Jean-Baptise-Camille Corot, Portrait of a Girl, 1857-8, which went missing on June 29, 2010 and was recovered weeks later. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

What began as a summer comedy of errors – an Upper East Side doorman finds a Corot painting missing on a courier’s drunken bender – took a strange turn earlier this month when the painting’s owner realized its co-owner may have been involved in its disappearance.  The following is a summary of the news and events that have unfolded over the past few weeks in the case.

The story begins like this: on July 29th a doorman at 995 Fifth Avenue, near 81st Street, discovered a painting in the bushes in front of the building. The nineteenth-century painting, “Portrait of a Girl” by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, whose estimated value is $1.4 million, was apparently lost hours earlier by an intoxicated courier, James Carl Haggerty. Thinking the artwork belonged to one of the building’s residents, doorman Franklin Puentes stored it inside his locker after unsuccessful attempts to locate its owner. Puentes then went on a three-week vacation. When he returned, he heard the buzz about the missing painting and promptly turned it over to the police.

More text, images, and related news links after the jump…

James Haggerty, the courier who misplaced the Corot painting. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

The courier, James Haggerty, has a criminal record, having been convicted in 2006 for vehicular assault. Haggerty claimed that he misplaced the painting on the night of July 28th, after showing it to a potential buyer, London gallery owner Offer Waterman, at the Mark Hotel on East 77th St. The owner of the painting, Kristyn Trudgeon, filed a lawsuit against Haggerty, whose whereabouts were confirmed by video surveillance cameras. According to the New York Times, ”Mr. Haggerty was captured on video surveillance footage leaving the hotel with the painting, which is a shade larger than 9 inches by 12 inches, about 12:50 a.m. on July 29. But video recordings of the lobby of his apartment building showed he did not have it when he arrived home about 2:30 a.m.” Trudgeon filed the suit in order to obtain Haggerty’s cell phone records, which, through the use of satellite technology, could aid in locating Haggerty’s exact whereabouts that night.

The painting’s owner, Kristyn Trudgeon. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

The alibi seemed tight, until Ms. Trudgeon noticed something odd in connection to the case – a mug shot of Thomas A. Doyle, the painting’s co-owner, rumored to be her boyfriend. Doyle was being investigated on on different charges involving art fraud in relation to a sculpture by Edgar Degas. Max DiFabio, the lawyer who represented Ms. Trudgeon, withdrew the lawsuit on Sept. 1, a day after he filed it, after learning that Mr. Doyle had been convicted in multiple art fraud cases.

In the case involving the Degas, reports the Huffington Post, “Doyle claimed family ties to a renowned art dealer in order to persuade a 73-year-old collector to let him take the bronze statue to be authenticated in 2004. Instead, Doyle secretly sold the sculpture to an antiques dealer for $225,000, said then-District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.” The sculpture was valued at $600,000. When those charges were unveiled in 2006, Doyle was already in federal custody for violating a supervised release from a previous arrest in a Tennessee jewelry theft case.

Thomas Doyle, co-owner of the painting. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

In 2007, Doyle pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny, and spent over two years in state prison, reports the New York Times. Doyle and Haggerty both worked as consultants for NY-based company Imperial Jets, which leases and charters private aircrafts. Upon finding out about the charges, CEO Howard Gollomp has severed all ties with the former employees. Unsurprisingly, there is some overlap in the time both Doyle and Haggerty spent at Ulster Correctional Facility.

According to a criminal complaint filed by FBI agent James P. Wynne, who specializes in art fraud, Doyle was arrested September 9th on “federal wire fraud conspiracy charges.” The complaint accuses Doyle of trying to defraud an investor by lying about its value. He arranged to buy “Portrait of a Girl” by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot from an art gallery in New York for $775,000, but in an attempt to make a profit, he told the investor that the purchase price was $1.1 million. The investor, a Japanese broker from Vancouver who was buying an 80 percent stake in the painting, sent him $880,000 for the transaction. Doyle further misled the investor and broker by telling them he had a buyer for the painting lined up to pay $1.7 million, the complaint said. The painting was actually appraised at $500,000 to $700,000 and there was no ready buyer. The complaint also accuses an unnamed co-conspirator of removing the painting from a warehouse in New Jersey without permission on July 20.

