Andy Warhol Print Theft
I think it’s no breaking news that Andy Warhol’s work, especially his screen prints are iconic and instantly recognizable. That also can mean that people want to have them in their private collections.
MPV Gallery, Oisterwijk, Netherlands
On November 1, 2024 just after 3:00am, locals in the city of Oisterwijk, in the Netherlands, heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the MPV Gallery. This was followed by the sound of the alarm going off (finally, a gallery with a functioning alarm system).
Two thieves has set of explosives to break into the building. This kind of use of explosives isn’t at all normal, nor is it advisable. Surveillance footage shows that the explosion may have damaged other artworks in the gallery’s collection. Mark Peet Visser, the gallery owner, said “the amateurish robbery destroyed his building and damaged several nearby businesses” (Binswanger, 2024).
Once they were in the building, the thieves went straight for the iconic Andy Warhol works. The grabbed four pieces off the wall, all of prominent Queens, reigning when the series was created in the 1980s, UK’s Queen Elizabeth II, Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, the Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix, and Swaziland’s Queen Ntombi Tfwala. These pieces had been scheduled to go on sale at an art fair in Amsterdam.
Anyways, the thieves grabbed all four of these pieces off the wall of the gallery and hustled outside to where their getaway car was waiting. Once they got there they realized that all four portraits weren’t going to fit inside so they cut Elizabeth II and Margrethe II out of their frames and made off with them. He left Beatrix and Ntombi on the side of the road. “At the moment they’re ripped out of their frames…you also know that they’re damaged beyond repair, because it is impossible to get them out undamaged” (Binswanger, 2024).
Experts say that these two thieves likely had no idea what they were getting themselves into and were very sloppy in the execution of the crime. They think that this heist was commissioned by someone who wants to drink a glass of wine and enjoy these works in their own home. Arthur Brand (remember him), for his part, thinks that these criminals had the mindset of just breaking into the gallery and then seeing what they could opportunistically steal and then afterwards seeing what they could do.
One of other portraits of Elizabeth II sold at auction in 2022 for $850,000. However, these pieces, if they thieves are trying to sell them, wouldn’t fetch nearly as much because they’re too iconic and they’re damaged from being removed from their frames.
In late November 2024, police arrested a 23 year old in connection with this crime but no further information has come out about them or the charges and the whereabouts of the two missing artworks are still unknown.
Works Cited
Binswanger, Julia. “When Art Thieves Stole Four Andy Warhol Prints, They Didn’t Realize Only Two Would Fit in the Getaway Car”. Smithsonian Magazine. 2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-art-thieves-stole-four-andy-warhol-prints-they-didnt-realize-only-two-would-fit-in-the-getaway-car-180985402/