S.F. Gallery's Swiped Art Regained -- Man Buys Hot Paintings Out of Van at Market and Fifth

This and three other Terry Hoff paintings were swiped from Michael Rosenthal Gallery on Valencia on Friday morning -- and recovered less than 24 hours later

Less than 24 hours after San Francisco police called gallery owner Michael Rosenthal in the wee hours to inform him a quartet of his valuable paintings had been swiped in a break-in, they did it again. This time, the cops had better news -- his paintings had been recovered.

A 3 a.m. call on Friday morning informed Rosenthal about the break-in and theft of four paintings by Pacifica artist Terry Hoff, valued at roughly $50,000. Large amounts of other valuable material including expensive cameras and comptuers was left untouched.

Then at 2 a.m. on Saturday, police phoned Rosenthal once again; A man bought all four paintings after midnight from a white van from an "Italian-looking man" for $1,000. When the man -- whose idenity Rosenthal did not have at his fingertips -- got the paintings home, he saw a bulletin on the television news reporting the theft and called the SFPD.

Rosenthal remains mystified by the experience, but says he's feeling a lot better now than he was last week.

"I feel relieved. Some of the paintings were damaged, but they are all repairable in a pretty easy way," said the proprietor of the Michael Rosenthal Gallery on Valencia. "I feel like I lost two days of my life being consumed by this thing."

To view more of the stolen-and-recovered paintings, click here.