Hot Art

by Joshua Knelman

  Hrycyk arrived at the Getty one afternoon in 2004, not long after a couple had strolled up to a Lee Miller photograph in one of the exhibition halls. The photo was powerful: a Nazi officer who had recently committed suicide, his blood running down his face, the revolver in his dead hand. Miller had worked in Paris for some of the war, documented London during the Blitz, and visited the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau shortly after they had been liberated. The photograph on the wall was taken at Buchenwald.

  The couple stopped to inspect the gruesome image. The man stared at the Miller photograph for a moment, then he walked up close to the Plexiglas frame and started punching it. He didn’t hold back, and his blows were so hard that the protective glass spiderwebbed. The woman, visibly frightened, watched as the man ran out of the gallery. Of course, the problem with vandalizing a work of art at the Getty is that the only way in or out is by the tram. The enraged man recognized this problem, and as security chased after him, he blended in with the crowds by slowing down to a walk and pretending to appreciate the artwork. He made it to the tram without being caught.

  When Hrycyk showed up, he dealt with Bob Combs, director of security. They watched footage from an arsenal of cameras. Hrycyk identified the woman, and when he tracked her down at her home, she was embarrassed. Her male friend turned out to be a ucla graduate student. He was arrested and pleaded guilty. “Sometimes people do strange things,” said Hrycyk. “It shows you, people are not predictable.”

  The Getty Center is equipped with one of the most thoughtfully designed security systems of any museum in the world, and when I met with Combs, he confirmed that the museum had never had a piece of art stolen. Combs was in his early fifties, clean-cut, wearing slacks and a shirt tucked in and carrying a walkie-talkie, which often crackled with reports and questions from staff all over the museum. “My Scout leader was a locksmith, so that’s where it all started,” he told me.

  Combs’s career began when he was twenty, working security for the Art Institute of Chicago. He didn’t have a lot of control over the environment there. At the Getty, he has almost total control: he presides over a staff of dozens of security guards, monitors an army of cameras and alarms, and keeps constant track of the flow of visitors wandering the galleries and grounds. In fact, he worked for the Center before it was built. “I had input on the initial architectural designs. Any thief would be hard pressed to get past the system that has been set up. We’ve got plenty of opportunities to stop you.”

  His security parameter includes 6 buildings, as well as the 750 acres of land that surround the Center. “That land acts like a moat around us,” he said. Actually, the entire security system at the Getty was designed in concentric rings that overlap, with one purpose: “Protect the asset.” That means the art collection, including Irises by Vincent van Gogh, one of his most famous works, worth at least $100 million.

  Some of Combs’s concentric rings are more visible than others. A fence surrounds the property, far from the Center itself. A web of security cameras is built into the Center’s design. Motion sensors are placed in rooms, in doorways, and in halls, and connected to alarms. “Most areas have redundancies.” The Center has what he calls “saturation coverage.” Translation: Anyone walking around looking at art is slathered in layers of security.

  When Combs was consulting on the initial security design of the Center, he created a set of plans that were colour-coded: red, green, blue. Any area shaded in red held artwork; green was a public space, like the courtyard with the hotdog vendor. Blue was for transition areas between art and public space— the hallway to get from the gallery to the hotdog vendor. His idea: Don’t have a lot of places where visitors travel from red to green. Instead, a patron should have to walk through a blue area before getting out to a public space.

  “Security has two components: operations and technology,” Combs said. Technology, no matter how sophisticated, does not sufficiently protect the collection. “I can get all the alarms I want, but that won’t do the job.” For Combs, the factor that makes the Center secure is the human presence—his security staff and the Center’s other employees. When Combs was tasked with assembling his team, he searched the world for different models of training and settled on one.

