[MSN] US. Scrap yard tip saves sculpture from smelters

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

*Scrap yard tip saves sculpture from smelters*

December 12, 2007
By Joel Banner Baird

A tip from a Hinesburg scrap yard operator last week spared the meltdown 
of stolen bronze sculptures worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Vermont State Police Detective Lt. J. P. Sinclair said Wednesday charges 
are pending against at least two young adults in connection with the 
theft, but police efforts are focussed on recovering several remaining 
sculptures.

The art works, some of them weighing more than 1,000 pounds, were 
reported missing Nov. 29 from the North Troy studio of internationally 
exhibited sculptor Joel Fisher.

“They weren’t interested in the art,” Sinclair said Wednesday. “They 
knew the value of the copper, and we’re talking figures in the tonnage.”

Copper fetches about $3 per pound at salvage yards, up from $1 per pound 
five years ago.

Burnett Scrap Metals in Hinesburg is one of three locations the thieves 
are known to have taken the artwork. An article last week in The 
Burlington Free Press alerted the Hinesburg operators to the theft.

George Pearlman, executive director of the Vermont Studio Center in 
Johnson, said 22 of the 30 stolen sculptures had been accounted for — 
including the single piece in the collection not executed by Fisher.

Pearlman said Fisher, who lectures occasionally at the center, is 
currently teaching sculpture in Newcastle, England.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/