The FBI is offering a US$25,000 (£17,500) reward after seven valuable prints of Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup artwork were stolen from a museum in Missouri.
The prints - part of a set of 10 worth about $500,000 - were taken from the wall of the Springfield Art Museum last week following a break-in.
Officials at the museum informed the FBI and Interpol after discovering the theft.
The prints, which were donated to the museum in 1985, were part of an exhibition on British and American pop art called The Electric Garden of Our Mind when they were taken.
The exhibition, which also included Eduardo Paolozzi’s General Dynamic FUN portfolio, has been closed since the Warhol works disappeared, although the museum has re-opened.
The theft is believed to have occurred between 5.30pm last Wednesday and 8.45am the following morning.
The remaining Warhol prints have since been removed from display.
“The museum is working with the proper authorities and being proactive in our security efforts as we remain open to the public,”said Nick Nelson, the museum’s director. “We are confident that the measures we are taking will protect the museum’s treasures, while still making art accessible to our community.”
Sally Scheid, chairman of the museum’s board, said staff were “shocked and totally saddened” by the theft.
The Campbell’s Soup Cans work was originally produced by Warhol in 1962 and consists of 32 canvasses, consisting of the different varieties of soup the company offered at the time.
Each individual portrait was produced using a semi-mechanised screen printing process. They were first displayed in the artist's one-man exhibition of pop-art in Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles on 9 July, 1962 in what was said to have marked the debut display of pop-art on America’s west coast.
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