A Landlord Found a Peculiar Print Hanging in a Vacant Apartment. It Turned Out to Be an Original Picasso That Had Been Missing for Eight Years

After his tenant moved out, Timothy Dertz noticed a curious artwork on the wall of his Milwaukee apartment. It was a print of a bullfighter, and a thick layer of dust had collected on the top of the frame. When he asked an antique dealer to take a look, the two men noticed a signature in green crayon: “Picasso.” When the pair dug deeper, they realized that the artwork was a 1949 Pablo Picasso etching called Torero (Spanish for “bullfighter”) that had been missing from Milwaukee’s DeLind Fine Art Appraisals since 2018.

At the time of its disappearance, it was valued at $35,000 to $50,000. Dertz handed over the artwork to the Milwaukee Police Department on August 5. Officers contacted Bill DeLind, the art dealer who had co-owned the gallery.

He examined the artwork and confirmed that it was the real deal. Even so, they say that the incident is still under investigation. The disappearance was distressing for the owners of the gallery, a small operation with no working security cameras at the time of the theft.

On February 16, 2018, “somebody walked in in the middle of the day and picked a Picasso off the wall and walked out with it,” DeLind tells the ’ Scott Bauer. His business partner, Michael Goforth, who died earlier this year, noticed that the artwork wasn’t in its usual spot a few hours later. When no new leads materialized, they raised the reward to $7,500 and then $10,000.

Every year, on the anniversary of the theft, DeLind and Goforth checked in with the police or contacted local media outlets, hoping to keep the search active. We like to share these beautiful works of art with everyone in the community. And for someone to just walk in and take advantage of that, it was hurtful.” Robert Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s art crime team, told the TV station that the gallery owners shouldn’t lose hope, as stolen artworks sometimes make their way back.

If they come back on the market, somebody usually finds out about their origins. When Dertz learned of the theft, he became quite anxious about his unwitting involvement, spending a night pacing and “freaking out,” his girlfriend, Natassha Delgado, tells the Washington Post’s Cole Reynolds. He turned the print over to authorities the next morning.