About Time: You Shared for SuziBy Angelica Malin

This one’s a little close to my heart, so I really hope you’ll help us. Earlier this week, my mother, portrait painter Suzi Malin, had the shock of her life when we discovered a break-in a storage unit in Maida Vale, where her work was stored. The robbery took place in the middle of the night – the lock protecting the drawings was cut – and we’re doing our best to recover the stolen items.

Over 100 working drawings were stolen in the robbery – which police think was an unplanned, opportunist crime – and we’re in a desperate attempt to get the drawings back. We’d really love your help in spreading the word about the missing dresser and the drawings (some of which are below) – as we’re pretty sure whoever stole the dresser would have dumped the drawings afterwards.

For any information – you can text anonymously to 07786934377 or email suzimalin@gmail.com for an address to return the work. We are offering a £10,000 reward to anyone who helps in the recovering of the works. 

Here’s how you can help:

#Share4Suzi: The Drawings

Over 100 drawings were taken, including sketches of Peter Sellers, David Hockney, the Queen of Greece and other famous faces. If you would like to see the full collection of work taken, please email suzimalin@gmail.com and we can send them to you. Below are a selection of the most iconic drawings taken.

#Share4Suzi: What You Need to Know

The pictures were stored in a traditional 5-drawer plan chest, used by architects and artists for storing drawings and maps. The chest is a mid-brown colour, and housed over a hundred drawings. In the chest were the unframed working drawings – preliminaries for painted tempera portraits spanning back to the beginning of Suzi’s career.

The dresser, which looks rustic and rough, was at least 300 years old – Suzi displayed her paint pigments in jars in it in her studio. The dresser had a very warm honeyed brown glow and the wood, instead of being straight, had dents in where the axe had obviously chopped the wood.

At the top of the dresser is a fluted pelmet, and there were two shelves underneath. In the middle of one shelves, centrally placed, is a small cupboard with an old wooden latch on a rustic fixing. Underneath the two shelves are three cupboards.

The cupboard is 57 inches across and measured 18 inches in depth. Suzi had placed some lights at the top of the dresser, which might still be there. As far as we know, this piece would not be sold on the ordinary market as it is most definitely a collectors piece and would either be offered to smart antique shops or sold at auction, so it would be great if you could look out there.