By David Quinones
MIAMI, March 3 (Reuters) – One of the world’s leading
databases of stolen works of art is offering to help the Cuban
government recover dozens of modernist works missing from
Havana’s National Museum of Fine Arts.
The heist was confirmed late last week by officials with
Cuba’s state-run National Council of Cultural Heritage, which
added it was in the process of finishing an inventory of the
missing pieces which will be made public.
Miami gallery owner Ramon Cernuda, a Cuban-American exile
and prominent collector of Cuban art, alerted the Havana museum
last month after he became suspicious of 11 works being offered
for sale in Miami, including one he purchased.
On Friday, Cuban officials confirmed the works, including
several by acclaimed Cuban painter Leopoldo Roma +/-ach, were part
of a larger trove of stolen art, thought to be about 95 pieces
in all.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun grand
jury proceedings in the case, Cernuda told Reuters on Monday.
The FBI said, however, that it could not confirm or deny the
existence of an investigation.
The disclosure of the theft is a first for the Cuban
government since Fidel Castro took power in 1959. In its
statement, officials from the National Council of Cultural
Heritage stated that the works were cut from their frames while
in storage.
Most of the missing works were by Cuban artists, it said.
The statement indicated the Cuban government would work
“with any proper authorities inside or outside the country” to
“alert museums, galleries, auction houses and others.”
In years past, the Cuban government has stayed mum when
museum pieces have been put on the market, raising suspicions
that the sales had been officially approved in the face of hard
economic times.
Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the London-based Art Loss
Register, said he was in the process to reaching out to Cuban
law enforcement and officials at the museum to offer help. The
organization is the recognized leader in recovering stolen
artworks and it operates the largest private database of
reported stolen art – although Radcliffe says they have never
worked with Cuba.
“There are some governments who absolutely do report their
stolen items, and there are some governments who do not report
their items to anyone, ever,” said Radcliffe, adding that Cuba
has previously resided in the latter camp.
If Cuba decides to take Radcliffe up on his offer, it could
bode well for the recovery of the pieces. Having recovered some
2,000 pieces since it was established in 1991, the Art Loss
Register monitors on-the-record art transactions worldwide.
In past decades, many museums were so embarrassed about
losing artworks to theft, that they were often not reported,
Radcliffe said. In Cuba’s case, some missing museum items in the
past included works expropriated from families that went into
exile after the 1959 revolution.
“So they are very sensitive about the subject,” he added.
Cernuda has since turned over one stolen work to the FBI’s
art crimes team in Miami along with the documents of the sale.
He has also offered to eventually return the piece to Cuba.
(Editing by David Adams and G Crosse)
