San Francisco Blog

An enraged e-mail blast from San Francisco artist Lee Harvey Roswell put out an APB -- All Paintings Bulletin -- for a quartet of his works he claims were stolen off his front porch over the weekend.

The eclectic painter says a deliveryman failed to knock or ring the buzzer and simply left four of Roswell's paintings from the artist's "Mugshots" series leaning against his Twin Peaks door. Since, as you can see here, Roswell's style doesn't resemble, say, watercolors of sailboats in the rain or portraits of cable cars chugging up California Street with the Bay Bridge in the background, the filched paintings figure to stand out. Anyone who sees them can drop the artist a line here.

"The year has brought so many bloody misadventures with it for me (I'm not referring to my engagement, that singular joy, I want that on the records), frankly I'm having a tougher time picking myself back up off the floor lately," writes the artist. "And this latest punch makes my painter's hand feel de-boned and my heart ground down to powder."

With luck -- lots of luck -- Roswell can enjoy the good fortune of gallery owner Michael Rosenthal, who reported four paintings stolen in March. The $50,000 paintings were bought hours later for $1,000 out of a van -- and quickly returned -- by a man who told SF Weekly he doesn't "know shit" about art. Click on the jump for images of the other three nicked Roswell paintings.