Mystery of our art in darkness

Aboriginal Art Directory | 05.04.08

Author: Nicolas Rothwell
News source: The Australian

An interesting article in the Australian with a slightly different take on the heist including some of the mystery's surrounding it.

It is a very interesting article about the place of Aboriginal art in the Northern Territory and well worth a read.

Quoted from the article:

From disaster to triumph in the space of one morning: a snatch-and-grab, a dragnet, tension, farce: case closed. But the speed of the unfolding drama, and its happy ending, only partly veiled the extent of the museum's good fortune. The late wet season skies were clear. Had rain come down on the seven paintings during their walkabout, they would have been wrecked.

Then there were the unexplained oddities about the theft. When police summoned the media to view the crime scene, they confided that closed-circuit television cameras had captured two men inside the museum. But the alleged thief is the only man charged and police say no other person was involved.

There is also the matter of the thief's remarkable good taste: he picked out the finest, purest paintings in the gallery, though they were by no means well known: MAGNT director Anna Malgorzewicz estimated their value as at least $500,000 and described them as works from important ceremonial leaders from the early 1970s, "which indicates that the paintings may have been specifically targeted".

URL: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23484768-5006790,00.html

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Contact Details

Gallery: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
Contact: Marcus Schutenko
Email: info@magnt.net.au
Telephone: +61 8 8999 8264
Address: 19 Conacher Street Fanny Bay 0820 NT

 

 

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