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\n\tMinneapolis police have identified one of two people they believe stole roughly $80,000 worth of artwork from the studio of 80-year-old artist Leon Hushcha, in a burglary that involved a UPS vest, a handcart, and, apparently, another artist.<\/p>\n
\n\tRicardo Andres Bassat, 56, has been charged with felony burglary and is due in Hennepin County District Court on Monday, according to the\u00a0Minnesota Star Tribune<\/em>. Police are still looking for his alleged accomplice. Court records, the\u00a0Star Tribune<\/em>\u00a0reported, describe Bassat as an \u201camateur artist who is familiar with different styles of artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe burglary happened early on June 2 at Hushcha\u2019s studio in Minneapolis\u2019s North Loop neighborhood. Surveillance footage showed two people arriving with an empty cart at around 6:45 a.m., one of them wearing a UPS vest. About 30 minutes later, they left pushing the cart, now loaded and covered with a black sheet. The stolen haul included paintings, prints, and handmade platters worth about $80,000.<\/p>\n \n\tA tipster later identified the man in the UPS vest as Bassat and told police that he rented a storage unit in St. Paul. Police searched the unit on July 1 and recovered 14 of Hushcha\u2019s paintings inside a large black Pelican protective case. Also in the locker was a portfolio containing sketches signed \u201cBassat,\u201d along with mail bearing his name.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c[My impression was] that he was trying to be an artist himself,\u201d Hushcha told the\u00a0Star Tribune<\/em>. \u201cIt was definitely my impression, and I thought: \u2018Well, okay, how crazy can this whole thing get?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHushcha\u2019s studio assistant, Carley Novak, called the discovery of Bassat\u2019s artwork mixed in with Hushcha\u2019s \u201cthe cherry on top\u201d of the alleged heist. \u201cThey\u2019re not bad, he\u2019s not terrible, but it\u2019s definitely not a Leon Hushcha,\u201d Novak said.<\/p>\n \n\tHushcha has spent more than 60 years making abstract and figurative works in the Twin Cities. The 14 recovered paintings are worth an estimated $60,000, while four paintings and 80 prints are still missing. The paintings came back intact, though their frames were another matter. Novak described them as \u201ctattered and beaten up,\u201d as though the thieves had been throwing the works around.<\/p>\n \n\tHushcha and Novak now plan to turn part of the ordeal into an exhibition. The recovered works will go on view at his studio beginning September 17, accompanied by the evidence tags police attached to them after their recovery.<\/p>\n \n\tBassat was charged by summons. Court records do not list an attorney representing him, and the\u00a0Star Tribune<\/em>\u00a0said it had tried to reach him for comment. His criminal history includes convictions for assault with a dangerous weapon and misdemeanor theft.<\/p>\n \n\tHushcha, for his part, seems more bewildered than angry. He told the newspaper that if the people responsible had simply apologized and returned the work, he would have forgiven them.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIn one sense it\u2019s harmless, but it\u2019s a lesson I think to the artist community that they have to be careful with what they are doing and how they\u00a0[are]\u00a0housing their work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/leon-hushcha-art-theft-minneapolis-ricardo-bassat-1234795383\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/GettyImages-108192273-1.jpg?w=1024″] Minneapolis police have identified one of two people they believe stole roughly $80,000 worth of artwork from the studio of 80-year-old artist Leon Hushcha, in a burglary that involved a UPS vest, a handcart, and, apparently, another artist. Ricardo Andres Bassat, 56, has been charged with felony burglary and is due in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2104047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}