New director takes helm of São Paulo library after art heist

A new director has taken the helm of the São Paulo municipal library where thieves stole works by Henri Matisse and Brazilian modernist Candido Portinar last month.

Luiza Helena Thesin was tapped to serve as the director of the Mário de Andrade Library, São Paulo’s Municipal Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy announced on January 19.

The secretariat said Thesin, who now leads Brazil’s second-largest library, has been tasked with strengthening the library's cultural reach, securing new institutional support, and promoting events that use literature to foster exchange among cities, states and countries.

The announcement made no reference to last month’s heist in which two armed thieves stole more than a dozen works, including eight by Henri Matisse, during viewing hours on the final day of an exhibition at the library. During the heist, the robbers subdued security workers and an elderly couple visiting the exhibition.

Brazilian authorities opened an investigation and alerted Interpol shortly after the theft. The São Paulo State Secretariat of Public Security later said one of two suspects, Felipe dos Santos Fernandes Quadra, had been arrested.

Then, in late December, police arrested a woman believed to be the wife of one of the men who appears on security cameras fleeing with the paintings. The Folha de São Paulo newspaper reported, citing police, that she allegedly helped him hide the stolen art. The second suspect is still being sought by authorities.

São Paulo officials told the newspaper that the departure of the library’s previous director, Rodrigo Massi, was unrelated to the theft. Massi had only taken over the role of director in June.

Since the heist at the Louvre Museum on October 19, there has been global fascination with similar thefts.

Burglars broke into the Oakland Museum’s off-site storage facility just before 3:30 a.m. local time on October 15 and made off with historic artifacts, including Native American baskets and jewelry, as well as laptops owned by the museum.

Last month, police in southwest England released images from closed-circuit television of four men they want to identify in connection with a high-value burglary in September that saw more than 600 museum artifacts stolen from a storage facility in Bristol.

Follow along with other art crime stories at Urgent Matter’s art crime tracker.