Matisse Prints Stolen From Brazil Library in Broad Daylight
Five works by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari were also taken from the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo.
Thieves in Brazil snatched 13 artworks from a municipal library in São Paulo on Sunday, December 7, including eight engravings by French painter Henri Matisse and five works by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari, as initially reported by local outlet Globo.
A spokesperson for the São Paulo state government told Hyperallergic that civil police had identified one suspect in the robbery of the Mário de Andrade Library, but did not confirm that works by Matisse or Portinari were among the stolen items. Investigators located the vehicle the thieves used to escape, the spokesperson said, and a second suspect has not yet been identified.
"Investigations continue to identify the second suspect and locate the stolen works of art," the spokesperson told Hyperallergic.
Brazilian authorities said the suspects held up a security guard and an elderly couple visiting the museum during the heist. Video released by Globo reportedly shows a suspect carrying several works in public in broad daylight. The suspect appears to place the works next to a pile of trash and walk away.
According to ABC News, the stolen artworks were part of the exhibition Do Livro ao Museu (From the Book to the Museum), held in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo. The exhibition, which explored the production of art books and tensions over abstraction in modern art in Brazil, closed on Sunday. An exhibition checklist suggests that the stolen works came from a limited-edition copy of Matisse's book Jazz, published by the Parisian Tériade Editions in 1947, held in the library's collection.
The book contains 20 plates with 16 3/4-by-25 3/5-inch (42.5-by-65 cm) stencil on paper artworks Matisse created during a time of medical immobility, leading the artist to "draw with scissors," according to the exhibition's catalogue. An edition of the art book sold for $774,000 at Christie's in 2022, and a copy is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Several etchings by Portinari, considered a pivotal figure of Latin American modernism, are also listed in the Do Livro ao Museu catalogue. The works come from the artist's 1943 book titled after the 1881 novel Memorias Postumas De Bras Cubas (The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas) by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.
The Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo has not yet responded to Hyperallergic's inquiry regarding the stolen items.