  “I studied El Al, the Israeli airline,” he told me. “They train their staff to understand the psychology of a situation, because they can’t just rely on the technology.” El Al security trainees work a shift on every job at the airline. “That security guard works baggage, concessions, ticketing, parking.” El Al also does scenario training. Security officers have to sit down and pretend they are going to hijack a plane or blow it up. How would they do that, knowing everything they know about how the airline worked? When Combs trains a new security member, he gives that person a mission: “Your job is to steal that Rembrandt in Gallery 3. Think it through. What would you have to do? You’re dealing with fire alarms, exits, security systems. What are all the steps?” By doing this, Combs also gets an idea of how thieves think and adjusts security accordingly.

  Combs also borrowed another cue from El Al: his staff conducts psychological profiling. If a visitor at the Getty asks one of the gallery staff a leading question, that staff member notifies security. A security officer materializes in the gallery with a description of the patron and engages him in polite conversation—a few questions about the visit and whether he requires any additional information. “The guard is getting to know that particular guest. If the conversation arouses suspicion, that person will be monitored in an almost invisible fashion.” Staff will keep a watchful eye on the guest, and from the control room, a picture of the guest will be taken. “That profile is not based on looks. It is based on behaviour,” Combs said.

  I told Combs that I’d visited the Getty a few days before our interview and spent time wandering through the galleries, the promenades, and the gardens. At lunch I’d bought a hotdog from the outdoor vendor. In front of me in line was a man with an earpiece, wearing a dark jacket. I asked him if he worked as security for the Getty. He looked at me for a moment and nodded. I said that I was writing a book about international art theft and that I was interested in meeting Bob Combs. The security official chatted with me for a few minutes and told me how much he liked working at the Center. He said it was very well secured in ways I couldn’t even imagine. The conversation lasted for about five minutes. When I told Combs about the interaction, he frowned. “That should have been reported,” he said. “A visitor saying they’re working on a book about international art theft ... that’s a case where the system didn’t work.”

  The Getty’s ability to pay well and the beauty of the environment itself provide a bonus security benefit: “Low attrition rate,” he said. The security personnel who work at the institution tend to stay. “We’re fortunate. It’s rare for a member of our staff to leave to work at another museum.”

  I asked Combs if he had information about how other museums around the globe were affected by art theft. He is one of the rock stars of the museum security field, and each year he attends the international museum security conference held in Amsterdam. For his presentation in 2007, he had put together a list of thefts from museums around the world. It was fourteen pages long, in a miniscule font. At his desk, he flipped through the list for me.

  In Los Angeles, an eighteenth-century manuscript that had once belonged to a powerful Italian family was stolen from the ucla Library. In Arizona, eight bronze statues that weighed thousands of pounds were stolen from the ranch of artist John Waddell. In Paris, two Picassos were stolen from the home of the artist’s daughter. Also in Paris, eighty works of art vanished from the Arab World Institute. In Vienna, thieves broke into the Palais Harrach and stole thirty Fabergé eggs, twenty porcelain vases, and a painting—a haul worth over a million dollars. In Florida, a life-size statue of a bronze horse was stolen from outside the Museum of Florida Art.

  In Takayama, Japan, three armed men had knocked down a security guard and stole
n $2 million worth of gold bullion, displayed on the second floor of a museum. The three men had to drag the gold down a flight of stairs. They had another man in a getaway station wagon waiting outside.

  In Australia, a painting by Frans van Mieris was stolen from the Art Gallery of New South Wales on a day when up to six thousand people had visited. The painting was worth about $1 million and was small enough to fit inside someone’s coat. In Ireland, fifty sculptures were stolen from the National Wax Museum, including Fred Flintstone, Hannibal Lecter, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and four Teletubbies. In Tehran, Iran, three manuscripts were stolen from the Reza Abbasi Museum; two of them were over two hundred years old.

  Combs also included acts of vandalism. A Milwaukee man was looking at Poussin’s The Triumph of David when he suddenly tore the painting from the wall and started kicking it, aiming for Goliath’s head. When he’d succeeded in kicking a hole in the painting, he stopped, removed his shirt, lay down on the floor, and said simply, “I’m done.” In Paris, a few drunken men broke into the Musée d’Orsay around midnight. One of the men punched Claude Monet’s Le Pont d’Argenteuil, tearing a gash four inches long in the canvas.

