![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/George-Watson-Sculpture-INSTALL-1-_credit-Heather-Milne.jpg.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\nA public artwork that vanished from central Christchurch less than 24 hours after being installed has been found.<\/p>\n
The steel sculpture, Doctrines, by New Zealand artist George Watson, was part of SCAPE Public Art\u2019s summer season and had only been unveiled on Thursday morning when it disappeared overnight.<\/p>\n
The theft left organisers stunned. Staff at SCAPE Public Art said they literally gasped when told the piece had been stolen.<\/p>\n
Executive Director Rachel Jefferies said the team had been devastated. \u201cWe were really feeling for the artist, George Watson, and for all the people who helped make this sculpture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also deeply disappointing for Christchurch. The bottom line is we want our artwork back. That sculpture was made for everyone to enjoy for free all summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
George Watson Sculpture credit Heather Milne<\/p>\n
The good news is the sculpture has now been found about 100 metres from where it was taken.<\/p>\n
It has been returned to the site by police, but organisers have decided to remove it temporarily while they consider a safer location.<\/p>\n
Communications & Funding Manager Michele Hollis said it had been a whirlwind 24 hours. \u201cI\u2019m breathing a huge sigh of relief. Because it\u2019s so heavy, I think whoever took it simply lost the will to keep carrying it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson had only arrived in Christchurch the night before and hadn\u2019t yet seen the installation at its site.<\/p>\n
The sculpture weighs around 100 kilograms and took two men to lift during installation.<\/p>\n
It was inspired by Christian symbols, agricultural branding irons, Victorian fretwork, and traditional M\u0101ori patterns.<\/p>\n
SCAPE Public Art said police had been informed and CCTV footage reviewed. The theft was the first in SCAPE\u2019s 27-year history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public artwork that vanished from central Christchurch less than 24 hours after being installed has been found.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,373,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-122585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-featured","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}