Yellowstone art missing

BILLINGS, Mont. — Eleven historic art works depicting Yellowstone National Park wildlife in cartoonish fashion are missing from the Seattle home of their owner, who says the art apparently was stolen.

Dan Fey recently acquired the brown-and-white drawings after finding them in the basement of his mother's home. They were the basis for several wood carvings and glass etchings at Yellowstone's Old Faithful Inn.

Fey said that he went to get the paintings from a drawer last month to share them with friends, they were gone.

"It was devastating," said Fey, who figures the art was stolen in late February or early March, although there were no signs of forced entry and he knows of nothing else missing.

"The whole thing stymies everyone I talk to," he said. He had looked only briefly at the drawings, which depict frolicking grizzly bears, dancing moose and a pensive pelican.

"We certainly have a great interest in them here in the park for their history," said Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone's historian. After learning this month that the art was missing, Whittlesey contacted libraries, archives, art dealers and others, asking them to be on the lookout for the pieces.

Yellowstone souvenirs and artifacts in a seemingly endless stream change hands daily, many through Internet sales, Whittlesey said.

"There is a rabid collector group out there who will pay through the nose for Yellowstone items," he said. Yellowstone curator Colleen Curry said she does not know how much money the works would bring. They were produced in the 1920s and '30s.

Fey, whose architect grandfather, William H. Fey, built a huge wooden map that is at Yellowstone, said he has a lingering thought that he will "turn a corner in my office and say 'Oh, there they are."'

The drawings were commissioned to decorate the Bear Pit restaurant at Old Faithful Inn. Architect Robert Reamer, who designed the inn, hired Chicago artist Walter Oehrle to produce a series of pieces that later would be the models for wood carvings.

The 11 works include images of grizzly bears chugging beer, ordering from menus, playing in an orchestra and singing.

The original drawings apparently never hung in Yellowstone and quietly disappeared into history until last winter, when Fey and his wife began sorting through the belongings of his late mother.

They found the drawings, each 20 by 24 inches, in a drawer in her Seattle home. They found the drawings, each 20 by 24 inches and covered with paper, in a drawer at her Seattle home.

Fey, an employment consultant, said the art was moved to his house before he and his family left to visit relatives in St. Louis on Feb. 24. Police questioned workers who were in the house during the family's absence. There is no solid evidence in the case, police said.