Burglars Knew What They Liked at Leucadia Art Gallery

Everybody’s a critic, and in Leucadia, even the burglars express artistic judgment.

Burglars struck the Leucadia Art Gallery on New Year’s Eve, making off with seven sculptures, all created by the same Leucadia artist.

Not only did the intruders ignore 60 other pieces, at least two of which were worth more than any of those taken, but they appear to have gone to great lengths to protect the stolen sculptures with packaging materials.

“It’s real strange. It’s really hard to understand who would do this,” said gallery owner Morgan Mallory. “They were so very selective and walked past a lot of other pieces and chose this one man’s artwork.”

John Seely, the victimized artist, said he was flattered that a person was smitten enough with his work to risk prison.

“I’m complimented on the one hand, but that is only a little silver lining compared to the loss of some of my favorite work,” said Seely, of Leucadia.

The burglars kicked in the front door of the gallery in the 1000 block of Pacific Coast Highway and stole seven works of art valued at a total of $4,000, including a 3-foot-tall, 150-pound sculpture made of glass, granite and neon lights, Mallory said.

“It was by far the heaviest and most awkward piece in the gallery to steal,” Mallory said. “They also stole our trash can and used bubble-wrap plastic to package the art so it wouldn’t break.”

Mallory said the 3-foot-tall sculpture, an abstract, free-form work called “Prolyfeious II,” had a price tag of $1,850 but was not the most expensive piece of art in the gallery. It required at least two people to lift it.

“It wasn’t that they were taking the cream of the crop, but it was a burglar who said, ‘I like this man’s style, I think I’ll steal it,’ ” Mallory hypothesized.

The burglars raided a cash box that had only spare change, and left the box behind, Mallory said.

“These pieces aren’t marketable,” Mallory said. “You can’t take them to the swap meet and sell them. They are recognizable and signed on the bottom.”

Seely, who has been showing his work at the gallery for nine years, fears that his sculptures, some all of glass and some in glass and granite, might be headed for other parts of the country to be sold.

“I don’t see anybody being brazen enough to try to sell them in Southern California,” he said.

Seely said that, in a previous break-in at another gallery, the looters left his work alone.

“I was happy to learn that they took the time to pack the pieces,” he said. “At least they felt somewhat of a value for them and didn’t just throw them in a box.”