Stolen Paintings Return to Harwood Museum

Eight years after Willem de Kooning's Woman-Ochre was recovered and returned to UAMA, two artworks stolen from the Harwood Museum of Art are also back in their rightful home!

Joseph Henry Sharp's Oklahoma Cheyenne and Victor Higgins' Aspens were taken from the Harwood — located in Taos, NM — on March 20, 1985. In November that same year, Woman-Ochre was cut from its frame here at UAMA under similar circumstances. There were few leads in either instance, and both cases went cold.

We now know that ALL THREE paintings wound up in the same rural New Mexican home, owned by Jerry and Rita Alter.

Read more in Smithsonian Magazine

The Return of Taos Treasures exhibition at the Harwood Museum of Art. Photo by Brad Trone.