Mexican Police Recover Stolen Art
By ADOLFO GARZA Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Police recovered 12 paintings Monday by Rufino
Tamayo, one of the Mexico's foremost painters, which had been stolen
from an exhibition last week.
The paintings - valued at $2.5 million - were inside black plastic
bags when police found them during a raid at a Mexico City apartment
complex, said Mauricio Tornero, chief of the city's judicial police.
Torneros said the suspects fled and there were no arrests in the raid
in the northwest Azcapotzalco neighborhood.
The paintings were recovered undamaged and in their original frames,
Tornero said, and their authenticity was confirmed by a curator from
the Lopez Quiroga gallery, where the robbery took place Jan 28.
Police had been given sketches of the four suspects and said they
were believed to be part of a gang that specializes in stealing
jewelry and works of art in the city's upscale neighborhoods of
Polanco and Lomas de Chapultepec.
``Their capers are very quick and very smooth,'' Tornero said. ``They
chose the 12 most valuable pieces in the exhibition.''
The paintings, on loan from private art collectors in the United
States, Europe and Mexico, were part of a 43-canvas show the gallery
organized to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Tamayo's birth.
Tamayo was born Aug. 26, 1899, and his surreal paintings were
characterized by the vivid colors and expressions of his native Oaxaca
state in southern Mexico.
Orphaned at an early age, Tamayo studied art in Mexico City and,
along with muralists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, was a
member of the so-called ``Contemporary Group'' that strove to portray
Mexico's indigenous roots.
But, unlike Rivera and Siqueiros, Tamayo concentrated more on canvas
and oils.
By the time he died in 1991, Tamayo was famous worldwide with
numerous prizes to his credit and exhibitions in the United States,
South America, Europe and Russia.
The stolen paintings were all small. The most famous one, called
``Watermelons,'' shows two slices of the fruit against a light
background. Another painting, ``Floating Head,'' is mostly purple and
depicts what seems to be the gruesome face of a dead man.
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