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LOS ANGELES -- A Norman Rockwell painting stolen from a suburban St. Louis gallery more than three decades ago has turned up in Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday. Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom" was nabbed during a late-night burglary in Clayton, Mo., on June 25, 1973. The Oscar-winning filmmaker purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement After Spielberg's staff brought it to the attention of authorities, an...

Excerpt - Academy Award-winning director and producer Steven Spielberg has turned over to federal authorities Russian Schoolroom, a 1967 oil on canvas by Norman Rockwell that was filched from a Clayton art gallery in 1973, according to the FBI. No charges have been filed in the case, and federal officials say they have no evidence that Spielberg knew the painting had been stolen when he purchased it in 1989. "It appears that he is an innocent buyer," says St. Louis-based FBI agent Frank Brostrom, a member of the agency's Art Crime Team, who initiated the investigation. Spielberg is an avid...

I was looking at some of Norman Rockwell's drawings on the web and came across this one of Ronald Reagan. I have never seen this one before and I thought I would share it with everyone on FR. Since Norman Rockwell passed away in 1978, this must have been done around the time Reagan was governor of California.

The original of a Norman Rockwell painting found behind a fake wall has fetched a record $15.4m (£7.9m). Breaking Home Ties by the US artist was first sold to cartoonist Donald Trachte in 1960 for $900 when the two were neighbours in Vermont. But Mr Trachte made a replica of the painting and hid the genuine piece in a cavity in his studio. The original was discovered by Mr Trachte's sons after he died last year and sold at Sotheby's in New York. In April, David and Donald Trachte Jnr noticed a strange gap in the wall of a room...

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.-One of Norman Rockwell's most famous paintings was found hidden behind a fake wall in its owner's home, proving that the version the owner had long displayed was a forgery, family members and experts said.They believe that the owner, illustrator Donald Trachte Sr., made the copy of "Breaking Home Ties" himself in the early 1970s, deades after he bought it from Rockwell and made it the centerpiece of his art collection.

Rockwell rocks! Fashionable art critics once had nothing but disdain for Norman Rockwell, labeling his idealized view of America as "Gee-Gosh-Shucksism." But Rockwell's work is enjoying a resurgence of respect; critics like him again—and even "admit it in polite society" By Marvin Olasky The World Series this fall included three improbable ninth-inning comebacks, but one going on now in New York City is even more unlikely. Manhattan's artists, students, and critics are flocking to the Guggenheim Museum, a shrine to abstract art, and admiring an exhibit, 23 years after his death, of the 20th-century American painter most despised by the ...

As the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, we hear a speech by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on torture from Guantanamo to Abu Gharib to Vietnam.Hersh is the author of 'Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Gharib.' He spoke last month at the Wise Free Synagogue in New York.'The amazing thing is that we have been taken over by a cult of eight or nine neo-conservatives that have somehow grapped the government.' 'Just how and why they did it so efficiently, we will have to wait for much later...