Theft of Sculptures Puzzles Brea Police

BREA —  The great grizzly bear may yet come home, but nobody expects to see everybody’s favorite businessman again--at least not in one piece.

The two life-size bronze sculptures were stolen late last month from the exterior of separate Brea office buildings.

“Doublecheck,” famed artist J. Seward Johnson Jr.’s realistic depiction of a businessman reading a letter, and “Golden California,” Robert Cunningham’s snarling bear, were created in the early 1980s through the city’s Art in Public Places program, which requires private developers of major projects to spend 1% of their costs on art.

Brea police, who do not know whether the thefts are connected, said Wednesday there has been no sign of “Golden California,” which was at Imperial Highway and Puente Street.

But an unidentified party may have cut up “Doublecheck,” estimated to be worth at least $100,000, and tried to sell it for scrap at a Santa Fe Springs metal shop, whose proprietors turned the would-be profiteer away empty-handed, said Sgt. Ed McDonald of the Brea Police Department.

“We were hoping some college fraternity had taken it and we might get it back,” McDonald said, “but it doesn’t look that way now.”

Years ago, police recovered a metal pelican, stolen from a Rusty Pelican restaurant, in a college fraternity garage, he said.

Police continue to investigate both thefts, and Emily Keller, Brea’s community services manager, said that if the dismembered sculpture is recovered, perhaps it could be rejoined through special techniques.

Sculptures by Johnson, the son of one of the founders of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company, are displayed in more than two dozen states and in several foreign countries. His hyper-realistic artworks have garnered him enormous celebrity and commercial success. He was once featured in Time magazine, and full-page ads for his works appear monthly in the tony Architectural Digest magazine.

“Doublecheck,” which was on Birch Street between Kraemer Boulevard and Valencia Street, was “probably the most popular” of the 105 Art in Public Places sculptures, said Keller, whose department coordinates self-guided tours of the outdoor sculptures.

“Everybody is really disheartened by the loss,” she said. “It was such a source of community pride.”

Keller estimates the current market price of “Doublecheck”--if it’s still intact--to be $100,000. She doesn’t think anyone will be able to get more than $200 for the bronze that went into it. Still, she hopes that people will keep an eye out for both works.

“They are kind of difficult to hide,” she said.