The FBI recently recovered two paintings stolen four decades ago from the University of New Mexico’s Harwood Museum of Art in Taos.
Victor Higgins’s oil painting Aspens (c. 1932) and Joseph Henry Sharp’s portrait Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress (c. 1915) were stolen in March 1985 from the institution, which was “primarily a public library at the time with a museum on the second floor,” according to a press release from the FBI.
According to the University, the FBI investigation was prompted by a phone call from Los Angeles–based investigative reporter Lou Schachter to Harwood Museum of Art executive director Juniper Leherissey in late 2023. Schachter said he had uncovered “substantial evidence” connecting the theft of the two paintings with the theft of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ocher (1954–55) from the University of Arizona Museum of Art. That artwork was returned to the university in 2017 after being a cold case for 32 years, and a 2022 documentary profiling the thieves behind the art theft—Rita and Jerry Alter of Cliff, New Mexico—included a still photo showing the stolen paintings by Higgins and Sharp in the couple’s living room.
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That call prompted Leherissey to lead an Art Recovery Task Force focused on gathering additional evidence, including dozens of documents and notices about the thefts on national and international stolen art lists, which was eventually presented to FBI Special Agent Susan Garst on March 25, 2024. Less than a month later, the FBI confirmed it would take on the museum’s case in April of last year.
Joseph Henry Sharp, Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress, c. 1915, oil on canvas, 18 x 12 in. Gift of Read Mullan. Collection of Harwood Museum of Art. Courtesy UNM Harwood Museum of Art
Joseph Henry Sharp
“As a result of Schachter’s earlier investigations, it was confirmed that both Harwood paintings were sold in 2018 by the Scottsdale Auction House: Higgins’s Aspens sold for $93,600 and Sharp’s Oklahoma Cherokee aka Indian Boy in Full Dress sold for $52,650. It is noteworthy that the Scottsdale Auction House in its 2018 auction catalog advertised the paintings with changed titles as Fall Landscape and Indian in a War Bonnet, which are not cited in any documentation as the artists’ titles,” according to a story published by the University of New Mexico about the theft.
The paintings were located, recovered, and returned to the Harwood Museum of Art on May 12, and were publicly unveiled at a press event on June 6.
“It’s a joy—and a profound relief—to welcome these works by Victor Higgins and Joseph Henry Sharp back to the Harwood,” Leherissey said in a press statement. Leherissey was in elementary school when the theft occurred in 1985, as well as a frequent visitor to the Harwood Public Library and its small art gallery.“ This homecoming means so much—not just to our staff, board, and members, but to the entire arts and cultural community of Taos. We can’t wait to celebrate their return with everyone.”
Notably, the thefts of Aspens and Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress occurred nine years before The Theft of Major Artwork (18 U.S.C. 668) was passed in 1994. The statute made it a federal offense to steal any object of cultural heritage from a museum or library.
The Harwood Museum of Art is now exhibiting Aspens and Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress, along with other works by the two painters from its collection, in its new show “The Return of Taos Treasures.”
Sharp was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, of which Higgins was also an influential member. Higgins was also a member of Harwood’s founding Board in 1923.