Unabandit prank

[Ya Sam]

"But those familiar with the painting know it for more than its questionable 
artistic attributes. The painting has been stolen twice, both times in 1996. 
In the first incident, on April 6, the portrait disappeared and was found 
underneath the stage in Mandel Hall. “The first time there was something to 
do with an assault on womankind,” Gray said.

The painting was restored unharmed, only to be stolen again in May, an 
incident that walks the line between crime and prank.

In an article in the University of Chicago Magazine in August of 1996, it 
was revealed that the painting was removed from its frame and taken around 
the city to be photographed by the thief. A student found it behind a Hyde 
Park building. The article reported that “an attached note advised the 
finder to take the portrait to the police and collect the $500 reward being 
offered for its safe return. Although a quote from the Book of Revelations, 
along with a doodle of a horn (an allusion to novelist Thomas Pynchon?), was 
scribbled on its back, the portrait itself was unharmed.”

The thief, who referred to himself as the “Unabandit,” sent manifestos to 
the MAROON at the time, suggesting that freeing Gray’s portrait from its 
frame was akin to freeing her “doppelganger,” and that leaving the frame was 
an ironic reference to the tendencies of modern art."

http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_edition/news/2007/01/23/a-presidential-portrait-has-a-unique-place-in-u-of-c-history/

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