They identify a supposed author of the theft of 13 works by Matisse and Portinari in Brazil

The Brazilian Police reported this Monday that it has identified one of the alleged perpetrators of the theft of thirteen works of art by Henri Matisse and Cândido Portinari committed on Sunday at the Mário de Andrade Municipal Library in São Paulo. Authorities have also managed to locate and apprehend the van that was used in the getaway after the robbery, in which two men participated, one of them still unidentified, according to a statement from the Civil Police of São Paulo. The two thieves entered the library armed, subdued a security guard and the two visitors who were in the exhibition at that moment, stole the thirteen works and fled through the main door.

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The thieves’ escape was recorded by the cameras of the urban security system of the São Paulo City Hall, which helped to identify the vehicle. The works were part of the exhibition ‘From the book to the museum: MAM São Paulo and the Mário de Andrade Library’, which brings together modernist engravings, watercolors and cutouts from the 1940s and 1950s, belonging to the collections of the Museum of Art (MAM) of São Paulo and the library. Among the stolen pieces are paper cutouts from the ‘Jazz’ collection, which Matisse made in the 1940s with colored paper cutouts, as well as engravings by Portinari, one of Brazil’s leading visual artists. The theft occurred on the last day of the exhibition and at a time when there were few people in the library.