The two towering sculptures comprising thousands of pounds of bronze and stainless steel took artist and filmmaker Sir Daniel Winn more than a year to complete. <\/p>\n
They vanished in a weekend \u2014 and have reappeared one weekend later.<\/p>\n
Police believe that on June 14 or 15 at least one thief made off with both \u201cIcarus Within\u201d and \u201cQuantum Mechanics: Homme\u201d \u2014 sculptures valued at a combined $2.1 million \u2014 from a warehouse in Anaheim Hills. Other artwork and valuables inside the warehouse that would have been easier to move were untouched. <\/p>\n
Police recovered the stolen art pieces inside a trailer parked at an Anaheim resident\u2019s driveway Friday night, The Times confirmed. Police said they were able to locate the sculptures thanks to tips from community members. <\/p>\n
No one has been arrested for the heist as of yet. According to Anaheim police, investigators are still working the case. <\/p>\n
The life-sized \u201cQuantum Mechanics: Homme\u201d artwork, composed of lucite, bronze and stainless steel, depicts a winged and horned man and was featured in the award-winning short film \u201cCreation\u201d in 2022. It\u2019s valued at $1.8 million.<\/p>\n
A second Winn piece, \u201cIcarus Within,\u201d based partially on the sculptor\u2019s chaotic childhood escape from Vietnam, is a steel and bronze sculpture that also stands 8 feet tall, weighs a ton, and is valued at $350,000.<\/p>\n
Both sculptures were being stored in a temporary facility and were last seen by warehouse workers in Anaheim Hills on June 14, according to the Anaheim Police Department.<\/p>\n
When the workers returned to the facility Monday, both pieces were missing, according to police.<\/p>\n
Winn said he believed the pieces might have been stolen by an unscrupulous collector. An art recovery expert suspected the two sculptures might wind up destroyed for scrap metal.<\/p>\n
That did not come to pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cTypically these sculptures, when we do exhibitions, take about a dozen men and two forklifts to move it and a flatbed or a truck to carry it,\u201d Winn said. \u201cThis is not an easy task.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winn told The Times that the last few days had been stressful and that his anxiety was \u201cthrough the roof.\u201d Winn is considered a blue-chip artist<\/a>, meaning his work is highly sought after and has a high monetary value.<\/p>\n The former UC Irvine medical student, who was once homeless after switching his major from medicine to art, said he blends fine art, quantum metaphysics and philosophy into his work.<\/p>\n The Vietnamese refugee owns the Winn Slavin Fine Art gallery<\/a> on Rodeo Drive and was appointed earlier this month<\/a> as art commissioner for Orange County\u2019s John Wayne Airport.<\/p>\n The loss of his art pushed Winn \u201cto a dark place,\u201d he said, though he said he found some catharsis in talking about the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are my children,\u201d he said of each of his individual works. \u201cI have no physical, organic children. Every artwork I create is my child.\u201d<\/p>\n The larger of the two sculptures, \u201cHomme,\u201d was the seventh and only unsold work in Winn\u2019s Quantum Mechanics series, which explores philosophical concepts, universal truths and tries to answer the enduring question: Why are we here?<\/p>\n The smaller \u201cIcarus Within\u201d focused on Winn\u2019s struggle around the age of 9 in emigrating to the United States in the final days of the Vietnam War. The sculpture was tied to Winn\u2019s movie \u201cChrysalis,\u201d based on his memoirs, that is supposed to premiere in the fall.<\/p>\n Winn said the level of sophistication in the theft led him to suspect he was targeted and that his pieces might be on the black market.<\/p>\n He turned over a list of individuals who had recently inquired about his sculptures to police, he said.<\/p>\n Matt Sutter, the Anaheim police sergeant, said this was the largest burglary he\u2019d seen in his 25 years with the department.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had our share of high-end homes that were burglarized, but this type of crime, involving forklifts, trucks, crews and the sheer size of the sculptures is something I can\u2019t remember us having before,\u201d Sutter said.<\/p>\n Prior to the recovery of the art, Sutter said investigators asked businesses near the warehouse for any footage that could help them identify a suspect.<\/p>\n Chris Marinello, founder of the dispute resolution and art recovery service Art Recovery International<\/a>, said a likely scenario was the sculptures would be scrapped for their metals.<\/p>\n Marinello said scrap yards tear apart such works into thousands of small pieces to cloak the metal\u2019s origin.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, the criminals are not that bright and they don\u2019t see artwork but, instead, a sculpture worth millions that is more valuable to them for the raw metals like steel and bronze,\u201d Marinello said.<\/p>\n