AMHERST — University of Massachusetts Police and the Fine Arts Center are seeking the public’s help in locating two cameras, a camera bag and a personal notebook, belonging to late photographer Jill Freedman, stolen from a campus museum in a break-in in mid-March.
The theft from the Augusta Savage Gallery, located in the New Africa House, likely took place sometime between March 15 and March 16, when it was reported to police at 1:47 p.m. Also stolen during the incident were items belonging to the gallery and its staff, including three Apple Mac Mini computers and a black Canon DSLR-300 camera.
Most prominent among the items taken are what were on loan from Freedman’s family, including her black Nikon 35mm SLR camera, black Olympus 35mm SLR camera, camera bag and personal notebook, as part of the exhibit “Theater of the Streets: Social Landscapes Through the Lens of Jill Freedman.”
“It’s not worth a lot of money but it is our family’s heirloom, and we would like the items returned,” Nancy Schiffman-Skar, Freedman’s cousin and spokeswoman for the family, said in a statement. “It is very sentimental to us.”
Schiffman-Skar notes that the cameras are old and not worth much money, but the notebook contains Freedman’s thoughts and is therefore priceless and irreplaceable.
The family, Schiffman-Skar said, would like to see the items returned to the Augusta Savage Gallery and will ask no questions or press any charges.
Freedman, who died in 2019, spent time photographing people living on the margins in urban America in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as protesters against poverty and war and police officers and firefighters on the job.
Anyone with information about the incident should contact UMass Police Officer David Ortiz at 413-545-2121 or dortiz@admin.umass.edu. Anonymous information can be left at 413-577-TIPS (8477) or by using the department’s anonymous witness form at https://www.umass.edu/umpd/anonymous-witness-form.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