Regarding the lawsuit, Ms. Trudgeon’s first lawyer resigned when he learned of Doyle’s criminal past. Yet Trudgeon stands by her partner, and still plans to continue with her charges against Haggerty. Meanwhile, Manhattan’s District Attorney is launching an investigation, and it seems the case is all but closed.

- J. Lindblad

Related Links:

Surprise Arrest Made in the Corot Theft Mystery: The Bungling Former Art Thief! [Art Info]
A Painting Vanishes, and Questions Mount [New York Times]
Painting Is Found, but That Solves Nothing [New York Times]
Art in federal probe turns up at NY police station [Associated Press]
FBI Raids Offices of Chicago Art Dealer [Art Info]
Co-Owner of Missing Corot, Sales Agent Spent Time in Prison [Bloomberg]
Doyle Charged Over Corot: Convicted Art Fraudster Faces New Charges He Misled Another Investor in Same Painting [Art Market Monitor]
Portrait Of A Girl’ LOST By Drunk Man: $1.3 Million Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Painting Lost By James Carl Haggerty [Huffington Post]

Jennifer McCarty is a Museum Assistant for the Alaska Heritage Museum at Wells Fargo, in Anchorage. Of Inupiaq, Irish, Scottish-Irish and English heritage, Jennifer was raised in Toronto, Canada, and has spent the past 14 years in Alaska. She also sings with the Anchorage Opera, and occasionally dances with the Kingikmiut Dancers. Jennifer is a member of the Alaska Native Professionals Association and Kashim Toastmasters.

Before joining Wells Fargo, Jennifer worked with the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, the Alaska Native Heritage Center, the British Museum in London, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. (CR)

Not long ago, while moving an object from a banker's office in the Wells Fargo building in Anchorage back to the Alaska Heritage Museum, I was surprised and delighted to discover that it was made by one of my own relatives!

Earlier, I had taken a call from a rather harried banker who is relocating across town. He had some objects from our museum that he wanted to return — two of which were models of a man in a kayak ("qayaq," in the Inupiaq language), and an ivory plane.

Once I'd brought the models back to the museum, I studied the man in the qayaq. Wearing a sealskin parka, the man holds a double-ended wooden paddle. The wooden frame of this qayaq is most likely covered by a small piece of caribou skin. On the front is a spear with a small rope attached, and strapped to the back is a sealskin float.

I gently turned this model over, and on the bottom of the qayaq was a name written in ink: "Oscar Sage, Kivalina." I was suddenly overcome with happiness: Oscar Sage is my cousin!

My Inupiaq grandmother, Minna Jean Williams, was born in White Mountain, and grew up in Kivalina, villages in northwest Alaska. Her mother, my great-grandmother Stella Baldwin, was born and raised in Kivalina. There are only about 350 people in that village, so in general if you are related to someone there, most likely many of the people there are your cousins.

I looked closely at the model qayaq and admired its perfect stitching. I marveled at the skill used to carve the tiny spear head and the paddles. It was with this same savvy craftsmanship that my cousin Oscar built the small wooden qayaq frame, and stretched a small piece of sealskin around this frame it until it fit snugly.

I wanted to know the man behind the model — my relative who crafted this boat and its captain of sorts — and to hear the story of how he learned from his father or maybe his uncle.

I wanted to hear about the generations before him who learned this skill from their fathers or uncles at a young age, so that they could one day help to support the family — a very important role, especially in a world without modern conveniences.

Back then, everything (clothes, food, and items of transportation) came from the environment. Nothing taken was wasted, in deference to the spirits that indigenous peoples around the world have traditionally believed inhabit all things.

It's one thing to admire the skill of an object crafted by a stranger, and quite another thing to pore over an item made by someone of your own flesh and blood.

I was suddenly inspired to get to know our Alaska Heritage Museum collection in a way I never did before.

What else here was made by my cousin? My great-grandmother, like many others of her time, was a highly skilled seamstress. Is it possible we have anything made by her? Do I dare to hope? All of my family items that I might once have inherited were, at one point given away.

My adventure continues!

