U. Police unable to disprove theft in missing art incident

Despite attempts by police over the past several weeks to disprove any foul play in the disappearance of 12 student paintings from the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall over winter break, the incident remains classified as a possible theft.

Police were originally looking into the possibility that maintenance staff had disposed of the paintings, which were accidentally left in the building over break.

"We've gotten all of the information we can get right now," University of Pennsylvania Police Department Detective Supervisor Frank DeMeo said. "And the investigation is still continuing."

On Jan. 11, Graduate School of Fine Arts staff reported that 12 student paintings were missing from the walls of the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall, located at 200 South 36th Street. The paintings had been placed on display before the break, though administrators asked the students to remove their paintings before leaving campus due to renovations set to occur in the building over the break.

According to police reports, the paintings were valued together at $1,400 and ranged in size from medium to very large. All missing paintings were created by advanced level painters, and in some cases, the works remained incomplete.

Since staff members had asked students to remove the paintings by Dec. 20 and told police that some of the paintings were hanging even after students had left campus, for the past several weeks, police have been investigating the possibility of a misunderstanding between maintenance staff and the art classes.

"The Fine Arts school is working with all possible University resources to come up with a solution to this problem to both make the space safer and help those students who have suffered a loss," GSFA Assistant Dean Patricia Woldar said.

"We care very deeply about what happened and are trying to do everything in our power to keep it from happening again," she added.

According to Woldar, the school is also working with the Office of Risk Management to discuss reimbursing students who lost their work.

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