Gallery Talk

Doug Hyde Sculpture Stolen From Gallery

An bronze sculpture by Doug Hyde was stolen last week from a the Cattura Fine Art Gallery in Exeter reports This is Exeter.

A brazen thief walked out of a city art gallery with a valuable bronze sculpture in his rucksack.Elizabeth Armbruster, who owns the Cattura Fine Art Gallery, formerly Triton Galleries, insists that the culprit was caught on CCTV, but to her dismay police had still not collected the footage four days after the theft.

The stolen sculpture - Do Not Disturb - is a limited edition - no. 21 out of a series of 95.

It just goes to show that Doug Hyde is still ever popular!

Russian billionaire buys entire art collection at auction

According to The Times Online, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov bought the entire collection of the late cellist Mstislav Rostropovich before it was due to be auctioned in London last week.

Usmanov reportedly paid over the £20 million estimate, and said that he would present the 450 artworks to the Russian state to keep the collection intact, The Time quoted him as saying: “When I knew that this collection would be sold at auction, I felt the need to try to preserve the collection in its entirety"

Mr Usmanov is Russia’s 18th-richest man and only last month bought a 14.6 per cent stake in Arsenal for £75 million from David Dein, the club’s former vice-chairman.

Auction House Sotheby’s described the paintings, porcelain and glassware as among the most distinguished it had ever handled and “one of the most important collections of Russian art in private hands”. It includes Faces of Russians, by Boris Grigoriev, which some critics believe is Russia’s most important postrevolutionary painting, and 22 works by the portrait artist Ilya Repin.

(Reference, The Times Online)