By Joe Bel Bruno, Los Angeles Times –
LOS ANGELES —Jeffrey Gundlach says he is getting his art back.
The Los Angeles bond trader had offered a $1.7-million reward for the return of his cherished collection, which was stolen this month. He said Thursday that police had recovered the nearly $10 million worth of contemporary art that included works by Piet Mondrian, Jasper Johns and Richard Diebenkorn.
The robbery from his Santa Monica home shook Southern California’s art world, which is home to many private collections held by movie moguls and celebrities. It was also the talk of Wall Street, where Gundlach is considered one of the world’s best fund managers.
“The focus was on recovering the artwork, and it was all recovered,” Gundlach said. “The thieves had worked on moving the property, but we were able to get a good lead and apprehend them. It’s a great day for the art world.”
He said Santa Monica police arrested two suspects in the crime, and that at least one of the pieces was in the midst of being sold. A police spokesman did not return telephone calls.
Gundlach gave few details about the arrests or about the crime, which he discovered Sept. 14 after returning home from a two-day business trip to New York. In addition to the art, the thieves made off with expensive watches, rare bottles of wine and his 2010 Porsche Carrera.
The Porsche is still missing. “Maybe whoever has it will drive to a Ralphs parking lot and just drop it off and end this,” he said.
He said he did not know at this point who, if anybody, would get the reward. He had offered $1 million for the return of a Mondrian painting called “Composition (A) en Rouge et Blanc,” which is said to be the highest reward ever offered for a single painting.
That was the painting that Gundlach said the thieves had been in the midst of selling.
One lesson learned after the robbery was to beef up protection for his collection: “I will continue to take good care of it,” he said. “There have been many upgrades to security and armed guards that are now on the property.”
