TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — After 37 years, the Woman-Ochre painting by Willem de Kooning returned home to the University of Arizona.
A couple visiting the school’s Museum of Art stole the Woman-Ochre painting off the wall in 1985.
“The woman distracted a security guard while the man went upstairs and sliced the painting from its frame,” said Olivia Miller with the University of Arizona’s Museum of Art.
After getting the police and FBI involved, the case went cold for years—until it was found in New Mexico in 2017.
“The painting had been hanging in the bedroom of a couple and three wonderful people from Silver City, New Mexico bought the estate, ended up realizing what they had, and that they had a stolen painting,” said Miller.
The painting was taken to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles where the artwork went through tedious repairs.
“They were able to not only reattach it to the edges that it was cut from, but they were also able to stabilize the paint surface, essentially fix this microscopic jigsaw puzzle,” Miller said.
Woman-Ochre is in Tucson and will be displayed in a room of the museum dedicated to explaining the history and series of events of the artwork on the walls.
“Art is important. It should be protected. It's everybody's cultural heritage, and it's part of a much larger story of the human condition and that that's worth protecting,” said Miller.
Woman-Ochre will be available for the public to visit on October 8.
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Faith Abercrombie is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before coming to KGUN, Faith worked as a videographer for the Phoenix Children's Hospital Foundation and as a reporter and producer on the youth suicide documentary, "Life is..." on Arizona PBS.
Share your story ideas with Faith by emailing faith.abercrombie@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
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