Acrylic Sculptures Popular With Crooks, Not Critics

Sculptor Michael Wilkinson is hot. Or at least his work is, but not the way he would prefer.

Thieves have snatched acrylic sculptures by Wilkinson and works by other artists from mall galleries and other outlets from Denver to California, with 14 heists on the West Coast alone, authorities said.

And although critics are reserved in their estimate of the artistic merit of the stolen art, law enforcement authorities say there appears to be a ready market for the sculptures.

“They may be linked to a large national ring,” Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said of the thieves. “It’s probably a loose-knit group of thieves working together. Their methods are very similar.”

The modus operandi sounds like two kids shoplifting candy. One of the thieves distracts the gallery attendant while the other drapes a jacket over the artwork and heads for the door, police said.

“They’re very fast,” Amormino said. “They want to get in and out real quick.”

Last week, thieves in Los Angeles took off with a $3,200 Wilkinson sculpture called “Crystal Fire” from the Henken Gallery in the New Otani Hotel. That theft came two days after a $10,000 Wilkinson piece titled “Moonscape II: Aria” was stolen from Mission Viejo’s Kaleidoscope Gallery. Wilkinson works in the “Romantic Realism” style and is influenced by Ayn Rand.

It was the second theft from the mall gallery in Mission Viejo. On Dec. 20, two men rustled a 19-inch Jiang bronze horse valued at $12,500 out of the Kaleidoscope shop.

“I couldn’t afford it anymore, and I put in a security system,” said owner Ed Bolin, who said he opened the gallery in 1998 and had had items stolen only twice before the Wilkinson theft.

The two thieves, who were videotaped in the second Kaleidoscope theft, also have struck in Long Beach, Beverly Hills and San Francisco.

“Moonscape II: Aria” is a 21-inch, see-through acrylic nude that resembles an ice sculpture. Part of a limited edition of 500, the piece is valued by the gallery at $10,000, although another dealer listed a copy for $6,800.

“They’ve taken stuff they can sell, and these sculptures are on the high end of sculpture art,” Bolin said. “So they have a good eye. They must either have buyers in the business who are telling them what to steal, or they know what art they can move and sell quickly.” Investigators believe the art might be destined for collectors in Mexico.

Thieves also have been taking acrylic works by the late Fredrick Hart, best-known for his bronze “Three Servicemen” statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington.

The stolen art generally is dismissed by serious art fanciers.

“Romantic Realism has an emotional, sublime quality to it,” said Martin Kersels, a sculptor, art instructor and California Institute of the Arts art program director. “It can be nostalgic. In the contemporary art world, Romantic Realism is not something people are aspiring to.”

The style was popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but not with contemporary artists because “it doesn’t push the boundaries,” he said.

“I think the majority of this style of art has no cultural currency,” Kersels said. “It’s not that interesting. . . . It’s popular and commercially profitable because people recognize the images; it’s nostalgic and it’s not offensive.’

On his Web site, Wilkinson describes his work as “rooted firmly in realism that portrays the good and the beautiful in the human spirit--and points to the glorious possibilities of our existence.” The site also describes Wilkinson as influenced by European classics and Japanese architecture he observed when he was an Air Force illustrator.

But the pieces have an audience among people drawn to mystical overtones the artist combines with realistic--if idealized--human forms.

“Wilkinson’s work is sculpture--it’s clear acrylic, so when you look at it from different angles, there’s a lot of different dimensions to it,” Bolin said. “It’s men and women intertwined . . . in love and with a child.”

While the critics might sniff, the pieces wouldn’t be stolen if there weren’t a demand, Amormino said.

“There tends to be a ready market for this,” he said.

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Times staff writer Mai Tran contributed to this report.