Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images.
Updated December 9, 2025
In a daylight robbery on December 7, two armed thieves stole eight prints by Henri Matisse and at least five engravings by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari from the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo.
The works were part of “From Book to Museum,” an exhibition that was presented in collaboration with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art. The show, which focused on art linked to books and included examples of artworks and artist books by Férnand Leger, Hélio Oiticica, José Antonio da Silva, and Lygia Pape among others, was due to close that day.
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The thieves, who entered the library around 10:00 am, held up a security guard and an elderly couple before grabbing the artworks and fleeing on foot, according to a report by Le Monde. The building is equipped with security cameras, and São Paulo police have already identified and arrested one of the suspects.
Le Monde also notes that Sâo Paulo has a city-wide surveillance system that uses facial recognition technology and that the Brazilian news site G1 has broadcast a video purporting to show one of the thieves carrying several artworks down the street and then abandoning them next to a pile of garbage.
As reported by the New York Times yesterday, it is still not known which pieces by Matisse were stolen. However, a copy of Matisse’s 1947 artist book Jazz was on display in the show. Comprising 20 pochoir prints (hand-painted stencil prints) based on the artist’s cutouts, it was published in a limited edition of 100. Authorities have not yet commented on the estimated value of the missing works, but in 2021 a copy of Jazz sold at auction for $774,000.
The engravings by Portinari were produced as illustrations for a special edition of José Lins do Rego’s novel Menino de Engenho (Plantation Boy), according to city officials.
The São Paulo heist is the latest in a number of thefts of cultural objects that have happened around the world this year. In October, thieves stole nine pieces of jewelry from the Louvre, valued at $102 million. A few days prior, more than 1,000 objects owned by the Oakland Museum of California were stolen from an off-site storage facility, though the theft was not revealed until after the Louvre theft.
