logo
De Kooning Painting Return
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Arizona museum exhibit marks end to de Kooning painting saga

After a Willem de Kooning painting worth millions was brazenly stolen in 1985 from an Arizona museum, the staff clung to the hope that it would turn up one day

By TERRY TANG
Published - Sep 28, 2022, 08:58 PM ET
Last Updated - Jun 24, 2023, 06:04 AM EDT

PHOENIX (AP) — After a Willem de Kooning painting worth millions was brazenly stolen in 1985 from an Arizona museum, the staff clung to the hope that it would turn up one day. But nobody could have predicted “Woman-Ochre” would find its way back through the kindness of strangers in a neighboring state.

“I would kind of imagine what would that look like,” said Olivia Miller, interim director and exhibitions curator at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson. “Would it just show up as a mysterious package in the mail or something like that? ... I certainly never thought I’d make friends from it.”

The 1955 oil painting by the Dutch-American abstract expressionist is finally back home and ready to be shown. It will be the centerpiece of an entire exhibition opening Oct. 8 until May at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. The whole ordeal of the theft and its return in 2017 via New Mexico will be chronicled in the show. It has spent the past two years at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles for restoration work and display. The painting will be in the same spot it was stolen from — but under a case.

“That’s one of many security layers that it will have,” Miller said.

Our Offices
  • 10kInfo, Inc.
    13555 SE 36th St
    Bellevue, WA 98006
  • 10kInfo Data Solutions, Pvt Ltd.
    Claywork Create
    11 km, Arakere Bannerghatta Rd, Omkar Nagar, Arekere,
    Bengaluru, Karnataka 560076
4.2 12182024