Some thieves swipe something inexpensive from the drugstore. Maybe they lift a wallet. If they have a thirst for art, perhaps they nab a small painting.
Recent art burglars in Southern California had to do it the hard way.
Two large statues were taken from a secured warehouse in Anaheim, Calif., this month. And we mean large. They weighed in at 4,000 and 2,000 pounds each.
“They’d have had to have the right equipment, a truck, maybe a forklift, and several people to lift these statues,” said Sgt. Matt Sutter, a public information officer for the Anaheim police.
Though the thieves showed some ingenuity, and maybe raw strength, in pulling off the heist, covering their tracks in the aftermath did not seem to have been their forte.
The statues, taken sometime on the weekend of June 14, were located a week later thanks to tips from the community, the police said. They were found sitting in a trailer in a driveway in Anaheim.
No arrests have been made as of Monday morning, but the police said they were still working on the case.
The bronze and steel sculptures of winged, horned men are named “Quantum Mechanics: Ascension” and “Icarus Within” and are the work of Daniel Winn, who calls his art style Existential Surrealism.
Mr. Winn’s art aims to “explore the basic nature of human existence and examine the relationship between free will and providence, between self-determination and the universal plan,” according to his website.
“I have no physical, organic children,” Mr. Winn told The Los Angeles Times, when he learned of the theft. “Every artwork I create is my child.”
None of the more portable items in the warehouse were taken, whether existential, surreal or otherwise. Instead, only the eight-feet tall winged behemoths somehow walked out of there. Or flew.
The police said they did not know the motive.
While it’s possible that a mad art lover with a passion for the Daedalus legend nicked “Icarus” and “Ascension,” the statues also might have been purloined for more mundane ends: to be sold for scrap metal. A bronze statue of the ballerina Marjorie Tallchief was hacked down from its pedestal on the grounds of a museum in Tulsa, Okla., in 2022. It was sold to recycling centers for a few hundred dollars.
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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