Collection Of Andy Warhol Paintings Stolen

PR Log (Press Release) – Sep 29, 2009 – A million dollar reward has been handed, by a nameless source, for any information that leads to the retrieval of the multi-million dollar original sports collection of pop art portraits, painted by Andy Warhol.

Housekeeper for Richard L. Weisman reported that 11 portraits had been stolen from the dining-room walls of Weisman’s West Los Angeles home. Weisman, a former investment banker and member of a prominent art collecting family, is a well known art collector.

There was no sign of forced entry into the house and nothing else had been disturbed, including other Warhol pieces on nearby walls, according to Det. Donald Hrycyk, head of LAPD’s art theft detail. The police have received no leads or suspects, other than a vague description of a maroon-coloured van that could have been in the driveway at the time of the theft.

Warhol designed the brightly coloured silk screen paintings of famous athletes, in the late 1970s. This was a period when Warhol painted hundreds of similar paintings for well-to-do benefactors. The athlete series is widely recognized, though not deemed to be among Warhol’s best work. Weisman was friends with Warhol.

The 10 portraits included Olympic skater Dorothy Hamill and former football star O.J. Simpson, boxing great Muhammad Ali, tennis champion Chris Evert and Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Each of the silk-screen works measured 40 inches square. Weisman’s portrait was also stolen.

"I commissioned him to do this set of athletes because, generally speaking, the worlds of art and sports don't mesh that well," Weisman said. Weisman last offered out the collection for a benefit exhibition, in May.

The investigation will be made more difficult by the fact that the athlete set is one of several. Each set looks very alike, but was commissioned with a different colour scheme. It is thought that Weisman possess several of the sets.

Tyler Lemkin, director of the Greenfield Sacks Gallery in Santa Monica, which recently opened a show of Warhol prints, said that original Warhol paintings on canvas, such as the ones that were stolen "Start in the high six figures or $1 million, Weisman has lost a significant amount of important art."

The entire value of the work could not be immediately assessed. In 2002 Weisman attempted to sell the collection for $3 million.

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