Bruno Lair, assistant director of engineering at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, stands beside the portrait of Winston Churchill during an unveiling ceremony at the hotel in Ottawa, on Nov. 15. In 2022, Lair discovered the 1941 Yousef Karsh portrait had been stolen and replaced with a fake.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
A famed original photograph of Winston Churchill by Yousuf Karsh, stolen from an Ottawa luxury hotel in a daring art heist almost three years ago, has been returned to the spot where it hung for decades – but with added security.
“I can tell you that it is armed, locked, secure, alarmed, behind plexiglass – it’s not moving,” said Geneviève Dumas, the Fairmont Château Laurier’s general manager, at the unveiling of the returned portrait on Friday.
Taking no chances, Bruno Lair, the maintenance man who first spotted that the portrait was missing, gave the frame a little tug. “Just making sure,” he quipped after removing a black curtain to reveal a scowling Churchill.
The word “iconic” was used liberally in speeches to describe The Roaring Lion portrait at the unveiling. Isabelle Mondou, the deputy heritage minister, added that an important piece of Canada’s cultural heritage had been returned.
The Roaring Lion portrait of Winston Churchill now has additional security features, including being alarmed and set behind plexiglass, to prevent future theft.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The signed photograph of Britain’s wartime leader, taken in a wood-panelled room in the House of Commons after a speech to Canadian MPs in 1941, was given to the Château Laurier by Mr. Karsh to thank it for decades of hospitality. He had staged his first exhibition there in the 1930s and in the 1980s moved in with his wife, Estrellita.
In a message read out at the unveiling, Mr. Karsh’s widow said the “portrait was especially meaningful to my husband because it was taken almost next door in the Speaker’s chambers of Parliament.”
It had remained on the wall in the hotel’s reading room, where Mr. Karsh himself hung the portrait, for decades. But sometime between Christmas Day 2021 and Jan. 6, 2022, it was surreptitiously removed and replaced with an ersatz print. Nobody noticed for months.
That summer, Mr. Lair, now the hotel’s assistant director of engineering, noticed something odd about the frame. On closer inspection, he realized that The Roaring Lion was hanging on a wire, not screwed to the wall as it was meant to be.
The Fairmont Château Laurier had been displaying a fake with a forged signature.
In a plot development reminiscent of a noir art heist movie, Ottawa police officer Akiva Geller, more used to solving attempted murders than heritage crimes, was assigned to the case.
In August, 2022, staring at the blank space where The Roaring Lion had hung, he wondered to himself “how in the world am I gonna figure this out?” It was his first case involving art theft.
Detective Geller told The Globe and Mail that when the case dropped in his inbox alongside assorted other crimes, he immediately recognized the famous portrait. He said he likes to collect a little art, but nothing expensive “on a police officer’s salary.”
The search took him deep into the shady world of the illicit art trade, to collaboration with the Italian Carabinieri – and a lot of time perusing auction catalogues.
With assiduous tenacity, praised repeatedly at Friday’s unveiling, he traced the portrait to Sotheby’s in London, where it sold well below its true value, and then to Genoa, Italy, where the corporate lawyer who had unwittingly bought the stolen photograph at the auction house, had hung it in his living room to fill a space on the wall.
Nicola Cassinelli said in a message read out at the unveiling that he had decided to waive his rights as a “good-faith” buyer and return the portrait to the hotel where Mr. Karsh had wanted it displayed.
“This is a work that cannot belong to one person and not be confined to the private space of a living room,” he said, adding that it “captures, in the eyes of Sir Winston Churchill, the pride, the anger and the strength of the free world.”
Ronald Cohen, president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa, told The Globe that he thought the expression Mr. Karsh captured reflected Churchill’s “determination” at a crucial juncture in the war. “He was absolutely determined that England would fight on,” he said.
Some of those at the unveiling speculated on how the heist had been executed, and how the huge photograph was smuggled out of the hotel and overseas. They may never know.
Jeffrey Wood, from Powassan, Ont., has been accused of the theft and charged with six counts, including forgery. His lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, told The Globe earlier this year that he and his client, who has no criminal record, are in talks with the Crown attorney and that the case “may or may not go to court or trial.”
