City Artwork Valued at $400,000 Missing

Halfway through an inventory of its scattered collection, the city of Los Angeles can’t find 358 works of art that may be worth nearly $400,000 and has asked police to investigate, officials said Monday.

The missing artwork ranges from a dramatic 1946 oil painting of the Navy cruiser Los Angeles by Arthur Beaumont worth up to $150,000, to a 1936 painting by Guy Morton titled “Santa Monica Canyon” worth an estimated $1,000.

“We want to find this stuff because it does belong to the city of Los Angeles,” said Los Angeles Police Det. Don Hrycyk, who heads the department’s art theft detail.

Los Angeles owns about 2,000 works of art worth up to $5 million. Many are gifts to the city and have been loaned by the Cultural Affairs Department to city agencies for display in offices. The works include a $600,000 Italian sculpture at the Department of Water and Power headquarters downtown, and a $1-million Korean Friendship Bell at Point Fermin.

The inventory began after The Times reported last year that the city, in providing a list of assets for pending studies of proposed political secession, did not know how much art it owned, where it was kept, or how much it was worth.

An initial review ordered by the City Council concluded that 362 works of art were missing. The city’s Cultural Affairs Department launched an inventory of all city offices where art has been loaned, according to a city report released Monday.

With half of the inventory completed, only four missing artworks have been found, officials said. Cultural Affairs officials recently filed a police report for 150 of the objects.

“There are efforts between the Cultural Affairs Department and the LAPD to locate the missing art,” said Tina Kiani, a city analyst. She said some of the artworks might have been taken home by retiring city employees or lost during moves of city offices.

Other pieces may be stashed away and forgotten in storage rooms in city buildings, Hrycyk said.

Monday’s report estimated the value of the missing art at nearly $400,000.

Roella Hsieh Louie, the city’s arts manager, said a precise value cannot be placed on the work because it was not subjected to an independent appraisal before it disappeared.

“We have no market value for any of these pieces,” said Joe Smoke, who works with Louie in managing the city arts collection.

He said estimates offered so far often are based on how contributors value the work. The value set on the Beaumont painting was based on an estimate from the painter’s family, Louie said.

Hrycyk’s office has so far received detailed reports on 150 of the missing pieces, including the Beaumont painting and a 1971 abstract sculpture by Tyler Ackerodi titled “Tight Money,” which is valued at $500. The LAPD has posted pictures of missing artworks and other information on the department’s Web site.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, who chairs the council’s Government Efficiency Committee, voiced concern about the missing art Monday, calling on Cultural Affairs officials to improve security for art put on public display.

“We have so many pieces already missing, I don’t want anything to happen to the pieces we do have possession of,” Chick said. Chick recommended that $93,000 be allocated to begin cataloging and appraising the 600 most valuable works of art in the city collection during the next three years.

The independent appraisals would allow the city to avoid predicaments like the current one, in which it must report artwork as possibly stolen without knowing how much it is worth, officials said.

Louie said that since she took over the art collection in 1995, she has used a detailed process for recording all art that is contributed and where it is placed. She said earlier records are incomplete.

In some cases, the department that originally borrowed the art has moved, and artwork is no longer where it was originally placed.

Louie said as the number of artworks and city buildings has increased, her office has only been able to devote 20% of one employee’s time to coordinating the collection.

“We don’t have the human resources,” she said.