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The University of Arizona Museum of Art is celebrating the recovery of Willem de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre,” which was stolen from the museum in 1985. The painting was recently purchased at an estate sale by David Van Auker, owner of Manzanita Ridge Furniture and Antiques in Silver City, N.M. He was unaware that the painting was famous, let alone that it had been stolen. But when people visiting his store asked if it was a de Kooning, he did some research, discovered what he had purchased and called the art museum, which retrieved the work and had it authenticated. A similar de Kooning work, part of the same series, sold in 2006 for $137.5 million. Above right, museum staff members with the painting.
Details on the recovery of the painting are available on the museum's website.
In 2015, 30 years after the theft, NPR ran a report on the mystery surrounding the painting's whereabouts.
