Eight Matisse collages stolen at gunpoint during an exhibition in São Paulo | Culture

These were the last hours to contemplate the collages by Henri Matisse, in the series Jazzwhen two armed men burst into the main municipal library of São Paulo (Brazil) this Sunday, where they were on display. At gunpoint, but without firing a shot, they took eight works by the French artist and five by the Brazilian Candido Portinari from an exhibition that received the first visitors of the closing day. The thieves entered and exited the main door of the Mário de Andrade library, fleeing through the busy streets of São Paulo’s historic center. These works by Matisse were already stolen years ago. One of the thieves was arrested this Monday, the second is also identified, according to the newspaper Or Globe.

The works were part of the exhibition The book at the museum: MAM São Paulo and the Mário de Andrade Library (From Book to Museum), which included twenty pieces by Matisse in dialogue with other artists from the collections of the two institutions. The exhibition celebrated the centenary of the municipal library, which bears the name of the Brazilian poet and writer Andrade.

The robbers overpowered a security guard after one showed him a gun under his shirt. While he was locked in a room after confiscating his radio and cell phone, his accomplice entered the room where the works were hanging, intimidated an elderly couple who were visiting the exhibition, tore the pieces from the wall, put them in a cloth bag and fled. The Portinari engravings also taken were part of the work Menino do engenho.

The album Jazz It was created by Matisse during World War II. “Are these collagespaints the papers, cuts them out and forms the images. You see what they look like collages“These are very strong images, with this confusion of colors, very characteristic of Matisse with all this ambiguity due to the war situation, where we do not know if there is violence there or not,” explained Pedro Nery, museologist at the municipal library, in a promotional video.

The artist was suffering from cancer when he painted the stolen works. As he did not know how to paint or sculpt, he created collages. Pieces collected in a book entitled Jazz and of which 250 copies were published. It was first published in 1947 in France.

The more than 25,000 surveillance cameras installed in Brazil’s most populous city helped uncover the escape route of the perpetrators of the theft. The inmate is 31 years old and has a history of theft and drug trafficking. The van they were using had been located earlier and inspected by investigators.

Recordings from the Smart Sampa system – a sort of big brother to facial recognition – show one of the thieves on a street near the library carrying the largest pieces of the loot in his hands. At one point, he placed them on the ground and filming was interrupted, according to the aforementioned newspaper.

The location of the theft is the main municipal library of São Paulo, a century-old cultural center located in the historic center, a building in which the movement of readers and visitors is constant. The album works Jazz They returned to the collection of the Mário de Andrade library ten years ago, after a singular incident because they had been stolen without the museum realizing it. In 2006, they were spotted by Argentine customs officers at the border. For years, the library refused to acknowledge that they were stolen, until it discovered that the pieces it had were copies and not originals, which it recovered in 2015.