Warhol And Pollock Works Of Art Stolen From Everhart Museum In Scranton

SCRANTON, PENN. (AP) - Works of art by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock were stolen from the Everhart Museum by thieves who shattered a glass door in the back of the building early Friday, November 18, officials said.

The break-in set off the museum's alarm system but surveillance cameras were not working, officials said. The thieves had disappeared by the time police arrived - four minutes after the alarm sounded at 2:30 am.

The stolen Pollock oil on canvas painting, "Springs Winter,'' measures 40 by 32 inches and was created in 1949 by the famed abstract expressionist. It was on loan to the Everhart Museum from a private collector. A museum spokesman, citing terms of the loan agreement, declined to identify the lender.

The painting would be comparable to a similar Pollock that sold at auction for $11.6 million in May 2004, said Helen Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, N.Y.

The stolen Warhol, "Le Grande Passion,'' is a 40-by-40-inch silkscreen on board. The Pop art icon created the work in 1984 on commission for an ad campaign for Grand Passion cognac. The piece, which the museum owned, would have an auction value of about $15,000, said art dealer Pierette VanCleve.

The museum did not elaborate on why the surveillance cameras were not working. However, Wilbur Faulk, former security director at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, said it is not unheard of for museums to have nonoperational cameras.

"It takes money to maintain systems whether it's a computer system or an alarm system,'' he said. "If we traveled around the United States, we would be surprised at how many places this is the case.''

Authorities and museum officials said they were unsure of the actual value of the paintings, which were taken from the museum's second floor exhibition hall.

The thieves appeared to have been aided by a large tent covering the museum's back entrance for an event, FBI investigators and Scranton police said. Officials said they had no immediate leads.

Curators rearranged paintings to cover the blank spaces left on the wall before opening the museum to the public.

The security system was not to blame for the thefts, museum spokesman Joe Palumbo said.

"Our security system is very, very good,'' Mr. Palumbo said. "[The thieves] knew exactly what they wanted. Nothing else was disturbed inside the museum. There was no other damage or anything else missing.''