Woman-Ochre is a 1955 abstract expressionist oil painting by Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning. It is part of his Woman series from that time. The painting was controversial when it was created, like the other works in the series, because it showed clear images of people. Some artists, like Jackson Pollock, believed this went against the movement’s goal of creating art without recognizable images. Some feminists also thought the paintings showed negative attitudes toward women, suggesting harmful ideas about the women in the artwork.
Years after it was painted, a wealthy collector from the Eastern United States bought it. Later, he donated it to the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) in Tucson, where he often vacationed. He required that the museum never sell or give the painting away, even though other paintings by de Kooning from that time became worth over US$100 million in the early 2000s. The museum could still lend the painting to traveling exhibits, and it was shown as far away as Eastern Europe.
In 1985, the painting was stolen from the museum. Investigators believed the thieves were a couple who had visited the museum the day after Thanksgiving. The painting was found cut from its frame shortly after they left. Sketches were shared to help find the thieves, but no clues were found until the painting was discovered 32 years later. It was offered for sale at an antique store in New Mexico, where it had been part of the estate of Jerry and Rita Alter, two retired public school teachers from New York City who moved to the area. Visitors to the store guessed it might be a de Kooning painting. The store owner found a picture of the missing artwork online and contacted museum staff. The museum temporarily confirmed the painting was genuine and returned it to Tucson. The museum did not display it again except for one day before sending it to the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles for restoration. Funds were raised to repair the painting. After delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the restoration was completed in 2022.
It has not been determined who stole the painting. Some people suspect Jerry and Rita Alter, who were photographed at a family Thanksgiving dinner in Tucson the night before the theft. They displayed the painting in their home in a way that only they could have seen. They also looked somewhat like the couple in the sketches. Jerome Alter later wrote a book in which two characters steal a museum piece to keep for themselves. The living relatives of the Alters believe they may have bought the painting from someone else without knowing its history. A 2022 documentary about the crime and the Alters suggested they were involved in stealing two other paintings, which were later found and returned to the museums they were taken from.
History
Willem de Kooning began painting Woman-Ochre in 1954 while living in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in Manhattan where many artists and thinkers from the New York School lived. He completed the painting the next year.
Like other paintings in the Woman series, Woman-Ochre showed a female figure. The figure was recognizable but made up of abstract shapes. These paintings caused debate among artists and critics. Some artists, like Jackson Pollock, believed de Kooning had not fully achieved the goal of abstract expressionism, which aimed to create art focused only on abstract forms. John Elderfield, who organized a 2011–2012 exhibition of de Kooning’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, explained that the series’ strength came from combining traditional painting techniques, such as thick brushstrokes used by Venetian artists, with modern themes. He said this mix made people feel uneasy.
Outside the art world, critic Emily Genauer criticized the paintings from a feminist viewpoint, calling them harmful portrayals of women. De Kooning did not deny these criticisms. He once said, “Women irritate me sometimes. I painted that irritation in the Woman series.” His wife, Elaine, said the paintings were inspired by her mother-in-law, not her.
After finishing Woman-Ochre in 1955, it was displayed at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York for two years as part of a one-person show featuring 21 works, mostly oil paintings and a few sketches. Edward Joseph Gallagher Jr., an architect and collector from Baltimore, bought the painting in 1957. He also enjoyed visiting dude ranches in Arizona. The following year, after reading an article in Life magazine about the University of Arizona’s new art museum and its collection of Renaissance art, Gallagher contacted the university’s president and offered to donate some of his modern paintings to honor his son, who had recently died in a boating accident. In total, he gave the museum 200 works, including Woman-Ochre, by de Kooning and other abstract expressionist painters like Pollock and Mark Rothko. He required that the museum never sell or give the paintings to anyone else.