Can you tell what these photos are about?

Lets try a different angle -

It took me awhile to figure them out (in real life they are very very small photos.)  All the sudden it clicked and I realized I was looking at people sitting on the tops of poles!  How random!  The second photo looks as though it might have been taken on the roof of the Hotel St. Catherine. 

This last photo may not be a pole, but it came with the other two so I thought I would include it.  Enjoy!

Came across this preview in The Stranger for the upcoming Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum…

This coming Saturday, 25th September 2010 1-4pm Dulwich Vegetable Garden, an initiative by Dulwich Going Greener, are holding an open day and all will be welcome to take part .

Come and taste the organically grown vegetables; hear about what has been going on there; enjoy tea and home-made cakes; guess the weight of a marrow; or just chill out. There will also be more serious fare such as detailed info on wormeries and compost-making; and you can find out more about different seeds and plants and organic growing methods. Hopefully the current ‘Indian summer’ (18C +) will continue. Dulwich Vegetable Garden members have constructed the paths so that the area is wheelchair friendly.

In several corners of Dulwich there are thriving gardens where you can work with local experts and take part in a group growing project, which has counterparts all over the U.K, via such websites as Project Dirt.

Dulwich Going Greener is probably well-known ­at least to many of the local readers. I am sure that most of Dulwich Going Greener supporters would agree with the creation and continued support (as one of the largest funding items) of this unit; Dulwich Vegetable Garden has created a fruit & vegetable garden in Dulwich Park to inspire & encourage people of all ages to grow their own fruit & vegetables, equipping them with the skills to set up their own plots and pots.

Can Dulwich Vegetable Garden vegetables be eaten? This is not a reference to cannibalism but rather the group’s high standards. The group carried out tests in order to establish whether or not the soil was sufficiently toxin-free to permit vegetables from the patch to be sold.  There have been various reverses along the way for example, during the early summer when lead was found in the soil after one of the frequent tests done there. Work was briefly abandoned but a follow-on test led to the thumbs up being given.

One interesting feature is the interchange with other local stakeholders, for example, the cafe have on occasion provided free cups of tea and in exchange been given delicious vegetables to be prepared; the stables next door are providing some manure.

Future plans might include the refurbishment of the handsome Roseberry Lodge. This could then be used be training, storage, bathroom etc. At present workers have to go over to the cafe to use the facilities there. One member pointed out to me that funding had been available for the lodge at the West Gate of Dulwich Park opposite the gallery to be converted for the use of Whippersnappers.

Seventy years ago Sir Winston Churchill made a legendary speech offering only “Blood, sweat, toil and tears,”. The first is not on offer but soil and sweat can certainly be had at the Dulwich Vegetable Garden; the last item whether of joy or not are up to individuals!

A leading scientist was asked recently about what is the single largest contribution an individual can make to the world’s ecological problems including climate change. His answer was that we should switch to vegetarianism because of the greater yield per hectare, and far more efficient use of water and other resources. Think global, act local!

Open Day: Saturday 25th September 1 – 4pm       Location: Behind Rosebery Lodge, Dulwich Park

There are 20 members with a varying level of activity amongst them; Dulwich Vegetable Garden would welcome new participants even if you can only spare the time to go there once a month. To join the mailing list, send an email to clbm@btinternet.com

To approach Dulwich Vegetable Garden directly by email: dulwichveggarden@gmail.com

Useful links

NB the current website for DGG is http://www.dulwichgoinggreener.org.uk/and not the website that Google links to (for technical reasons)

Dulwich Vegetable Garden and on facebook and twitter

Project Dirt and on facebook

The Secret Greenhouse in Herne Hill

Griffin Ground Vegetable Garden – accessed via 5 Roseway, London, SE21.
For further information contact David Smart at smart194@btinternet.com

Article by Tim Gluckman. Images copyright Andy Bodycombe.

Related posts:

1. A Wonderful Garden, Open in a Very Good Cause
2. Dulwich Garden Safari
3. June Open Gardens in Dulwich

Carlos Cortes is returning to the GXgallery with his new exhibition entitled ‘Cars, Men, Flowers and Birdhouses’.

