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Jonathan Levine writes to say that a drawing by artist Lori Earley was stolen from her show at his gallery last week. Details a description of the suspected thief are below the cut. On a happier note, here’s a picture of artist Tara McPherson working on her “Lost Constellations” installation.

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Greetings everyone, we have some very unfortunate news to report.

On Wednesday, February 27th at approximately 5pm, an original drawing by Lori Earley was stolen directly off the wall of her current solo exhibition, Fade to Gray, which just opened at the gallery this past weekend. We are releasing this as our official public announcement to alert our clients, collectors, and friends, of this incident—spreading awareness in the hopes that someone comes forward with information leading to the whereabouts of the missing piece.

This drawing “Untitled” was the only piece without a title in the current exhibition. The unframed dimensions are 10″H x 8″W, and when stolen, it was in an elaborate white frame, measuring 16″H x 14″W with about a 3” depth. We have included a photo of the drawing in question, for your reference and identification.

Both the gallery and the artist are extremely upset and disappointed by this theft. We are quite shocked that someone would brazenly steal from us in the middle of the day. We apologize to anyone planning on seeing the exhibition (which is up through March 22, 2008), who will experience the show without the missing piece.

We have a description of the suspect and are currently working with police to try to identify him. Our incident coincided with reports of additional robberies that occurred in galleries on the 4th and 2nd floors of our building, within the same time period. A man fitting the same description was seen in all three galleries, just moments before each robbery occurred.

All reports confirm that the suspect in question is a white male, approximately 6’2” tall, in his mid-to-late thirties. He was seen wearing a blue baseball hat with a navy blue backpack, and he spoke with a very heavy New York accent.

We would greatly appreciate any help you might have with finding the missing work. If you or anyone you know has information as to who might have committed this theft or leads on possible location of the stolen drawing, please contact the gallery immediately at (212) 243-3822 or info@jonathanlevinegallery. We are offering a reward for its return.

We greatly appreciate your attention and cooperation regarding this matter

1 COMMENT

  1. I read about this on Audrie Kawasaki’s blog (another artist WAYYY wort checking out) and it pissed me off to no end. The amount of time, money, and effort that goes into each piece of gallery art (along with gallery fees, manager fees, and taxes) makes it very hard to make a living as an artist, even when you gain popularity. To have someone just waltz in and take that from you is the ultimate in disrespect to an artist work. I really hope they catch this guy.

  2. a week later, a second piece of lori’s artwork was stolen.
    you would think the gallery would have been a bit more careful…

  3. I’ll pray they find Lori’s piece, thats upsetting, i love her work and i have been saving up my money to beable to afford her piece, beautiful artwork isn’t something you can just steal, it must be worked for, that is half the story you tell when aquiring something of such value.