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Woman-Ochre
Woman-Ochre is a 1955 abstract expressionist oil painting by Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, part of his Woman series from that period. It was controversial in its day, like the other paintings in the series, for its explicit use of figures, which Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists considered a betrayal of the movement's ideal of pure, non-representational painting. Feminists also considered the works misogynistic, suggesting violent impulses toward the women depicted.
Several years after it was completed, a wealthy collector from the Eastern United States bought it and later donated it to the new University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) in Tucson, where he frequently vacationed, with the stipulation that the museum could not ever sell or give it away, even as the value of other de Kooning paintings from that era rose to over US$100 million in the early 21st century; however the stipulation did not prevent the museum from loaning it to traveling exhibits, and it went with several, as far away as Eastern Europe.
In 1985 it was stolen from the museum. Investigators believed the thieves were a couple who had visited the museum briefly on the day after Thanksgiving Day that year, as it was found to have been cut from its frame shortly after they left. Sketches were circulated in an effort to identify them, but no leads turned up until it was recovered 32 years later after it was offered for sale at a New Mexico antique store, where it had been part of the estate of Jerry and Rita Alter, two former New York City public school teachers who had retired to the area. Visitors to the store speculated that the work was a de Kooning, and then the proprietor found a picture of the missing painting on the Internet. He contacted museum staff, who were able to provisionally authenticate it, and it was returned to Tucson. The museum did not put it back on exhibit, except for one day before sending it to the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, and raised funds to restore and repair it. After delays resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, it was finished in 2022.
It has not been determined who stole the painting. Suspicion has fallen on the Alters, who were photographed at a family Thanksgiving dinner in Tucson the night before the theft, and displayed it in their house in a manner that only they were likely to have seen during their lifetimes. They also did bear a slight resemblance to the couple in the sketches, and Jerome Alter later wrote a book of stories in which two characters carry out a similar theft of a museum piece to reserve for their own exclusive enjoyment. The living relatives of the Alters believe it is possible that they bought the painting from a third party, entirely unaware of its provenance. A 2022 documentary about the crime and the Alters implicated them in the theft of two other paintings, which have also been located and returned to the museum they were stolen from.
De Kooning started Woman-Ochre, an extension of his earlier Woman series, in 1954 while living in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village along with other artists and intellectuals of the New York School. He finished it the following year.
Like the other paintings in the series, it depicted a female figure, recognizable albeit highly stylized into abstract shapes. They were controversial both among de Kooning's fellow artists and critics. The former, especially Jackson Pollock, felt the artist had been unable to sustain abstract expressionism's goal of pure painting by resorting to what was still recognizably figurative art. John Elderfield, who curated a 2011-2012 de Kooning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, says that the series' power stems from its use of the thick brushes and broad strokes associated with Venetian painting juxtaposed with its subject matter: "He was using traditional techniques to make alarmingly modern paintings, and I think this hybrid quality made people uncomfortable."
From outside the arts community, critic Emily Genauer attacked the works from a feminist perspective, calling them misogynistic depictions of women being tortured. De Kooning's comments on the paintings did not allay that criticism. "Women irritate me sometimes", he said. "I painted that irritation in the 'Woman' series." His wife Elaine said her mother-in-law, not she, was the inspiration.
After de Kooning completed Woman-Ochre in 1955, it was displayed at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York for two years, part of a one-man show of 21 works, mostly oils but with a few sketches, only two of them abstract. Edward Joseph Gallagher Jr., an architect and collector from Baltimore, bought it in 1957. Another pastime of his was vacationing at dude ranches in Arizona. The following year, after reading an article in Life about the University of Arizona's new art museum and its collection of Renaissance art, Gallagher called the university's president and offered to donate some of his modern paintings to the museum in honor of his son, who had recently died in a boating accident. Ultimately, he gave UAMA 200 works including Woman-Ochre, many of which were by de Kooning and other abstract expressionist painters such as Pollock and Mark Rothko. His gift came with the stipulation that the museum could never sell or give the paintings, including Woman-Ochre, to anyone else.
