FBI Recovers Two Paintings Stolen From University of New Mexico Museum Forty Years Ago
132June 12, 2025
The University of New Mexico’sHarwood Museum of Artin Taos, New Mexico, on June 6 unveiled to the public two canvases returned to the institution by the FBI, after having been missing for forty years. The works, Victor Higgins’sAspens, ca. 1932, and Joseph Henry Sharp’sOklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress, ca. 1915, were stolen in broad daylight in March 1985 from the museum, which at that time was primarily a public library presenting art on its second floor, per an FBIpress release.
According to the university, the search for the works began in earnest after Lou Schachter, a Los Angeles–basedcrimeresearcher, watchedThe Thief Collector, a 2022 documentary by Allison Otto examining the November 1985 theft of Willem de Kooning’s 1955Woman-Ochrefrom Tuscon’s University of Arizona Museum of Art. That painting was eventually discovered hanging in the Cliff, New Mexico, home of Jerry and Rita Alter, an otherwise unassuming couple. Antiques collector David Van Auker, who had been hired to appraise the contents of the Alters’ house following their deaths in 2012 and 2017, respectively, found the work in the couple’s bedroom. Valued at an estimated $160 million, it was ultimately returned to the museum from which it was stolen.
While watching the documentary on the purloined De Kooning, Schachter spied the Higgins and Sharp works on a living room wall and wondered if they too might have been stolen. He did some digging and found that the works had indeed been taken. “The account of the theft at the Harwood is almost identical to the account of the theft at the University of Arizona Museum,” Schachter told the Silver City Daily Press’s Juno Ogle in 2024. “A guy comes in in a big overcoat [and] slashes the painting with a packing knife. He rolls it up and stores it in his overcoat and leaves.”
Schachter in 2023 notified Harwood Museum executive director Juniper Leherissey of the find via email. “I tried to be succinct and not sound like a nut,” he later wrote. Leherissey, who had been unaware of the theft, organized a task force to investigate Schachter’s claims and subsequently notified the FBI, which tracked down the paintings. Both had been donated to a now-shuttered thrift store, which had sold them in 2018 through the Scottsdale Art Auction. The FBI returned the works, which it noted had been stolen before the 1994 Theft of Major Artwork statute passed. The law pronounces the theft of “any object of cultural heritage from a museum” a federal offense.
“We are grateful for the cooperation of all parties involved,” said Margaret Girard, acting assistant special agent in charge of the FBI Albuquerque field office, in a statement. “The recovery of these stolen paintings is a powerful reminder that the FBI continues to commit investigative resources to recover cultural property and return these stolen items to their rightful owners.”