A private view of the exhibition will be taking place on Friday 24^th September at 7:30 and it will be running from 25^th September to 6^th October 2010.

The work of Carlos Cortes is most commonly described as unique. This is because of his distinctive array of colours, and somewhat weird depictions of characters. There is also a great sense of humour to his paintings.

Every painting is created with bold oil paints. Cortes chooses to use such bold colours because it “links me to my inner child,” he said. “All my work started to make sense,” he said, “when I started to use my left hand..” This gives him a child like feeling of innocence.

He also chooses to employ oil paints not only because the colours come out bolder and brighter, but because they gives the paintings more realistic layers. They have a “realistic sense of volume.”

The objective for this exhibition is to “question the male role,” he said, with objects and focuses including men and cars. However, the flowers in other pieces work to contradict that idea.

The birdhouses, which Cortes describes more as boxes, also have a special meaning in this exhibition. “They are not to store normal things,” he said, but to store special ideas. “Those special ideas are like birds,” which is why they are called birdhouses.

Cortes puts on a truly individual exhibition. Contact the gallery for an exclusive preview of his work. 020 7703 8396 or info@gxgallery.com

Related posts:

1. Storyboard, Carlos Cortes' new exhibition at GX Gallery
2. Car bombs, recycling, friends and art – Carlos Cortes
3. Marcia Bennett-Male Makes Her Voice Heard Through Her Art

A party at Dulwich Picture Gallery for all contributors to Dulwich OnView

Have you written for/sent photos/made films/made podcasts/commented/subscribed to Dulwich OnView?

Come along on Sunday 10 October (10.10.10)

3-6pm at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Gallery Road, SE21 7AD

Dulwich OnView nearly 3 years old and in that time we have had hundreds of guest authors from a very diverse cross section of the community and many wonderful discussions online.

The editors of Dulwich OnView would love to transform this online community into an offline one.

So we are holding an event at Dulwich Picture Gallery for everyone who has contributed to the website so that they can meet each other and (re)discover Dulwich Picture Gallery at the same time.

◊ Refreshments
◊ Music by Aquamanda
◊ 4pm – Musical performance by ‘Harmony High’
◊ 5pm – Contemporary dance by Carlos Cortes in the Gallery
◊ Free access to the Gallery

RSVP
dulwichonview@googlemail.com

Supported by Southwark Council, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Blue Mountain Cafe, East Dulwich Deli, SMBS Foods, Bake Until Scrumptious, Dolce Vita Catering and we are still asking…

DOV is celebrating and bringing together the local community (or trying to!)

Its not too late to subscribe, comment, send in a photo and come to the party…

Related posts:

1. NCT Christmas Party – with Huge Community Support
2. Abigail's party
3. Carlos Cortes makes his return with ‘Cars, Men, Flowers and Birdhouses’

We are happy to announce that we are now partners with HP.  This new partnership allows Ideum to provide better integrated hardware solutions.  We now offer our popular TouchStand kiosk enclosure complete with a HP TouchSmart 9100 Business PC. Both the stand and the computer come with a three-year warranty.

Over the last year we’ve sold hundreds of TouchStands and they have been used in museums, stores and other busy public environments around the world.  Later this year we will be integrating HP computers into our multitouch table.

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Deep inside my heart, 2009-2010. All images courtesy of Carolina Nitsch Projects.

During the last two years of her life, feminist sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) collaborated with the self-revealing YBA artist Tracey Emin on a series of prints entitled DO NOT ABANDON ME, published in an edition of 18 by Carolina Nitsch. Emin spoke of her friendship with the 98 year old artist in an interview with Kisa Lala in early 2010, stating: “I asked if I could meet her, and she said yes. Now we’re doing a collaboration. Louise makes watercolor prints and I do drawings over the top.” The prints use a new technique that transfers the dye from Bourgeois’ original gouache drawings onto fabric, to which Emin added text and drawings in black ink.

Artists Bourgeois and Emin, 2010, by Brigitte Cornand.

More text and images after the jump…

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, A million ways to cum, 2009-2010.

