A famous Pablo Picasso print stolen from a Milwaukee art gallery was returned more than eight years later, police said.
The Spanish artist’s 1949 etching — “Torero,” or “Bullfighter” — was hanging in the lobby of DeLind Fine Art Appraisals in downtown Milwaukee when it vanished in February 2018.
An investigation failed to recover it or find any suspects. On Wednesday, a breakthrough came when a “community member” handed the famous print to police, authorities said.
“I never expected to see it again,” says 85-year-old art dealer William DeLind. DeLind was the owner of the gallery when the Picasso was stolen but doesn’t own it currently. “The fact that it would turn up eight years later in perfect condition is just jaw-dropping.”
Worth about $15,000, the etching on rice paper features Picasso’s bold signature in green crayon. At Mourlot Studio in Paris, Picasso used a sugar lift etching process to create a portrait of a bullfighter. Bullfighting was a lifelong obsession of Picasso’s, appearing early and often throughout his work.
According to The Art Loss Register, Picasso is the most stolen artist. Over 1,000 of his works remain missing. In 2010, his painting “Le Pigeon aux Petits Pois,” or “The Pigeon With Green Peas,” disappeared from Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. In 2012, another Picasso painting “Harlequin Head” vanished from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam. When his etching went missing in Milwaukee, it was not nearly the most expensive piece on display at DeLind Fine Art Appraisals.
Milwaukee police brought the etching to DeLind’s appraisal office, where he identified and authenticated it himself. According to DeLind, police told him the Picasso was returned by a landlord whose tenant had moved out and left the piece behind.
“Apparently, the tenant didn’t even know what he had,” says DeLind. “But the landlord remembered seeing it on the news eight years ago.”
DeLind added that an insurance company paid off the Picasso and now owns it. Although, he says, “I would be very surprised if they don’t let me hang it up.” He plans to put the etching back in the same place it hung before it went missing.
In a news release shared on social media and with The Post, Milwaukee police said they are grateful to the person who “recognized the etching print and did the right thing and returned it.” The Milwaukee Police Department declined to comment further, as the investigation is ongoing.
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