Paintings of Picasso have become the headlines again. Recently thieves also have attracted by its world known popularity. They have taken away one of his paintings from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art. They stole Picasso “Portraits of Suzanne Bloch” and Portinari’s O’Lavrador de Cafe’. Picasso painted the portrait in 1904 during his Blue Period and it is among the most valuable pieces in the museum’s collections. Jones Bagramin, a Sao Paulo gallery director estimated the paintings price at about 450 million.
The work by Portnari, one of the Brazils most famous painters, depicts a coffee picker. Painted in 1939, the piece is one of the artist’s most renowned works. Bergamin estimated it was worth at least $5 million. He believed the fact that the thieves ignored many other and even more valuable paintings showed they were not the professional described by police.” I think they took the Picasso because it was so small and the Portnari because it was hanging by the door’ he said. The Picasso measures 26 by 21 inches.
In the museum there were many other world famous paintings. Matiesse Renoir,Van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “bother with a Griffin Dog”, Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘L’Arlesienne’ and Henri Matisse’s ‘Plaster Torso and Bouquet of Flowers’.
Art thieves hit Brazil last year when a gang of five men used a carnival street parade to cover the theft of four paintings by Paul Cezanne, Salvador Dali, Claude Monet and Picasso from a Rio de Janerio art museum. Those works have never been recovered.
Art lovers have obviously become disappointed at this news. The paintings of Picasso are beyond any estimation. But that could not be saved. Ancient arts are going to destroy and we can’t save them. These arts are assets of any country and society. What we lost is the loss of our society. It’s a loss of our pride and dignity.