The Journal

Issue date: 4/13/06 Section: News

This drawing, part of Susan Rothenberg's series of dismembereed heads and hands was discovered by the FBI Art Crime team among other works stolen in 2002. The piece, which wasn't noticed as missing, is worth about $20,000.

Tom Lang, chair and professor of the art department, opened a desk drawer in his office and retrieved a smallish drawing in a plain frame.

"Here it is," he said, pointing to a label on the drawing's back that read "Susan Rothenberg, Untitled, graphite on paper, 1988."

Until recently, the location of the piece wasn't known. The Rothenberg was one piece of over 100 stolen in 2002 from the Fine Arts Express company, an art storage and transport facility in downtown St. Louis. It was returned to Webster March 30 by the St. Louis division of the FBI's Art Crime Team.

The culprits, Donald Rasch, 44, and Biron Valier, 37, stole the artwork during their eight-month employment at Fine Arts Express. Both were sentenced last November. Rasch received a two year sentence, while Valier got 90 days in jail and six months on house arrest for the heist, valued at $4 million. The two were ordered to pay jointly $1.2 million for works that remain unrecovered.

"We didn't even know it was gone," said Lang, who indicated that Webster was between inventories on its stored arts.

The piece, valued at $20,000, was one of a minority of works that were stolen from FAE Express that didn't come from the private collection of David and Diane Harter of Palm City, Florida.

Their collection included pieces by Henri Matisse, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, along with works by Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso that are still unaccounted for.

"We don't know how the Rothenberg got mixed in with the Harter's pieces," said Frank Brostrom, regional coordinator of the Art Crime Team. "The Rothenberg was one of only a few that weren't identified as being the Harter's, and Webster is the first
and only other victim identified with those pieces," Brostrom said.

"There was a label on the back of the drawing from a gallery who said they'd donated the piece to Webster," Brostrom said.

Webster, which received the Rothenberg as part of a gift, didn't have space to display the piece and sent it to FAE for storage.

"I'd like to have it displayed in the library, now that there's an element of curiosity attached to it," said Lang, who noted that Webster had a few other Rothenberg pieces in addition to the one recovered last month.

"Every piece of art has a story, a provenance," Lang said.

Susan Rothenberg's art came to prominence in the New York City art scene of the 1970s, and was an important artist in the transition from minimalism to neoexpressionism.

The piece recovered last month was part of a series she did of dismembered heads and hands in the 1980s, shortly after her divorce to sculptor George Trakas.

The Art Crime Team is a special division the FBI created in 2004. Since its creation, they have recovered over 200 works of art across the country valued at an estimated $50 million.

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