The world’s fastest painter, Morris Katz, is always on the go—off to a hotel to do his one-man art show or off to some charitable gig in the City. To keep up with all of his engagements, the artist stores his oil paintings, his frames and his supplies inside of a van—his “studio-on-wheels.” But recently all of his belongings were stolen. His van, a 2000 white Ford, was absent from the parking spot he left it in on Wednesday evening, Jan. 17, near his Manhattan studio on West 29th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

“I opened up the door and I saw other vans parked there,” Katz said. “My business was stolen in front of me.” Katz’s van also contained frames and finished paintings—about 150 of them—a value of $50,000. This is the third time in the 74-year-old's career that he has been a victim of theft. The last time it happened, thieves smashed the window of his Blue Dodge van and pilfered many paintings. He said the perpetrators were probably too scared to drive away with the dilapidated 16-year-old van. Katz earned the honorific “the world’s fastest painter,” after he worked his way into the Guinness Book of World Records on July 15, 1987, when he painted for 12 straight hours and turned out 103 paintings, 55 of which he sold on the spot. He donated all of the proceeds to the Boy Scouts of America. He also appears in a Ripley's Believe It or Not book. The artist paints museum-worthy images in minutes with a palette knife and toilet paper. Katz said the late founder of the Guinness Book said to him once, “Morris you paint ’em fast. They steal ’em fast.”