Just call him the not-so-artful dodger
Awaits sentencing for stealing other artwork

MICHAELANGELO CONTE - JERSEY JOURNAL - Jan 11

The Jersey City man arrested Monday walking along Monticello Avenue with a $35,000 painting stolen from St. Peter's College was already awaiting sentencing for taking three other paintings from the college last February.

"He allegedly returned to the scene of his previous crime," Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said yesterday.

Paul Minor, 46, of Jewett Avenue, was arrested on Feb. 6 by St. Peter's College security and later indicted on two counts of theft and three counts each of criminal trespass and burglary, DeFazio said.

Minor pleaded guilty to theft on Oct. 23 and although he was to have been sentenced tomorrow, that will most likely be postponed, officials said.

Minor has still not been charged with stealing the $35,000 painting.

Over the weekend, someone stole the painting by Stephen Sacklarian from a college building on Glenwood Avenue, and at 9:09 p.m. Monday officers spotted Minor dragging it down Monticello Avenue, reports said.

Police charged Minor with receiving stolen property, but that could be upgraded if police determine he took the painting, DeFazio said.

Minor was convicted of a 1996 burglary in Jersey City and later spent time in prison for drug possession and for dealing drugs near a school, officials said.

St. Peter's College could not be reached last night for comment on the prior theft. DeFazio said the paintings Minor took in February were not as valuable as the Sacklarian, which was painted in 1977 and donated to the college two decades ago.

Looking at the painting it is clear that this dealer has violated rule number one:

Don't get high on your own supply.

Someone paid 35 big ones for that? Hell I could crank out three or four of those this weekend.

Is the Jersey Journal art reporter really called MICHAELANGELO?????

Maybe it's a publicity ploy by the dealer.

See? JC really is hip with respect to the art world. Even drug dealers go to extreme lengths to obtain fine pieces.

wonder if he had a dealer or buyer lined up.......

scope ny is just a month or so away......

You can really see the damage that being dragged down the street did to it.

Oh wait, that's a different painting.

"Reality of Unreality," $35G painting found being dragged down Jersey City street, cops say

MICHAELANGELO CONTE -- JERSEY JOURNAL -- JAN 10

Stolen from St. Peter's College over the weekend, a $35,000 painting was recovered Monday night from a convicted drug dealer dragging it down a Jersey City street, officials said.

The painting, part of series titled "Reality of Unreality," was created by Stephen Sacklarian, who died in 1983.

"I think it's wonderful there are art critics who are able to appreciate wonderful paintings and will go to any length to acquire them," joked Arthur Furman of Ethel A. Furman & Associates in Virginia, the sole U.S. dealer of Sacklarian's work.

At 9:09 p.m. Monday police spotted Paul Minor, 46, of Jewett Avenue, dragging the large painting down Monticello Avenue, reports said.

Minor told the cops he found the painting near Fairmount Avenue but wouldn't say more and was arrested on the charge of receiving stolen property, reports said.

Charges against Minor could be upgraded if it is determined he was involved in the theft of the painting, officials said.

Minor has served time in prison for drug possession and dealing drugs near a school, state corrections officials said.

The 1977 painting was donated to St. Peter's two decades ago and since then had been hanging in the first-floor hallway of Hilsdorf Faculty Memorial Hall, a building on Glenwood Avenue just east of Kennedy Boulevard, said a St. Peter's fine arts professor, the Rev. Oscar Magnan S.J. The painting was brought to Magnan's studio yesterday afternoon and he will find a safer place on campus for it.

The painting was last seen on Friday evening by the Rev. Mark Destephano, S.J., and on Monday morning he noticed it was missing, Magnan said. Officials said the college did not report it missing immediately because it was not known whether it might have been moved for some legitimate reason. By Monday evening police detectives were investigating.

Sacklarian's paintings are in more than 60 museums around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He traveled extensively and visited with Picasso, Matisse, Henry Moore, Gorky and others, according to Furman, his art dealer.

Sacklarian's art is populated with amorphous figures and whimsical forms that often float against bright, angular backgrounds or subtle dark fields of color. His work has sold at auction at Phillip's, Christie's and Sotheby's, according to Ethel A. Furman & Associates. Furman said the highest sale price he knows of for a Sacklarian work is $50,000.


Another work by Stephen Sacklarian