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Thought forever lost, art is found
By LEANORA MINAI, Times Staff Writer
For nearly 30 years, nobody knew what happened to the Joaquin Torres-Garcia painting. Then, a 77-year-old Spring Hill widow decided this week she wanted to sell some stuff in her attic. Among the items, it turns out, was the Torres-Garcia painting stolen in 1974. "It's a thrill to hear that something you thought you'd never see again has indeed reappeared," said Barbara Jakobson, the painting's owner when it was stolen. Now 70 years old, she serves on the board of trustees for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. St. Petersburg police made no arrests. The Spring Hill woman, Beatrice Ranaudo, told detectives she does not know how her husband acquired the art. A New York jeweler, he would often trade jewels for property, she told St. Petersburg Detective John Evans. Evans on Tuesday seized the Torres-Garcia painting, which is valued between $50,000 to $100,000. It was supposed to be put up for auction this weekend by Burchard Galleries in St. Petersburg. The detective also took custody of six other works of art stolen from the Jakobson home in 1974 that ended up in Ranaudo's attic. The paintings and sketches were also by noted artists, but less valuable. "This is stuff you just walk by at a yard sale and say, 'Whatever,' " Evans said. "I know not to skip art work at a yard sale anymore." Thieves slipped into John and Barbara Jakobson's home on Manhattan's east side in August 1974, taking jewels bearing the name Gucci, Hermes and Tiffany. The thieves even swiped two rolls of 10-cent stamps. But what hurt Mrs. Jakobson most were the missing pieces of art. A collector, she found the Torres-Garcia piece, titled Figura en Estructura con Signos Universales, at a gallery and hung it in the family's library. Torres-Garcia is considered the father of Latin American modern art. He was born in Uruguay and died in 1949 at age 75. A constructivist painter, he organized a canvas or board by drawing a rectangle and painting geometric shapes within it. Torres-Garcia did this with the Jakobson piece. He filled circles and squares with icons to convey emotion: a woman, a heart, scales of justice, a home, a key. "I always thought he was a fascinating artist because he developed a private language of his own," Mrs. Jakobson said. "We were very, very sad when it was stolen." The New York City Police Department assigned the case to its major crime squad, and for years, Mrs. Jakobson would flip through gallery catalogs wondering if she would ever see the Torres-Garcia. Last week, Todd Burchard, director of sales for Burchard Galleries, got a call from Ranaudo, who had listened to the gallery's weekly radio appraisal program. She told Burchard she had a Picasso etching, among other works. Burchard visited Ranaudo and returned to St. Petersburg with several pieces, including the 1937 painting by Torres-Garcia. Hoping to get the piece authenticated, Burchard contacted the Cecilia De Torres Gallery in New York City. De Torres is Torres-Garcia's daughter-in-law. "It's one of those things that doesn't come up to the market very often," Burchard said of the Torres-Garcia painting. The New York gallery researched the painting and learned it had been stolen three decades ago. The art was listed on the Web site for the Art Loss Register, which tracks and recovers stolen art. "We thought it was lost forever," said Dan Pollock, director of the Cecilia De Torres Gallery. A New York City police detective called Evans on Monday, and Evans visited Ranaudo in Spring Hill and the Burchard Galleries. "You don't get this every day," Evans said. Who will get to keep the art? The Jakobson family settled with its insurance company in the '70s, so technically it owns the art. But Mrs. Jakobson is hoping she can work something out. "In the case of art, it rarely disappears forever," she said. "It turns up. Thank God people don't tear it up and throw it away." -- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
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