The 1997 theft — a register of the stolen works

On 2 February 1997 nineteen of Sudjana Kerton's paintings were stolen from the Sudjana Kerton Gallery — the family's studio-gallery in Bandung. The theft was reported to the Bandung police, whose special team worked with the Jakarta police and Interpol (The Jakarta Post, 6 February 1997); a week later the paper published the list of the nineteen works with their dates and sizes (The Jakarta Post, 13 February 1997). Critics at the time called it the largest theft of a single artist's works in one incident (Amir Sidharta, 1997); the estate's own history describes it as "the largest art theft in the history of modern art" (kertonart.com).

The estate's website lists all nineteen as stolen and still missing. In December 2025 Tjandra Kerton said that some have since come back, though not all have been found (Kompas, 22 December 2025). Which works, and where they are now, has not yet been published, so every painting remains on this register until the estate confirms its recovery; a recovered work will be marked as such and kept visible.

Each register entry is a full catalogue entry flagged STOLEN, with its image, date, medium and dimensions, so that it remains visible to the trade, to auction houses and to researchers — the documentation that makes stolen works hard to sell and possible to recover.

Authorised reproductions. The estate has issued authorised limited-edition giclée reproductions of some of the stolen paintings, among them Gunung Merapi and Fond Love. Each register entry records the original: an oil on canvas, with its dimensions.

If you have information about any of these works, contact the estate via kertonart.com/contact.

This register is documentation, not a legal instrument; it does not replace police records or loss-register listings.