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Woman-Ochre
Woman-Ochre is a 1955 abstract expressionist oil painting by Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, part of his Woman series from that period. It was controversial in its day, like the other paintings in the series, for its explicit use of figures, which Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists considered a betrayal of the movement's ideal of pure, non-representational painting. Feminists also considered the works misogynistic, suggesting violent impulses toward the women depicted.
Several years after it was completed, a wealthy collector from the Eastern United States bought it and later donated it to the new University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) in Tucson, where he frequently vacationed, with the stipulation that the museum could not ever sell or give it away, even as the value of other de Kooning paintings from that era rose to over US$100 million in the early 21st century; however the stipulation did not prevent the museum from loaning it to traveling exhibits, and it went with several, as far away as Eastern Europe.
In 1985 it was stolen from the museum. Investigators believed the thieves were a couple who had visited the museum briefly on the day after Thanksgiving Day that year, as it was found to have been cut from its frame shortly after they left. Sketches were circulated in an effort to identify them, but no leads turned up until it was recovered 32 years later after it was offered for sale at a New Mexico antique store, where it had been part of the estate of Jerry and Rita Alter, two former New York City public school teachers who had retired to the area. Visitors to the store speculated that the work was a de Kooning, and then the proprietor found a picture of the missing painting on the Internet. He contacted museum staff, who were able to provisionally authenticate it, and it was returned to Tucson. The museum did not put it back on exhibit, except for one day before sending it to the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, and raised funds to restore and repair it. After delays resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, it was finished in 2022.
It has not been determined who stole the painting. Suspicion has fallen on the Alters, who were photographed at a family Thanksgiving dinner in Tucson the night before the theft, and displayed it in their house in a manner that only they were likely to have seen during their lifetimes. They also did bear a slight resemblance to the couple in the sketches, and Jerome Alter later wrote a book of stories in which two characters carry out a similar theft of a museum piece to reserve for their own exclusive enjoyment. The living relatives of the Alters believe it is possible that they bought the painting from a third party, entirely unaware of its provenance. A 2022 documentary about the crime and the Alters implicated them in the theft of two other paintings, which have also been located and returned to the museum they were stolen from.
De Kooning started Woman-Ochre, an extension of his earlier Woman series, in 1954 while living in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village along with other artists and intellectuals of the New York School. He finished it the following year.
Like the other paintings in the series, it depicted a female figure, recognizable albeit highly stylized into abstract shapes. They were controversial both among de Kooning's fellow artists and critics. The former, especially Jackson Pollock, felt the artist had been unable to sustain abstract expressionism's goal of pure painting by resorting to what was still recognizably figurative art. John Elderfield, who curated a 2011-2012 de Kooning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, says that the series' power stems from its use of the thick brushes and broad strokes associated with Venetian painting juxtaposed with its subject matter: "He was using traditional techniques to make alarmingly modern paintings, and I think this hybrid quality made people uncomfortable."
From outside the arts community, critic Emily Genauer attacked the works from a feminist perspective, calling them misogynistic depictions of women being tortured. De Kooning's comments on the paintings did not allay that criticism. "Women irritate me sometimes", he said. "I painted that irritation in the 'Woman' series." His wife Elaine said her mother-in-law, not she, was the inspiration.
After de Kooning completed Woman-Ochre in 1955, it was displayed at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York for two years, part of a one-man show of 21 works, mostly oils but with a few sketches, only two of them abstract. Edward Joseph Gallagher Jr., an architect and collector from Baltimore, bought it in 1957. Another pastime of his was vacationing at dude ranches in Arizona. The following year, after reading an article in Life about the University of Arizona's new art museum and its collection of Renaissance art, Gallagher called the university's president and offered to donate some of his modern paintings to the museum in honor of his son, who had recently died in a boating accident. Ultimately, he gave UAMA 200 works including Woman-Ochre, many of which were by de Kooning and other abstract expressionist painters such as Pollock and Mark Rothko. His gift came with the stipulation that the museum could never sell or give the paintings, including Woman-Ochre, to anyone else.