Theft of the Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria

Summary

Theft of painting created by Pablo Picasso The theft of The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria took place on 2 August 1986 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The stolen work was one of a series of paintings by Pablo Picasso all known as The Weeping Woman and had been purchased by the gallery for A$1.6 million in 1985—at the time the highest price paid by an Australian art gallery for an artwork. A group calling itself "Australian Cultural Terrorists" claimed responsibility, making a number of demands (and insults) in letters to the then-Victorian Minister for the Arts, Race Mathews. The demands included increases to funding for the arts; threats were made that the painting would be destroyed. After an anonymous tip-off to police, the painting was found undamaged in a locker at Spencer Street railway station on 19 August 1986. The theft still remains unsolved. After painting Guernica, Pablo Picasso created a series of works depicting one of the figures in the work, a weeping woman. The model for these works was his mistress Dora Maar. The definitive work in the series is in the collection of the Tate Modern in the United Kingdom.[1] One of the series was painted on 18 October 1937, and is oil on canvas, 55 centimetres by 46 centimetres.[2] While the painting at the Tate Modern is in bright reds, blues and yellows, the 18 October work has been described as "an unsettling combination of acid greens and vibrant mauves exaggerated by thick black outlines".[3] This is the painting that was purchased by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1985 for A$1.6 million.[4][5] Before the National Gallery of Victoria bought its Weeping Woman, the highest price paid by a major gallery in Australia for a painting was for Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles, which was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1973 for A$1.3 million.[6] ing on the purchase of The Weeping Woman, director of the National Gallery of Victoria Patrick McCaughey said its recent acquisition i...