Imagine this, one moment you鈥檙e admiring a sprawling landscape by Victor Higgins and a portrait of a young Indigenous man in traditional regalia by Joseph Henry Sharp. You turn around, and they鈥檙e gone. Ripped from the walls, no trace of where they went.
It turns out they were stolen by the now , Rita and Jerry Alter, 40 years ago from the University of New Mexico鈥檚 in Taos. Last week the paintings were finally returned.
鈥淭hey would go into small institutions, and Jerry wore a trench coat and Rita pretended like she needed a wheelchair. She made a distraction, he went upstairs and pulled the paintings from the wall and put them in his trench coat and they walked out the door,鈥� Juniper Leherissey said. She is the executive director at the Harwood Museum.
In 2023 Leherissey got a call from Lou Schachter, an investigative reporter looking into stolen artwork. He believed he had found their two missing pieces.
The Harwood Museum put together a case and asked the FBI to help return the paintings. About a year later, they鈥檙e back, ready to be seen by the community again.
The painters, Higgins and Sharp, were members of the . Much of their work featured the landscape and culture of the Southwest.
鈥淭hese artists were really instrumental in the foundation of the early 20th century artist community that started to form in Taos. I think these works really just symbolize coming home,鈥� Leherissey said.
Victor Higgins鈥� Aspens and Joseph Henry Sharp鈥檚 Oklahoma Cheyenne will be displayed at the Return of Taos Treasures exhibition at the Harwood museum along with other reclaimed artworks starting June 6 at their from 4p.m. to 7p.m.
