Gardner Museum Heist —Blog

Gardner Heist Aftermath Post-Truth Makes Camp in the Athens of America (Part One) Gardner Heist Aftermath Post-Truth Makes Camp in the Athens of America (Part Two)

Gardner Heist Aftermath Post-Truth Makes Camp in the Athens of America (Part Three) Gardner Heist Aftermath Post-Truth Makes Camp in the Athens of America (Part Four)

Gardner Heist Aftermath
Post-Truth Makes Camp in the Athens of America (Part Two)

Myles Connor was "almost synonymous in New England with art thievery," the Boston Globe reported, two months after the Gardner heist. But with a "1000 tips," and no suspects, and though he was already into his second year in an Illinois County jail cell, a thousand miles away, for filling that large, glaring hole in the coverage of this local crime story, gone international, Myles Connor would just have to do.

It wasn't a terrible fit. Fifteen years earlier, in the fall of 1975, Connor had personally directed from his cell in Boston's Charles Steet jail, the return of a Rembrandt which had been snatched from a wall at gunpoint from the Museum of Fine Arts, on April 14th of that year,

The high noon robbery occurred earlier in the week of a two day visit by President Gerald Ford, kicking off the country's Bicentennial celebration, with a speech at the Old North Church.

In exchange for the return of the uninsured Rembrandt, charges which Connor was facing, some in federal, and some in state court, were permitted to be served concurrently. Effectively, Connor received a sentence reduction for his trouble, in getting “Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak” returned to the Museum, where it had been on loan for decades, from the heirs of Robert Treat Paine, a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

When he was arrested in September of 1975, Connor was a fugitive for a different stolen art crime. He was a no-show at his trial on interstate transportation of stolen property charges, which was scheduled for the third week in April, the week after the MFA robbery.

In 1974, Connor was arrested, while trying to sell five paintings, to an undercover FBI agent, which had been stolen from the Woolworth Estate in Monmouth, Maine, over Memorial Day weekend. It was in the parking lot of a Cape Cod shopping plaza on Route 6, only weeks later, on a perfect July beach day.

"I'd been set up," Connor later wrote.

The paintings included three works by N.C. Wyeth, and one by his son Andrew Wyeth, as well as a reproduction of another Andrew Wyeth painting.

The remote estate had been so wide open, that the thieves, in addition to paintings, were able to make off with two enormous antique grandfather clocks.

Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, a 68 year old widow, a photograph in profile, of whom, as a young woman, can be found in the United Kingdom's National Portrait gallery, was on vacation in Europe at the time, leaving her storied Estate, set on Cobbosseecontee Lake, in a thousand acre wood, unguarded.

The property had already been robbed of an even larger haul of valuable paintings, $250,000 worth, just two years earlier.

But while the names of the painters from the first burglary are not known to most people, the name "Wyeth," has become one of the most widely known, in the world of American art.

At that time, works by the father N.C. Wyeth, were deemed more valuable, than those of his now more famous son, Andrew. Known today, for works such as Christina's World, and a series of works "The Helga Pictures," Andrew Wyeth's renown has far surpassed that of his father, whose most famous work is a cover illustration of the Robert Lewis Stevenson adventure novel, "Treasure Island."

But there have been those, intent on inflating Connor's standing in the world of art crime, who like to tell how five Wyeth paintings, or: "Five or six Wyeth paintings. Important paintings. were stolen," as if the name "Wyeth" itself is proof that the burglary was the handiwork of criminal masterminds. (And as if a copy of painting is the same as the original.)

"Officials said the second theft had persuaded Mrs. Woolworth to have a burglar alarm installed," it was reported.

After the first robbery, "Frederick Woolworth of New York City, said his mother, the widow of a member of the '10-cent store' Woolworth family, had spent 20 years collecting the paintings.

“This collection took years to put together during the late 1940's and 1950's. It was unique, and it tells the story of this country,” Mr. Woolworth said.

The paintings in the second robbery were also valuable, but not quite what "five Wyeth paintings" might suggest today, 50 years later.

As with nearly everything related to Myles Connor, the truth is a feeble shadow of the legend.

There is only Connor's word that the he was actually present at the Woolworth estate burglary. He claims to have been there with others, led by Robert Donati. "That was actually Bobby Donati's deal. And he had actually put the whole thing together," Connor said on the Netflix documentary. This Is A Robbery.

But Donat had been arrested by the U.S. Secret Service seven months earlier, in October of 1973 for receiving stolen property and possession of counterfeit bills, while in the course of selling $515,000 worth of stolen US Treasury notes to a federal agent.

When the Feds nabbed Donati, he was already under indictment and out on bail, for arson. Police observed Donati stopped Donati coming out of the Medford drycleaners, which was already closed for the night and minutes later it burst into flames.

In addition, he was still on parole, for a 1965 armed holdup of a Boston furrier. A parking ticket the getaway car received during the robbery, allowed the police to quickly apprehend the robbers.

It seems doubtful that a federal judge would have released Donati on personal recognizance, under those circumstances. But Connor wrote in his book, that Donati had planned the entire job, and that he and Connor went up to the estate, then known as Clearview Farm to case the property.

But even if they had released Donati after his arrest, while out on bail, under indictment for arson and on parole for armed robbery, less than a week before the 1974 Woolworth estate burglary, and possibly only three days before it, Donati was sentenced in Middlesex Superior Court to 4-8 years in Walpole State prison, for the arson, as well as an unspecified amount of time as well as an unspecified portion of his 12-20 year sentence for the armed robbery, for which he was still on parole.

Connor also claimed that it was Donati who had found a buyer for the stolen Wyeth paintings. "When he [Donati] told me he'd found a buyer for the Wyeths, I made certain assumptions. 'We can trust this guy, right?' I asked."

"Bobby nodded. 'Absolutely.'"

Donati's court date on the still pending federal charges was scheduled for two weeks after Connor's arrest with the stolen art from the Woolworth Estate.

If anything, the "World's Greatest Art Thief," Myles Connor, was somehow played by "the World's Greatest government informant, Bobby Donati.

Or it might just be an example of where, "the book is clearly shaded by Connor's version of the truth," as Shelley Murphy of the Boston Globe wrote in her review of Myles Connor's book, The Art of the Heist, before Connor had been rehabilitated in the media. When the book came out, he was still the cop shooting low life, and Gardner heist con artist or pathetic wannabe, with only a bit of the deference afforded the quoted and quotable."

But fodder for the makings of the disinforming, Myles Connor folk legend was slowly beginning to accumulate.

by Kerry Joyce

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