After Bourgeois passed away in May, Emin was interviewed by BBC about her recent collaboration. She stated:

“I had been working with Louise on a collaboration for the last two years. It was a symbiotic thing. Because we both work with our hearts and what actually drives us emotionally, we connected very, very well and I have felt deeply privileged to have been able to work with her. So she’s not really an influence, more of a kindred spirit.

Louise made a series of watercolours, which she then made into prints, which she sent to me and I had to work on top of them. It took me months and months and months and months to do it, and Louise kept saying to me “don’t worry – there is lots of time.” I eventually finished them a few months ago. When you see them as a series you can’t tell they have been made by two different artists, they look like they have been made by one artist.

I carried those images around the world with me and every place I went I thought ‘now I’m going to do it, now I’m going to work on them’ and I’d lay them out on the floor and I’d be too scared to touch them. When I did, I was delighted and happy with the results and Louise was as well. It’s really sad to me because we were supposed to show them. We will show them but she won’t be here to enjoy them. Maybe she will from somewhere else, I don’t know.”

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Reaching for you, 2009-2010

The collaboration between Bourgeois, a first-generation feminist artist, and Emin, a second-generation feminist, shows a continuity between feminist themes, but also uncovers the differences in the means of expressing these very ideas. This can be seen in the way that Bourgeois’ abstracted torsos interact with Emin’s scrawling drawings and brutally-personal texts. The surface of the prints is significant, as both artists have worked with fabric–a medium that represents female labour–extensively. As Emin described, “We both work with recurring themes as well. Things that come again and again into our life, that don’t go away.” A major recurring theme shared by both artists is the female body as a site for both violence and creation as intersected by the sex act. Emin, famous for her work Everyone I have Ever Slept with 1963-1995 (1995), has made her career by opening her personal life to the public as inseparable from her artwork. Emin’s art confronts the viewer with autobiographical texts describing personal, very specific occurrences of her life to relate to the viewer’s own life-experiences. While Bourgeois’s works are similarly personal and psychological, they are more abstract in their visual language; thus both artists use their past in different manners.

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Too much love, 2009-2010

In many of the works, Emin plays with the scale of the gouache torsos by making her additional figures smaller, effectively transforming the body into a landscape; figures fit inside uteruses, and sit atop penises. Emin’s titles, such as I held your sperm and cried (2010), I wanted to love you more (2010) and When my cunt stopped living (2010), add narrative to the works that is at times violent, despairing, and hopeful, as well as autobiographical and all-encompasing. The texts have a range of voices: some are like diary entries, some are like streams of consciousness, and some are similar to poetic slogans. For example, in I just died at birth (2010), Emin fills the body with text that is part religious inquiry, part personal dialogue. The text  literally fills the form of the body, metaphorically containing the personal. The title Just hanging (2010), depicting a female nude hanging herself from a penis, adds an element of dark humor to the work. The text threads together the 16 works into a narrative of despairing self-awareness and self-narration. As a whole, the series combines the abstract language of both artists, balancing generational attitudes towards feminism and the body.

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, I just died at birth, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, I lost you, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, I wanted to love you more, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, And so I kissed you, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, A sparrow’s heart, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, It doesn’t end, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911 and moved to New York in 1938 to pursue a career as an artist, where she worked in a variety of mediums. The MoMA held a retrospective of her work in 1982, the first given to a female artist. Her work has been exhibited throughout the world, including the Centre Pompidou, the Solomon R. Guggenheim, and MoCA, Los Angeles. She died last May at the age of 98.

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963, and attended the Royal College of Art. Considered part of the YBA group alongside artists like Chris Ofili and Damien Hirst, she was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999. Her first retrospective was held in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and subsequently traveled the globe.

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Looking for the mother, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Come unto me, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Just hanging, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, When my cunt stopped living, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, I held your sperm and I cried, 2009-2010

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, Waiting for you, 2009-2010

-E. Fodde-Reguer

Related Links:
Carolina Nitsch Projects [Exhibition Site]
Exhibition: Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin Relive Their Past Together [The Huffington Post]
Interview with Tracey Emin [BBC]
Tracey Emin: Doesn’t Do Insipid [Spread Art Culture]

Sara VanDerBeek, one of the exhibiting artists in Image Transfer, is featured in The New York Times. Read about her work and her upcoming show at the Whitney.