[MSN] Stolen Rockwell found in Spielberg collection

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Stolen Rockwell found in Spielberg collection

POSTED: 7:03 a.m. EST, March 3, 2007
Story Highlights
€ "Russian Schoolroom" was stolen in Missouri more than three decades ago
€ Spielberg purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer, the FBI
said
€ Employee spotted painting on Web site listing stolen works of art


LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Norman Rockwell paintings often resonate
because of their depictions of everyday life, but the life of one of his
paintings has been anything but mundane.

"Russian Schoolroom," a Rockwell painting stolen from a gallery in the St.
Louis suburb of Clayton, Missouri, more than three decades ago, was found in
Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced
Friday. 

Spielberg purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't
know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web
site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement.

After Spielberg's staff brought it to the attention of authorities, an FBI
agent and an art expert from the Huntington Library, Art Collections and
Botanical Gardens in San Marino inspected the painting at one of Spielberg's
offices and confirmed its authenticity Friday morning. Early FBI estimates
put the painting's value at $700,000, officials said.

Spielberg is cooperating with the FBI and will retain possession of the
Russian Schoolroom until its "disposition can be determined," the bureau
said. 

"The second anybody said, 'I think we have that painting,' [our] office got
a hold of the FBI," said Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy.

Thieves targeted painting

The oil-on-canvas painting shows children in a classroom with a bust of
communist leader Vladimir Lenin. It was nabbed in a gallery heist and then
resurfaced briefly in legitimate art forums before disappearing again. At
the time of the theft, the work was 16 inches by 37 inches.

Mary Ellen Shortland, who worked at the long-closed Clayton Art Gallery,
recalled Friday that someone from Missouri paid $25,000 for the painting
after seeing it during a Rockwell exhibition featuring mostly lithographs.

The client agreed to keep it on display, she said, but a few nights later
someone smashed the gallery's glass door and escaped with the painting.

"That was all they took. That's what they wanted, that painting," Shortland
recalled. 

The gallery refunded the client's money, and there was no sign of the work
for years. Then in 1988, it was auctioned in New Orleans.

In 2004, the FBI's newly formed Art Crime Team initiated an investigation to
recover the work after determining it had been advertised for sale at a
Rockwell exhibit in New York in 1989.

It wasn't immediately known whether Spielberg purchased the painting at that
New York exhibit. 

Spielberg is a longtime Rockwell collector. He helped found the Norman
Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts., where he is also on the
board of trustees. 

"He's certainly one of the collectors of Rockwell," said Levy, who wasn't
sure how many of the artist's paintings Spielberg owns. "We have a few in
our office on the Universal lot."

Rockwell's works often capture moments from everyday life, such as a boy
watching his father shave, family members saying grace over a Thanksgiving
turkey or a young girl having a dress fitting.

The artist died at age 84 in 1978. While "Russian Schoolroom" appeared in
Look magazine, the artist is best known for the covers he did for The
Saturday Evening Post. More than 300 Rockwell creations appeared on the
cover of the publication.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may
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