Somebody Stole $105K Photos at MoMa, Mailed Them Back

NYPD releases surveillance video of woman mailing photos back to museum annex in NYC
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 14, 2017 6:11 AM CST
MoMa Mystery: Who Stole Prints, Mailed Them Back?
A screen shot of the woman sought for questioning in the return of stolen museum photos.   (YouTube)

The Museum of Modern Art has an odd mystery on its hands. First, somebody stole two photos of performance artist Carolee Schneemann worth $105,000 from a museum annex in Queens. Then somebody mailed them back, good as new. Now the NYPD has released surveillance video of the young woman believed to have done the mailing and is trying to track her down, reports People. Police traced the package with the photos back to a shipping store in Brooklyn, and the video shows a woman with a dark cap and glasses carrying the package into the store.

Police say they don't know whether the woman was involved in the theft itself, what prompted the change of heart, or how the theft happened in the first place, reports CBS New York. The prints were discovered to be missing on the morning of Oct. 30, though the site's alarm had been set the previous night. Police also say there were no signs of forced entry, and the photos were returned less than a week later. The gelatin-silver prints were made by Alex V. Sobolewski to document Schneemann’s nude performance art and are part of the exhibit “Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting," per artnet. (More MoMA stories.)

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