On December 7, two armed thieves stole eight prints by Henri Matisse and at least five engravings by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari from the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo. The works were part of the exhibition “From Book to Museum,” organized in collaboration with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, which was scheduled to close that day. Police have arrested one suspect, and some artworks were reportedly abandoned nearby.
The theft highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in cultural institutions worldwide, following similar high-profile heists at the Louvre and the Oakland Museum of California earlier this year. The stolen Matisse prints, possibly from his renowned artist book *Jazz* (1947), could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, underscoring the significant financial and cultural loss. The incident also raises questions about security protocols at public libraries and museums in Brazil.