JOHANNESBURG—Politicians, like artists, have a thing for metaphor. This is particularly true in South Africa, where the country’s high rate of violent crime has elicited a slew of descriptive phrases and tired clichés. Crime is variously described as a “bog,” a political “hot potato,” a “thorny issue,” and, alongside poverty and HIV/AIDS prevention, one of the country’s most “pressing concerns.” The country’s robust art economy is not immune, and is facing a rising tide of criminality, with recent thefts ranging from the sophisticated to the expedient and bizarre.

Earlier this month, on September 11, burglars broke into the former home of sculptor Coert Steynberg in Pretoria, now a museum, and stole two bronze sculptures. Steynberg is best remembered for his large bust of Paul Kruger, a Boer Republic president, which is located at a busy entrance to the Kruger National Park, a large nature conservancy on the country’s northern border. The thieves' modus operandi suggested they were not after the artwork, however, but rather the metal; Steynberg’s home was also stripped of its electrical wiring and metal fixtures.

Crimes involving the theft of artworks made of semi-precious metals have long been commonplace in South Africa (many of Johannesburg’s public memorials have lost their bronze plaques), but another recent theft suggests an increase in more sophisticated art crimes. In June it was reported that Diane Victor, a respected South African printmaker and lecturer at the University of Pretoria, lost over two decades’ worth of etching plates in a burglary at her home and studio in Midrand, on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg. Victor, whose ongoing “Disasters of Peace” etchings series offers a grimly literal representation of violent crime in South Africa, says thieves made off with approximately 80 percent of her plates. The loss, which includes unprinted editions, is valued at $63,000 (R500,000).

There is some uncertainty regarding the motive behind the crime. Victor, who uses relatively valueless zinc plates, told ARTINFO she suspects the thieves were after more than just the metal. “Whoever took them did so knowing exactly where they were stored and that in fact they were there at all,” she said. “This was very much an inside job. Nothing else of value was taken and I have little expectation of ever getting them back.”

Acknowledging the rise in sophisticated art crimes in the country, two years ago the South African Police Service produced a wanted poster listing high-profile artworks stolen in recent years. The list highlighted exclusively missing South African artworks, including three paintings by the modernist painter Gerard Sekoto stolen in 1999, and made no mention of a painting credited to the studio of El Greco stolen from the Johannesburg Art Gallery in July 2002.

Also included on the list was a 1955 painting by Afrikaner nationalist landscape painter JH Pierneef, stolen from the 15th floor of the South African national broadcaster in 2005. Too short to reach the top of the painting, art thief David Brettland Urbasch settled on slashing two-thirds of Near Golden Gate from its frame. He later cut the stolen fragment in two, hoping thereby to obscure the identity of the artwork, according to a confession following his arrest in 2006.

William Kentridge, best known for his metaphor-rich expressionist charcoal drawings, has also been the target of enterprising art crooks. The iron gate in front of his Johannesburg home is topped with two “electrified” cats made of laser-cut sheet metal, he told ARTINFO. “When I was asked if I wanted the off-cuts [the metal cut away to create them], I said no,” he explained. “About a month later I got a call from a dealer in London saying he had been offered two sculptures of mine and did I know anything about them. After a few questions I discovered they were the off-cuts of the cats.”

More recently, Kentridge experienced a theft of a different sort, as a young Johannesburg artist, Roelien Brink, appropriated his name. “I would l-o-v-e to have superstar status,” she explained of her protracted and entirely legal efforts to change her name. William Kentridge Junior, as the press has dubbed her, has yet to exhibit under her new name.

Although Kentridge declined to comment, his assistant teasingly offered: “I’m sure William wouldn’t mind being a 23-year-old blond.”