A small-town couple left behind a stolen painting worth over $100 million — and a big mystery

https://www.washingtonpost.com ^ | 8/3/18 | Antonia Farzan

[BBell]

Interesting story. Sounds like they stole the painting and kept it for whatever reason. Maybe they liked it? The painting is not to my taste but my daughter says' I have no taste.

[BBell]

“Woman-Ochre” by Willem de Kooning. (Courtesy of University of Arizona Museum of Art)

[HartleyMBaldwin]

$160 million for that?

[from occupied ga]

Not something I’d want on my wall, but then I prefer rifles to paintings for wall hangings anyway

[P.O.E.]

Kept in the bedroom? Nightmare fuel.

[pepsionice]

I will vouch for myself....I have no art taste, but this is something that I could paint with a half-bottle of rum in my system. How it’s worth $100-million is a mystery to me.

My gut feeling is that they had viewed the tasteless art 30 years ago, and just thought for a joke....they’d steal it. They obviously knew the value.

[Guenevere]

160 million....for that.....words fail me

[Rurudyne]

As Kryten once observed “I think I feel a Jackson Polluck coming on.”

[Sequoyah101]

I could do that!

If I dd would I get $160mm? How about $80mm? Would you belive $8mm? Ok, how about $8 thousand?

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Insurance fraud.

[caww]

Art????? Worth "160 million"....Why?...and this is female???

[Lazamataz]

and this is female???

Yes. I see hooters.

I'd hit that painting.

[BlueLancer]

OMG, do you mean to tell me that they stole Michelle Obama's Official White House Portrait?

[irishjuggler]

The painting is hideous. These folks should receive posthumous honors for doing the world a favor by keeping this monstrosity out of sight.

Seriously, though, considering their travel budget and cash net worth, they may have had a side 'business' of art theft. Perhaps they bit off more than they could chew with the de Kooning and found it too hot to fence.

[dangus]

Art-lovers? As in, saving the world from that anti-art horror?

[BBell]

Here's your hooters!

[Republicanprofessor]

How big is this painting? I know his work pretty well and often those pieces are pretty big. You just can’t put it in your purse and walk off. So that part of the story confuses me.

It’s not a bad de Kooning: action painting, guys. Yes, and the hooters are obvious. He worked along with Pollock. There is a good deal of energy and complexity of space in these works, but, yes, it helps to take a course in modern art to really understand it (if not necessarily like it).

[blam]

"I'd hit that painting. "

There's a possible explanation for them having it....a sex aid, eh?

[Leaning Right]

I'm going to ask the New Mexico police to thoroughly search that house. Because my favorite painting went missing years ago. Maybe it's there too.

[Thumper1960]

You cretins have no respect for art nor do any of you know true beauty. It's just like you knuckle dragging cretins to disparage the vision and spirit displayed by great artists to fill the world with beauty and serenity!

/sarcasm