Stolen Picasso Print Resurfaces Eight Years After Downtown Gallery Heist
Community member walks into MPD district station with missing etching.
Pablo Picasso — Torero, 1949. Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Police Department.
A Pablo Picasso print stolen from a downtown Milwaukee art gallery more than eight years ago has resurfaced after a community member turned it in to police.
The individual walked into the Milwaukee Police Department‘s District Four, 6929 W. Silver Spring Dr., on Wednesday with an etching suspected of being the missing artwork, according to a department press release.
An authenticator confirmed Thursday that the print was “Torero,” an original Picasso etching and aquatint created in 1949 and stolen from DeLind Fine Art Appraisals, 761 N. Jefferson St., on Feb. 16, 2018.
Police said investigators are now working to locate the artwork’s rightful owner. The department did not identify the person who returned the print or explain how that individual came into possession of it.
“The Milwaukee Police Department is grateful that this community member recognized the etching print and did the right thing and returned it,” said the department in a statement. “We are better together.”
The artwork, valued at between $35,000 and $50,000, was one of only 30 copies produced by Picasso. The recovered print was the ninth in the series and was signed by the artist in green crayon.
The print had been displayed in a window at DeLind when it disappeared during business hours. Michael Goforth, who co-owned the firm with Bill DeLind, previously said he discovered it was missing after returning from lunch.
“Broad daylight. Afternoon. Probably took less than 10 seconds. It was in and out,” Goforth told WISN in 2023, on the fifth anniversary of the theft.
The business did not have security cameras that captured the theft, and the case remained unsolved for years. The artwork was added to the FBI’s National Stolen Art File, and authorities at one point offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to its recovery. The reward expired in 2019.
Goforth said in 2023 that the theft was particularly painful because the firm sought to make fine art accessible to the public.
“We’re not stuffy. We like to share these beautiful works of art with everyone in the community,” he said. “And for someone to just walk in and take advantage of that, it was hurtful.”
Retired FBI agent Robert Wittman, who founded the agency’s Art Crime Team, predicted at the time that the print would eventually return to the market or otherwise be discovered, unless it had been destroyed.
“Sooner or later, it’s going to come back,” Wittman said.
The DeLind gallery is no longer located in the George Watts and Sons Building. Continuum Architects + Planners purchased the Mediterranean Revival-style building in 2019 and operates its offices on the second floor.
The former gallery space was redeveloped as the new home of The Laughing Tap. The comedy club announced in October that it would move from Walker’s Point into approximately 5,000 square feet on the northern portion of the building’s first floor.
MPD did not say whether anyone is expected to face charges in connection with the theft or the print’s whereabouts during the past eight years.
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