January 11, 2005 | Something Got Lost in Museum Reform

FDR is missing. Has been since 2001.

Anthony Farmer of the Poughkeepsie Journal has the lowdown.

A portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt by artist Ellen Emmet Rand has joined the FBI's National Stolen Art File, as well as a list of stolen works maintained by Interpol, the international police organization

The painting of Roosevelt turned up missing in May at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park when the artist's grandson asked to see it during a visit. It was last seen three years earlier.

No one is sure if the painting was stolen or simply lost during construction at the site.

Either way, the chances of it being recovered are not good, one former FBI investigator specializing in art theft said.

''Eighty percent of what is stolen is never found again,'' said Robert E. Spiel, a private security consultant to the fine arts community based near Chicago. ''We never know where it really is.''

The Roosevelt image was discovered missing when the artist's grandson, Peter Rand of Belmont, Mass., asked to see it during a visit to the library.

Cynthia Koch, director of the FDR Library, informed Rand it was last seen in the library's art storage area in 2001. Items stored there were moved to a temporary storage area a year later during renovations, but the painting apparently was not among them, Koch wrote to Rand in an October letter.

No one was aware it was missing until Rand requested to see it.

Rand finds it difficult to believe a work so large -- more than 5 feet high and 4 feet wide -- and stored in a crate, could be accidentally tossed in a trash container.

Moral of the Story: Major reform causes loss of massive FDR work of art and 80% of what is lost is never found again.

Posted by Ryan Singel at January 11, 2005 09:51 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.secondaryscreening.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/87