During the 1960s, the museum lent Woman-Ochre to other exhibitions. It was displayed in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1963, and later at several colleges in New England. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) included it in a traveling exhibition called Two Decades of American Painting in 1966 and 1967. In 1969, the painting was shown in a Smithsonian exhibition titled The Disappearance and Reappearance of the Image, which displayed it in several Eastern European countries, Paris, and Brussels.
After that, Woman-Ochre remained in Arizona for many years. It was shown in another MoMA exhibition, Four Contemporary Masters, in 1975. In August 1981, it was displayed briefly at the Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York, which had previously exhibited many of de Kooning’s works.
On November 29, 1985, the day after Thanksgiving, an older woman and a younger man arrived at the museum shortly before it opened at 9 a.m. They wore heavy winter coats to protect against the cold weather. Security guards let a staff member in, and the couple followed. The guards allowed them to enter.
The couple went upstairs. Midway up the stairs, the woman asked the guard on duty about some artwork, while the man continued upstairs. Shortly after, the man returned and the two left.
The guard found the visit unusual and went upstairs to check. He discovered that Woman-Ochre had been removed from its frame. It appeared the man had hidden the painting under his coat before leaving. A witness later said the couple drove off in a rust-colored two-door sports car.
No fingerprints were found, and the museum had no security cameras at the time. Investigators relied on eyewitness descriptions. The man was described as being in his late 20s, with dark brown hair, glasses, a mustache, sunglasses, and a dark blue water-repellent coat with a hood. The woman was older, with reddish-blonde hair, a scarf, “granny glasses,” a red water-repellent coat, and tan bell-bottoms. Sketches were made and shared with the public. The university’s police department handed the case to the FBI, but no leads were found.
The museum’s insurance company paid $400,000 (equivalent to $988,000 in 2024) for the painting’s estimated value at the time. The money was used to buy security cameras. The museum also decided to stay closed on the day after Thanksgiving in the future. Like many museums that have lost artworks, it did not replace Woman-Ochre. Instead, it placed a blank ochre-colored canvas on the wall where the painting had been, to show the loss. By 2015, when another 1955 de Kooning painting, Interchange, was sold for $300 million, the museum estimated Woman-Ochre’s value at $160 million.
In June 2017, Rita Alter, a former speech pathologist in New York City and a local school district in Cliff, New Mexico, died. She and her husband, Jerry, who had died earlier in 2012, had retired to the area in 1977 and built a house on 8 hectares (20 acres) of land near Gila National Forest. Their home included a sculpture garden with statues of Beethoven and Molière, and they raised chickens and ducks. Her nephew, Ron Roseman, became the executor of her estate.
Roseman sent photos of the Alter family’s artwork and statues to museums and auction houses. He hired a local realtor, Ruth Seawolf, to sell the house. During a tour, Seawolf noticed items like pottery and African art that might interest someone she knew. She contacted David Van Auker, who ran an antique store in nearby Silver City, and Roseman hired him to appraise the art and furniture. Van Auker planned to sell these items in bulk so the family
Documentary
In 2021, director Allison Otto began filming The Thief Collector, a documentary about a painting and its theft. "As our team studied the story, we found that the theft is only a small part of a bigger story," she said. Van Auker believes that when the documentary is finished and released, it may lead to a third increase in visitors to Silver City and the store. "It would be wonderful for our community to be seen in a positive light," he said. "It is exciting to be part of this place and a great story." The filmmakers hope the documentary will create enough interest to inspire a fictional film based on the story.
A still photo from The Thief Collector shows Jerry Alter inside a house. Two paintings are visible behind him: Oklahoma Cheyenne (also known as Indian Boy in Full Dress) by Joseph Henry Sharp and Aspens by Victor Higgins. Both paintings were stolen from the University of New Mexico's Harwood Museum of Art in Taos in 1985. They were not in the Alters' home when they died. Investigators later discovered that the paintings had been sold at an auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2018. The paintings were correctly identified but had different titles, which had never been used in any official records for either artist. After a reporter informed the museum in 2023, the FBI took over the case, located the paintings, and returned them to the Harwood Museum in 2025.