Thief Also Stole Young Artists’ Dreams

On the black market, they are all but worthless. But to the young students at a Newport Beach art studio, 10 stolen oil paintings are priceless.

The canvases, some that students had labored over for years, were taken during a break-in early Saturday at Sher’s Art Gallery.

Owner Sher Swaim, who lives near the studio where she has taught art for 10 years, was awakened by police rapping on her window.

A jogger had seen the studio’s wooden doors propped open at 5:30 a.m.

Swaim said she was shocked when she saw the studio.

“The walls were clean,” she said. “All the paintings on the walls were taken, even the ones on the floor we were trying to photograph for an upcoming show.”

Besides the 10 paintings, she said, three ceramic pieces were taken, and a few works were damaged.

Seven of the 10 paintings and two of the three ceramic pieces belonged to her younger students.

The paintings were worth at least $750, based on the time and money spent, not including the frames, Swaim said.

But the students said the values could not be calculated so easily. For many, the stolen works were their first paintings, projects they had hoped to keep or present as gifts.

Claire Kohne, 11, lost two paintings in the break-in. One was an oil copy of Paul Cezanne’s “Still Life With Basket of Apples,” the other a surrealistic painting of a dream she had in which a man trapped in a submarine battled sea creatures.

A deeply disappointed Claire said she invested three years in the two works.

“I cried when I realized I would never see my paintings again, and they were my first,” she said. “I just want them back.”

Ariel Jacobs, 18, lost a 4-foot-by-4-foot abstract painting inspired by a vat of cooking eggs she saw at a soup kitchen. Her work was to have been photographed for an exhibit in June.

“I don’t have a photograph or anything for my memory that showed I did this work,” Jacobs said. “It’s like losing your hard drive with everything in it.”

Sharon Dion lost several paintings, including one she did of her daughter.

A copy of that piece is on the invitations being sent out for the June show.

Each time Dion looks at the copy, she said, her heart sinks.

“I can paint it again, but it’s the sentimental value,” Dion said. “It won’t be the same.”

Newport Beach police have no leads and are still investigating, said Sgt. Steve Shulman.