Suzi Malin’s ‘Leather Boys’ painting

MYSTERY surrounds a cache of stolen art worth more than £250,000 – after two paintings by a renowned artist reappeared this week, four years after they first went missing.

Suzi Malin, who lives in West Hampstead, is globally recognised as one of the leading contemporary portrait painters and her sought-after work graces institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery.

But in the summer of 2018, she suffered a devastating burglary when her life’s work – an archive of 400 pieces stretching over decades – was stolen from storage space in Maida Vale. None of the items had ever been traced but the New Journal has learned that police recovered two paintings which Ms Malin identifies as her work from a gallery in Fitzrovia last week. Officers are holding the pieces while an investigation takes place.

The gallery is hired out to independent dealers and curators, and there is no suggestion that the owner had any idea about issues relating to the ownership or provenance of the works being displayed.

The same applies to the art dealer behind the show and there is no suggestion that they had any knowledge that the items may be part of the works that had gone missing.

Ms Malin said: “When I saw these two pieces, I was knocked over – I just did not know what to do. I thought I’d never see them again. I know they were originals because I painted them on velum, a type of leather, and you could see clearly they were the originals. Seeing them there was like seeing old friends.”

Artist Suzi Malin

The paintings had been marked as being sold – prompting her to act swiftly to halt any sale without any further research into their background.

The works were part of a wider series called London Men, said Ms Malin. “It was 1980, and I met this leather boy and he looked marvellous,” she said. “I wanted to paint him and he said, ‘Great, can I bring my boyfriend?’ I offered to pay them but they said all they wanted was a can of Coke each.”

An afternoon session saw Ms Malin sketch out some ideas and take photographs for her studies and started her off on a series.

She said: “The Leather Boys sparked it. I decided to look at different parts of London and the men who inhabit the city. They were humorous – I enjoy observing the human condition.” The pieces were displayed in a show in 1982 and then returned to her personal archive, where they remained until the burglary in 2018.

Ms Malin – who has created portraits of an array of famous faces including Sir Elton John and Zandra Rhodes – recalled: “From the outside, you could not tell there had been a robbery. I had put strong locks on as I had been burgled the year before, losing lots of sketches. I opened up the store, looked inside and what I saw was absolutely awful. I stepped in and discovered that everything was gone.”

The thief or thieves would have needed a large van and somewhere private to store the paintings – and the know-how and patience to slowly dispose of the works once the trail went cold.

Ms Malin said: “There was work I did when I was a student, through to the productivity of the mid-point in my career. The work was priceless to me – and worth a lot of money if it were to be sold.”

She added: “As an artist, you are on a journey and you need to be able to look back over your own work. It was impossible to put it into words, how I felt when they were taken. There is just a big hole in your stomach: a feeling of nothing, of emptiness.” Police are now looking at how the paintings came to be for sale and where they have been for four years.

A Met Police spokes­man said: “Officers have recovered two paintings believed to be stolen in a burglary in 2018. On Thursday November 24 officers from the Central North Command Unit, acting on information received, attended a com­mercial premises.

“Officers found two paintings that have been identified as being stolen in a burglary in Maida Vale in 2018. The paintings, which are believed to be valued at around £1500 each, have been secured. There have been no arrests at this time and detectives from the Central North Command continue to investigate.”