  At the Getty, as a pre-emptive measure, staff had access to photographs of known “persons of interest.” Combs told me one of those photographs was of Banksy.

  “Really, you have a picture of Banksy?” I asked. The idea of seeing a mug shot of the mysterious, globe-trotting graffiti artist, whose identity is a guarded secret, was thrilling.

  Combs picked up his phone, dialled a number, and requested that the photograph be delivered to his office. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and a staff member entered. “We don’t have a picture of Banksy,” he said to Combs.

  “I thought we had a picture of Banksy,” said Combs.

  “I don’t think anyone has a picture of Banksy,” answered the staff member.

  “Okay, thanks,” Combs said.

  I was disappointed, but I was sure Banksy wouldn’t be.

  At the end of our interview Combs got up from his desk and walked into the larger administration offices of the Getty—all cubicles and desks. Framed photographs decorated a wall, and Combs stopped at one. “This is a portrait from 1909, taken at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Copley Square.” It showed the haggard figure of a man with a handlebar moustache in a faded uniform—a tough-looking man. “He was a security guard at the Boston museum.” Combs added, “Imagine what his life was like back then. No iPod on the way to work. These guys worked their whole careers to pass the art they were guarding onto the next generation, and to our generation. We have to take care of the art, and pass it on.”

  LATER THAT WEEK I was due to spend another day with Hrycyk at Parker Center, discussing his casework. Instead I received a phone call from the detective.

  “Something’s come up,” he said. “An antique store in Hollywood has been burglarized, and Steph and I have to conduct a crime-scene investigation.” He paused. “Do you want to come along for that? It would give you a chance to see us work.”

  The detectives picked me up in the unmarked Impala, and we headed toward La Cienega Boulevard. I shook hands with detective Stephanie Lazarus, whom I met for the first time in the car that day. It occurred to me, watching Hrycyk and Lazarus working at the antique store, that these two didn’t seem to be seduced by the allure of headache art. They tackled each of their cases with the same focus, rigour, and determination—whether it was a stolen Picasso or a chandelier.

  My visit with Hrycyk revealed a detective at the height of his powers. He had investigated hundreds of cases and developed contacts all over the Greater Los Angeles community and far beyond. He’d built a formidable database of information and a website that allowed him to interface efficiently with the public he served. He also had a partner he was training to replace him when he retired. All of this was his legacy.

  And his legacy was instructive about cities beyond Los Angeles. When I met Bonnie Czegledi, she pointed out that because Toronto did not have a detective charged with patrolling the art market, it was impossible to know what was happening underneath that market’s serene exterior. She suspected that theft and fraud were rampant and that Canada was a perfect place to steal and to sell stolen works. At that time, I wondered if her theories were plausible. Spending the week with Hrycyk confirmed for me much of what Czegledi suspected was unfolding in Toronto. And what was happening in New York? That was also a blank. “It’s hard to know why New York doesn’t have a dedicated unit,” Hrycyk told me. “I don’t really understand how that is possible, considering how big that market is.”

  Hrycyk’s superiors, though, didn’t always see the value of his work. He told me that after taking over the unit, he went long stretches of time without a partner, managing too many cases, and suffered from low morale. He remembered a stakeout he did alone, for hours, in a suspect’s backyard. “Those were depressing days,” he told me. As recently as the early 2000s, management was talking about shutting down the Art Theft Detail.

  Closing the Art Theft Detail would have been the wrong decision, considering that Hrycyk was the only detective in the United States on a municipal force in a large art market who had amassed the experience and knowledge—the power— to understand how art theft worked. Way back in 1986, at the same time that Hrycyk and Martin were prying into the art scene on the West Coast, another agent was coming up the ranks in the eastern United States, also learning about art theft. He wasn’t on a municipal force, though—he was with a federal agency, patrolling a much larger theatre.

