A Salvador Dalí work was stolen from a San Francisco gallery in broad daylight.
On Sunday, a Salvador Dalí work valued at $20,000 was stolen from Dennis Rae Fine Art, a gallery near San Francisco’s Union Square. The work, titled Burning Giraffe, is a hand-colored etching the great Surrealist executed in the 1960s. The etching was resting on an easel in the front of the gallery when it was stolen. Security camera footage showed the perpetrator walking down the street with the framed work under his arm after leaving the gallery.
A $20,000 piece of Salvador Dali art was stolen from a gallery in San Francisco, and gallery officials are hoping security video will help lead police to the thief. https://t.co/iC9d9WY9ZV pic.twitter.com/rSqKlHhTYy
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) October 15, 2019
Rasjad Hopkins, one of the gallery’s directors, told TIME that the thief “was in and out of there in a shot. He probably did it in less than a minute.” Hopkins noted that he was working alone in the gallery at the time of the incident, and must have turned his back right when it happened. He also added that the gallery has a security camera, though it was off at the time.
Another director at the gallery, Angela Kellet, told KGO-TV that the stolen work is “quite important as far as the period of etchings” and that it isn’t the type of item a thief could easily sell. “I think that people would know,” she said. “It's a very small edition of etchings, so the number, we know exactly what piece it is, so now it's a very hot item.”
The suspect has yet to be found.
