Calgary police are looking for the public’s help to identify suspects in connection with the theft of half a million dollars worth of art from a gallery this past spring.

Investigators say that on May 20, at about 11:50 p.m., a number of suspects broke into a building at 602 11 Avenue S.W. and forced their way into the Gerry Thomas Gallery.

Police say the thieves cut through the main door with a reciprocating saw and, once they were inside, they took 30 pieces of art including sculptures and paintings.

The offenders then moved into a parkade and broke open a storage unit where they took another 30 to 40 pieces of art.

An additional $10,000 worth of electronics and alcohol were taken from another room in the gallery.

Investigators say the thieves were inside the building for a considerable amount of time.

"They spent a significant amount of time inside the building. I'm estimating it at about six to seven hours," said CPS Constable Pavel Adaikin with the CPS Patrol Response Team.

After robbing the gallery, the thieves ended up breaking into an adjacent cafe and stole various pieces of property and cash, making off with about $10,000 worth of items.

It’s believed that one of the suspects had visited the gallery about six hours earlier in the day and repositioned some of the cameras, but images of the suspects were still captured on CCTV.

"That was done several hours before the break-in occurred and that was done in preparation to the break-in."

Adaikin says the suspects prepared for the break-in and went as far as waiting in the parkade for all the residents to clear out.

"You can see on the camera footage that they actually wait in the parkade for all the vehicles and all the tenants to leave before proceeding with the break-in. This was a long weekend, so there wasn't a lot of tenants inside the building here and so they took advantage of that."

Police say that there is a good reason as to why they are asking for the public's help now, nearly five months after the incident took place.

"We wanted to pursue other investigative avenues that we were hoping would lead us to the stolen art as well as the suspects. As this point we have exhausted those investigative avenues," said Adaikin. "The other reason for the delay is we always had to consider the risk of them destroying the stolen art."

Adaikin says he hopes that someone will be able to recognize the unique art pieces and contact them as soon as they do.

"There's a multitude of ways of selling that art; through Internet, private deals, some consignment stores."

Gerry Thomas, curator of the gallery where the robberies took place, says he was 'stunned' when he heard about the incident.

"The doors were open and there was nothing there," he says. "I was out of town at the time and it was just one of those things where, okay, why and how?"

He says the most valuable piece that was stolen was probably about $22,000.

"We had just gone through some water damage on January 2 when it went from being very cold to very warm. We had gone through 50,000 gallons of contaminated water from a boiler and opening for only a week."

Michell Kruger, one of the artists, had 11 pieces stolen in the incident as well as some other works that had a special meaning to her.

"One of the pieces was done by my father. I come from a family of artists and my father and brother are artists. His paintings were taken as well. He's 83 and going blind so he's not producing anymore. It's quite devastating for me to see his artwork and all then to see all mine gone as well."

She says the situation is hard to imagine as an artist because the audience helps spur them on to create new work.

"When that's taken away from you, and you know that piece and there's no interaction from the audience and have no idea what the motive is, you are just left wondering what happened to it and why they would do it."

Investigators are seeking the public’s help to identify the culprits and would like to speak to anyone who has information about the break and enters or the location of the artwork.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the police by calling 403-266-1234 or Crime Stoppers anonymously by using either of the following methods:

TALK: 1-800-222-8477

TYPE: www.calgarycrimestoppers.org