  12.

  9/11

  “These works are permanent. We are fleeting.”

  ROBERT WITTMAN

  THE BLACK, unmarked Chevrolet Grand Prix was idling outside the Philadelphia Holiday Inn Express at 9 AM, as agreed. The interior of the car was spotless—no empty cans or coffee cups, just the grapefruit-sized police siren, dark and red, lying on the floor of the passenger seat.

  In the driver’s seat was Special Agent Robert K. Wittman. His business card read FBI, Senior Art Investigator, Rapid Deployment Art Crime Team. Wittman is the first FBI agent in the history of the bureau to investigate art theft full-time, and he is a hard man to pin down. At first he said he did not want to be interviewed for this book, and an FBI public relations agent sent me an email saying just that. I replied with a longer email, stating that Wittman was one of the only people on the planet with experience in hunting and finding extremely valuable artworks—headache art was his specialty. I gave some context for my investigation and asked again for an interview. A few weeks later I was walking down the street in Toronto when my cellphone rang.

  I picked up, and a smoky voice said, “This is Bob. Wittman. From the FBI.”

  Toward the end of his career, Wittman was considered to be one of the most accomplished art detectives in the world. When we met in person, in May 2008, he had been working as an agent for twenty years and was six months away from retirement. We had had several conversations by phone, but whenever I scheduled a trip to meet him, he cancelled. Finally we agreed on the May date, but with this caveat: “You can come down here to Philly, but if I get called into a case, I could be gone. So I’m hoping I’ll be here, but you never know.”

  Many of Wittman’s years with the bureau were spent immersed in high-pressure, undercover sting operations. There were no published photographs of Wittman in any magazine or newspaper when we met, even though many articles had been written about the agent’s work, including profiles in gq magazine and the Wall Street Journal. When the wsj ran its feature, the accompanying photo depicted the back of a man’s head, shielded by a white fedora. His guarded identity meant he could be the phantom buyer to any criminal selling a stolen masterpiece. Thieves knew him by reputation, and being friendly was one of his special talents. As he would say, it was one tool in his box. In person the special agent has a warm, open face that radiates comfort, and there’s a soft-burn charm to his eyes. His thin, greying ha
ir is cropped short. His skin is slightly tanned, and the tan didn’t match the slate-grey Philadelphia sky. Wittman travelled.

  This morning the special agent was wearing a white, button-down shirt under a blue blazer with grey slacks, a black leather belt, and black polished shoes. The shirt was unbuttoned at the collar for maximum mellow. His gun was tucked into a holster underneath the jacket. His dress code was chameleon cool. Wittman could walk into any room—a Denny’s or a political fundraiser—and fit in.

  “Welcome to Philadelphia,” Wittman said as he pulled the car into traffic and began cutting through the downtown grid of clean streets. In the distance, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a giant poster of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait stared down at the former U.S. capital city. A few minutes later Wittman turned the car into the underground parking garage of 600 Arch Street, a standard-looking office building with trimmed hedges and mirrored windows and a nothing-going-on-around-here exterior. This is the Eastern Division Field Office of the FBI. In the garage Wittman closed the door to the black cruiser and strode toward the elevator. There’s a bounce to his walk, a flow of energy moving forward. Think Al Pacino in Heat. On the way he passed another agent, and the two never broke stride as they smiled briefly in the dim fluorescence.

  “Hey, Bob, you winding down?” asked the agent, alluding to Wittman’s imminent retirement.

  “Sort of. Feels like I’m waking up,” answered Wittman.

  Upstairs at 600 Arch, Wittman had two desks. The first was in a bullpen of cubicles staffed with other, mostly younger, agents—the next generation. Like every FBI employee I met, this group was fit, cheerful, and courteous. Wittman’s presence in the room felt paternal. “Hey, Bob,” they smiled.