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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

Posted on 08/05/2018 9:50:52 AM PDT by BBell

Jerry and Rita Alter kept to themselves. They were a lovely couple, neighbors in the small New Mexico town of Cliff would later tell reporters. But no one knew much about them.

They may have been hiding a decades-old secret, pieces of which are now just emerging.

Among them:

After the couple died, a stolen Willem de Kooning painting with an estimated worth of $160 million was discovered in their bedroom.

More than 30 years ago, that same painting disappeared the day after Thanksgiving from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson.

And Wednesday, the Arizona Republic reported that a family photo had surfaced, showing that the day before the painting vanished, the couple was, in fact, in Tucson.

The next morning, a man and a woman would walk into the museum and then leave 15 minutes later. A security guard had unlocked the museum’s front door to let a staff member into the lobby, curator Olivia Miller told NPR. The couple followed. Since the museum was about to open for the day, the guard let them in.

The man walked up to the museum’s second floor while the woman struck up a conversation with the guard. A few minutes later, he came back downstairs, and the two abruptly left, according to the NPR interview and other media reports.

Sensing that something wasn’t right, the guard walked upstairs. There, he saw an empty frame where de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre” had hung.

At the time, the museum had no surveillance cameras. Police found no fingerprints. One witness described seeing a rust-color sports car drive away but didn’t get the license plate number. For 31 years, the frame remained empty.

In 2012, Jerry Alter passed away. His widow, Rita Alter, died five years later at 81.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography
KEYWORDS: arizona; jerryalter; newmexico; ofarizona; ritaalter; stolenpainting; tucson; willemdekooning
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To: Lurkina.n.Learnin

Artistic fraud, anyway.


41 posted on 08/05/2018 10:45:04 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Sequoyah101
If I dd would I get $160mm?

Cheap paintings only seem to go up in value after the painter dies.........Are you worth $160 million dead?.....Is it worth finding out?...LOL!

42 posted on 08/05/2018 10:47:12 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I once found a needle in a haystack but it wasn't the one I was looking for...)
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To: HartleyMBaldwin
"$160 million for that?"

LOL! That was my first reaction. I do not like modern art, and very little of impressionism. Give me classic art all the time.

43 posted on 08/05/2018 10:52:11 AM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: Rurudyne

I like Pollock. Not sure why. My old friend/lead-singer, Amy Madigan was in the movie.


44 posted on 08/05/2018 10:54:03 AM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing! Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a doctor and I won't touch that thing)
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To: Republicanprofessor
"...it helps to take a course in modern art to really understand it..."

LOL. I took a history of art class in college. I don't want to understand it.

45 posted on 08/05/2018 10:55:03 AM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: Hot Tabasco
"Cheap paintings only seem to go up in value after the painter dies."

That's the premise of a great Wim Wenders' film, The American Friend, staring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz, which is loosely based on Patricia Highsmith's novel, Ripley's Game. Hopper plays Ripley, who makes his money selling "newly discovered" paintings by the late master painter, Anton Kolgash. Kolgash, however, is not actually dead, but living anonymously in an obscure NYC studio pumping out new paintings for Ripley to "discover" every few months, which are then sold to gullible collectors through a German auction house.

46 posted on 08/05/2018 11:14:56 AM PDT by PUGACHEV
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To: BBell

Not Hooters!!! A 2 legged cow.


47 posted on 08/05/2018 11:24:13 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: PUGACHEV

I just looked it up. Sounds good. I do like Dennis Hopper though.


48 posted on 08/05/2018 11:25:28 AM PDT by BBell
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To: ifinnegan

It’s a conquistador on black velvet, but it has style.


49 posted on 08/05/2018 11:32:58 AM PDT by Chewbarkah
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To: ridesthemiles

She’s got some udders that’s for sure.


50 posted on 08/05/2018 11:34:24 AM PDT by BBell
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To: BBell

It’s ochre, not ogre.


51 posted on 08/05/2018 11:37:25 AM PDT by Defiant (I may be deplorable, but I'm not getting in that basket.)
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To: BBell

I read of a man who had an unsigned DeKooning painting worth several hundred thousand dollars.

When he wanted to sell it, an art appraiser examined it and concluded it was NOT a DeKoong.

So, it went from a high price piece of art to only the value of the paint and canvas, which proves it is not the quality of the painting, it is the artist who did the painting that gives it value.

Reminds me of Picasso who declared one of his own paintings to be a fake. “I can paint a fake Picasso as well as anyone!”-Picasso


52 posted on 08/05/2018 11:57:44 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: BBell

If that thing is worth $160 million, my 9 and 10 year old nieces are going to be RICH!


53 posted on 08/05/2018 11:57:50 AM PDT by Newtoidaho (All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.)
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To: BBell
FTA: Something else doesn’t add up. Jerry and Rita Alter worked in public schools for most of their careers. Yet they somehow managed to travel to 140 countries and all seven continents, documenting their trips with tens of thousands of photos. they had more than a million dollars in their bank account They were thieves. They did not just steal that painting.
54 posted on 08/05/2018 12:29:22 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: ifinnegan
#37 Here is my Bizarro #1 painting

Blnk
55 posted on 08/05/2018 12:34:48 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: HartleyMBaldwin

I wonder what the insurance company paid for that loss.
Seems like the thieves did the museum a favor. Freed up wall space and removed an eyesore too.


56 posted on 08/05/2018 12:41:22 PM PDT by Honest Nigerian
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To: Republicanprofessor
.......it helps to take a course in modern art to really understand it (if not necessarily like it).

A painting is like a joke. If you have to explain it, well, you know.....

57 posted on 08/05/2018 12:42:53 PM PDT by varon (Run the conspirators to ground)
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To: ifinnegan

Pissarro, not Pizarro. My mistake.


58 posted on 08/05/2018 12:51:21 PM PDT by Hostage (Article V (Proud Member of the Deranged Q Fringe))
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To: HartleyMBaldwin

“$160 million for that?”

No kidding. I wouldn’t pay over $50 million for that eyesore!


59 posted on 08/05/2018 12:55:58 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
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To: Republicanprofessor
You just can’t put it in your purse and walk off. So that part of the story confuses me.

That puzzled me, too. I was going to make the snarky suggestion that the mystery man stuffed it in a trash container, knowing that the maintenance people would not see anything amiss, and the thieves went through the dumpster later. But since you like the painting, I will withhold the snark.

Perhaps they used the old "duct tape it to the back of another painting" trick, and retrieved it later. I'm sure Maxwell Smart could come up with more.

60 posted on 08/05/2018 12:57:30 PM PDT by sphinx
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