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Arts|Leonardo Patterson, Disgraced Dealer in Latin American Artifacts, Dies at 82
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/arts/leonardo-patterson-dead.html
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Born into rural poverty, he climbed to the top of the art market. But he fell after being convicted of selling fake and stolen items.
April 3, 2025, 4:43 p.m. ET
Leonardo Patterson, who rose improbably from rural poverty in Costa Rica to the towering heights of the global antiquities market, despite accusations that he trafficked in fake and stolen artifacts — and who fell precipitously when those accusations proved to be true — died on Feb. 11 in Bautzen, a city in northeastern Germany. He was 82.
His death, which had not been previously reported, was confirmed by the authorities in Bautzen. They did not provide an exact location or a cause of death.
The market for Latin American antiquities took off in the 1960s, enabled by an almost complete lack of laws preventing the often wholesale looting of pre-Columbian sites. Carvings, headdresses and jewelry that had sat for centuries in forgotten tombs and temples suddenly flooded galleries in New York, London and Paris.
Mr. Patterson was uniquely positioned to ride the wave. He said he never learned to read, but what he lacked in book learning he made up for in street smarts. First in Miami and then in New York, he developed a reputation for always having rare, beautiful items, at a time when owning an authentic Olmec stone head was the height of Manhattan chic.
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“In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, when he was very active, nobody really cared,” Arthur Brand, an art detective who later testified against Mr. Patterson in court, said in an interview. “Museums, auction houses, everybody looked the other way.”
