Police Arrest Pawnbroker in Bid to Sell Stolen Painting

Los Angeles detectives arrested a Huntington Park pawnshop owner Friday for allegedly trying to sell through Christie’s auction house a $300,000 painting by Georges Rouault stolen from a gallery at the Ambassador Hotel in 1981.

Robert Singer, 49, of Los Angeles was being held on $20,000 bail after an investigation revealed “he had knowledge the painting was stolen,” said Detective Bill Martin, head of the Police Department’s art theft detail.

Singer was arrested at his shop, Charles Jewelry & Loan in Huntington Park, seven weeks after New York police informed Los Angeles detectives that the lost painting had reappeared there.

The work in oil, entitled “Christ,” was painted by the late French modernist artist Georges Rouault in 1937. It was stolen from the Dalzell Hatfield Gallery by a thief who nonchalantly plucked the unguarded painting off a wall and walked out while employees were busy preparing for a show.

Last July, Singer took the painting, depicting the head of Christ, to Christie’s in Beverly Hills and asked that it be put on auction, according to the auction house.

Singer later told authorities he was “shocked and surprised” when international art experts in New York, where the painting was sent for a routine check, discovered that it was listed as stolen. Singer has claimed that he inherited the painting.

Martin would not say what evidence he has against Singer, but said: “Let’s put it this way. We knew early on he didn’t inherit the painting. We investigated the veracity of what Singer had to say and talked to everybody whose name came up.”

Martin said the original theft will not be reinvestigated because the statute of limitations has run out on that crime.

Ruth Hatfield, who owned the painting and the gallery from which it was stolen, died in 1984 and the gallery closed in 1985.

Martin said the painting, which has escalated in value from $50,000 to $300,000, will be returned to the three insurance companies who paid Hatfield $15,000 for the loss of the underinsured work. The insurance companies and Hatfield’s estate will be left to work out a deal on who gets the profits from the painting, Martin said.

The recovery of the painting was the second major success for the Police Department’s art theft detectives in the last several weeks.

In late September, a Los Angeles man was arrested for stealing a $500,000 painting by Swedish-born Anders Zorn from a home where he worked as a butler. The painting’s owner, Elizabeth Keck, called police after noticing that the work had been replaced by a phony.

“We feel pretty good about what we’re doing with art theft in Los Angeles,” Martin said.