Authorities also located and seized the vehicle used in the escape after the robbery, in which two men participated, one of whom remains to be identified.
Brazilian police announced today that they had identified one of the alleged perpetrators of the theft of 13 works of art by Henri Matisse and Candido Portinari, which occurred on Sunday, at the Mário de Andrade Municipal Library, in São Paulo.
Authorities also located and seized the vehicle used in the escape after the robbery, in which two men participated, one of whom remains to be identified, according to a statement from the São Paulo Civil Police.
The two armed robbers entered the library, overpowered a security guard and two visitors who were in the exhibition at the time, stealing eight prints by the French painter Henri Matisse and five by the Brazilian Candido Portinari, and fled through the main entrance.
The thieves’ escape was recorded by the city’s urban security system cameras, which allowed the vehicle to be located.
The Municipal Secretariat for Culture and Creative Economy assured, in a statement cited by various media, that “the place has a surveillance team and a security camera system”, with “all the material that could serve the investigation” to be passed on to the police authorities.
Authorities have not released details about the works by Matisse (1869-1954) and Portinari (1903-1962) that were stolen.
According tothe exhibition mainly included works from the 1949 and 1950s, “period of sedimentation of modern art and spaces dedicated to it”, in addition to “a careful selection of books acquired in order to represent modern production in the Mário de Andrade Library collection during this period”.
The exhibition included “rare and important works, such as ‘Jazz’, by Henri Matisse, or ‘Cirque’, by Fernand Léger, examples of great relevance that put Brazilian artists and researchers in contact with European modernist production”.
“Jazz” is presented in the exhibition catalog as “an exponent work” of the French artist’s late artistic production.
“Matisse began the book in 1943, when he already had reduced mobility after medical procedures, which led him to ‘paint with scissors'”, reads the catalogue, available online.
By Candido Portinari, the exhibition included illustrations created for a deluxe edition of “Memórias posthumas de Brás Cubas”, by Machado de Assis, and for a special edition of “Menino de ingenio”, by José Lins do Rego.
