Minneapolis police recovered 14 paintings stolen from the North Loop studio of artist Leon Hushcha, roughly $60,000 of the estimated $80,000 in art taken in a June burglary.

The Minneapolis Police Department called Hushcha, 80, on July 10 to tell him the paintings had been found at an undisclosed location in St. Paul, he told the Minnesota Star Tribune. No arrests have been made.

"It was just like a 180 ― like you're worried one day and the next day you're celebrating," Hushcha told the Star Tribune.

Four paintings, dozens of prints and several handmade platters remain missing, per the report. The department declined to release details of the recovery.

"Information regarding the date, time, and location of the recovery is currently considered investigative data and cannot be released at this time," MPD spokesperson Garrett Parten told the Star Tribune. "The investigation remains active and ongoing, and investigators continue to follow up on available leads."

Two men entered Hushcha's studio between 6:45 and 7:15 a.m. on June 2, likely through a fire escape door, and wheeled the art out on a cart, security footage showed. The burglary is being investigated as a felony.

The men appeared on hallway surveillance cameras before turning the cameras away, Hushcha's assistant Carley Novak told the Star Tribune. She and Hushcha later pulled additional footage from neighbors and from the building's parking lot.

Hushcha noted in a post on Facebook that he held a gallery opening on May 28 and asked visitors to share any pictures taken of the artwork and people in the gallery.

“It’s possible the thieves were at the opening,” Huscha said in his post.

Huscha estimated in his post that the stolen works were collectively valued at about $80,000.

The Star Tribune initially reported in June that 18 paintings and 40 to 50 prints had been taken. Its July story put the number of prints still missing at 80.

"At first it was a shock, but in an hour I was laughing because I thought it was so ludicrous and so crazy that someone would steal that much art," Hushcha said after the burglary.

"It just never occurred to me nor has it occurred to anybody that someone could steal that much art in Minneapolis. This isn't Paris, this isn't New York ― this is Minneapolis."

"When I saw the emptiness, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I laughed because that protects me from reality," he told CBS Minnesota at the time.

The recovered paintings, some dating to the 1970s, came back intact, though Novak said the frames were "tattered and beaten up… as if they were just throwing these things around."

Among the returned works was The Celebration, a small piece Hushcha started in the mid-1970s and finished only recently.

"All the time you put into a painting is gone when someone does this to you," Hushcha said. "You feel cheated."

Hushcha, who was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria after his parents fled Ukraine during World War II, has painted abstract and figurative work in the Twin Cities for more than six decades.

He holds degrees from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the University of Minnesota, and his work is held by the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Weisman Art Museum, among other collections, according to Gallery 5004.

The theft has driven new interest in his work. Hushcha normally holds studio exhibitions in May and December but has added a show on September 17 — with the police evidence tags displayed alongside the recovered paintings.

"I don't want to lose this momentum I have right now," he told the Star Tribune. "People are so interested in the stolen property with the actual evidence tags."

Police wrote their own descriptions of the works on the tags, ignoring Hushcha's titles.

"There's one that's like 'Topless woman with fish on head,'" Novak said. "It's hilarious. We are going to make [labels] out of them and have them with every piece."

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

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