiter said that they have already responded on investigators’ request regarding the documentation and information about the sold “Bald Eagle” print.

Police said that in July, the shop owner discovered the art was fake.

The other stolen art pieces were from the pricier 1983 collection Endangered Species, including three signed prints of his Siberian Tiger, Bald Eagle and Bighorn Ram. “It was unclear exactly which images from the two series were stolen”.

Only 200 silkscreens of the series were made.