MEREDITH — The apparent theft of a large piece of artwork from a gallery had a painter in shock on Monday.
Dennis Morton said he took the news of the theft with, “surprise, a little bit of shock.” Morton was speaking from Hawaii, where he was attending gallery openings, restoring some of his earlier works and being interviewed for a documentary about him.
Morton is well-known in Hawaii, where his landscapes are seen in galleries and hang in public buildings. But he also has had a home in the Lakes Region. For two years, he and his partner, Maureen Bieniarz-Pond, operated the Imagines Gallery in downtown Laconia.
In 2015, Morton painted “Meredith Winter,” a four-foot-by-five-foot scene looking at downtown Meredith from across the bay. For the past three years, it was hanging at VynnArt, a gallery on Main Street in Meredith, with the asking price of $7,200.
Gallery owner Vynnie Hale said he suspects the painting was stolen on Friday of last week. He said the door to the gallery was left unlocked on Friday morning, perhaps by a contractor who was doing maintenance work on the building last week. He didn’t notice the painting was missing until Saturday, but said he suspects it was taken on Friday.
“I’m pretty devastated. It’s a person’s art. It’s very personal,” Hale said. He has owned the gallery since 2010 and never had anything stolen before now.
Because of the size of the painting, and because of the way it was mounted, Hale said it would have to take at least two people to remove the painting.
A spokesperson for the Meredith Police Department confirmed that the theft had been reported and said that the investigation was continuing.
Morton, who has been painting for more than 40 years, said this isn’t the first time some of his work has disappeared.
“I’ve had six paintings stolen from me in my lifetime … It happens every now and then. It’s flattering in a kind of way, but a pain in the ass in another,” he said.
“I’m a little shocked by the whole thing,” Morton said, adding that there might be an upside to his brand if people value his work enough to commit a felony to acquire it. “The publicity I get from it might be beneficial to me.”
(1) comment
Beautiful picture! Hope it is found.
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