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Case file s1768 · Literature and art · 1997
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1997
Willem de Kooning: Willem de Kooning in his studio
Willem de Kooning. Antony di Gesu, photographer. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
19 March 1997 (artist); the couple whose estate held the painting died 2012 and 2017
Place
Tucson, Arizona; Cliff, New Mexico · United States
Field
painter · Visual art and architecture on the timeline
Legal tradition
US federal law (theft of cultural property); New Mexico probate · Common law
Historical event
Theft from the University of Arizona Museum of Art, 29 November 1985
Member of
Royal Academy of Arts, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Abstract Artists, American Academy of Arts and Letters (Wikidata)
Literature and artPostwarNorth AmericaUnited States

Willem de Kooning's Woman-Ochre was cut from a Tucson museum frame in 1985 and found in 2017 at the estate sale of a retired couple

Willem de Kooning painted Woman-Ochre in 1954-55. Edward Gallagher Jr. gave it to the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1958. On 29 November 1985, the day after Thanksgiving, a man and a woman entered as the museum opened. The woman engaged the guard in conversation while the man went upstairs. The painting was found cut from its frame. The University police and the FBI had a description of the pair and their car, and the case went cold. On 3 August 2017 David Van Auker, who co-owns the antique shop Manzanita Ridge in Silver City, New Mexico, called the museum. He and two partners had bought the painting from the estate sale of Jerome and Rita Alter of Cliff, New Mexico; it had hung behind a bedroom door. Reports put the price near $2,000†. Jerome Alter died in 2012 and Rita in 2017. Relatives found a photo placing the couple in Tucson on Thanksgiving Day 1985. The FBI never named them as thieves and closed the case. The painting went to the Getty for three years of conservation and returned to Tucson in October 2022. Press values range from $100 million to $160 million.

What the law took from it

An estate sale transfers whatever is in the house, including property that was never the owner's to give.

Sources
  1. artmuseum.arizona.eduScholarship
  2. fortune.comPress
  3. abc15.comPress
  4. artlawandmore.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Willem de Kooning's Woman-Ochre was cut from a Tucson museum frame in 1985 and found in 2017 at the estate sale of a retired couple,” story s1768, https://www.celebrity.estate/willem-de-kooning-1997, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artPostwarNorth AmericaCommon lawUnited States