In the context of this artwork, explain the Recovery of the History.
In June 2017, Rita Alter, a former speech pathologist in the New York City public school system as well as the local school district in Cliff, New Mexico, died. She and her husband, Jerry, who had predeceased her in 2012, a former clarinetist and music teacher in the New York City schools, had retired to the area in 1977 and built a house on 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land near Gila National Forest that included a sculpture garden with busts of Beethoven and Molière, where they raised their own chickens and ducks. Her nephew, Ron Roseman, was named executor of her estate.Roseman sent photos of the Alter's artwork and statues to a dozen museums and auction houses. Roseman then hired a local realtor, Ruth Seawolf, to sell the Alters' house. As the two were touring the house to prepare for the sale, Seawolf noticed several items in the house that might be of interest to someone she knew, mainly pottery and African pieces. She called up a friend, David Van Auker, who ran an antique store in nearby Silver City, and Roseman hired him to appraise the art and furniture in the house that the family itself had not wanted. He sought to sell them those items in bulk so the family could then sell the emptied house and dispose of the estate. Van Auker went to the house to inspect the contents in August.During Van Auker's tour, in addition to the art Seawolf had told him about, he found another painting in the Alters' master bedroom, hung on the wall next to the door in such a way that it was visible only when the door was closed, a discovery he made only when he closed the door to get a better look at a broken dresser drawer, part of the room's mid-century furniture set, which he thought could be sold together at a good price. While he did not recognize the painting, it appeared to him to be the work of a mid-20th century artist as well, which he thought was "great" and "cool", although he thought very little of its frame.Van Auker bought the contents of the house for $2,000 and returned the next day with some friends to take the artwork and furniture back to his store. They put the painting atop the pile in their truck and drove it back to Silver City, where he put it on display, propping it up against the wall on the floor. He intended to change the frame, which he disliked, and hang it in his guesthouse.Silver City has a large population of artists, and shortly after Van Auker put it on display, a customer recognized it as a work by de Kooning, a remark the proprietors dismissed. But within an hour, two other customers had made the same assessment; one man even returned several times and offered to buy the painting for $200,000. Van Auker, realizing he might have acquired something more valuable than he appreciated, decided to put the painting in a bathroom, the only room in the store that could be locked. He did an Internet search, which eventually led him to a 2015 article about Woman-Ochre in The Arizona Republic.The painting Van Auker had bought from the Alters' house looked exactly like the stolen work, when he compared it to an online image, down to the drips and splatters. He called UAMA and told the receptionist he thought he had a painting that had been stolen from them. She immediately put him through to curator Olivia Miller, who asked him to measure it. It was one inch off from its 40-by-30-inch (102 cm × 76 cm) dimensions, consistent with having been cut from its original frame. After Van Auker also described how the paint had been cracked, as it might have been if it had been rolled up for some time, Miller asked him to take pictures of the painting's rear with his cellphone and send them to her. The marks on them matched the ones on file for de Kooning's work.News that a masterpiece of modern art had somehow ended up in a local antique shop got around Silver City, and by the end of the day 40 people had shown up to ask if they could see it. On the advice of the Albuquerque FBI office, which told him to put it in "a very safe place", Van Auker took the painting back to his Pinos Altos home and hid it behind his sofa, staying up all night and guarding it with his guns. The next day, needing to keep it somewhere while he ran the shop, Van Auker and his partners drove it around town, looking for someone whom they could temporarily place it with. A lawyer they were acquainted with doubted the story until he saw the painting, and agreed to take it for the day.FBI agents from the Phoenix office, who had been investigating the theft since university police turned the case over to them, made the 225-mile (362 km) trip east along with Miller and a UAMA team later in that day. At the lawyer's house, where he was having a small party for family and friends, the Grant County sheriff greeted Van Auker, Miller and the FBI agents. When she saw Woman-Ochre in the lawyer's home office upstairs, Miller fell to her knees and gasped, a moment Van Auker recalled as "electric". "Holy shitballs!" she said, as during her entire tenure at the museum she had come to know the painting well, yet never actually seen it in person. They had brought the frame that originally housed the painting, and its remaining threads matched those still on the painting.The law enforcement officers present promptly moved the painting to a vault for the coming weekend. Afterwards a UAMA van arrived to take the painting back to Tucson. New Mexico State Police escorted it to the state line, where their Arizona counterparts took over as it made the journey down Interstate 10 to the museum.After its return, Woman-Ochre was allowed to rest for a few days. Following that period, Nancy Odegaard, a conservator at the nearby Arizona State Museum, began the final process of authentication. She and her graduate student found a sticker from the 1969 traveling Smithsonian exhibit on the painting's rear. An ultraviolet light detected an acrylic varnish. There was also evidence of repairs the museum had made, and recorded, before 1985.Finally, Odegaard and her student put the painting over the original frame it had been cut from and compared the canvas. The damage to the painting and the damage to the threads that had remained matched perfectly, including the colors of stray paint. A large stray black stroke in the upper left corner that matched that on the remnants provided the final confirmation, and Odegaard formally authenticated the painting. On August 11 the museum held a news conference announcing that Woman-Ochre had been recovered after 31 years.University police chief Brian Seastone, who had investigated the case in 1987, was elated. "Somebody saw something, they said something, and today she's home." Van Auker, who was also present, described how he had come to find the painting and his role in the process of its recovery. He declined a reward, and brushed aside suggestions that he was somehow heroic. "We returned something that was stolen, and that's something everyone should do."The university gave Van Auker the gold wooden frame the painting had been hung in when it was stolen. He and the shop's co-owner, Buck Burns, have hung it in a guest house they own, where they had originally planned to hang the painting before they learned of its true origin. Van Auker said visitors to their shop ask about the painting at least once a day; they also still receive calls expressing gratitude.In 2022 they visited the Getty to see the painting after its restoration. Miller observed that if the theft represented people at their worst, its recovery showed "the best of people". A photo of the two is on display at the Getty with the painting.
Smithsonian Arizona New Mexico Phoenix Silver City a large population of artists sheriff guesthouse Tucson modern art clarinet stolen Pinos Altos Grant County varnish the paint had been cracked The Arizona Republic modern Albuquerque ultraviolet realtor African Cliff, New Mexico Arizona State Museum executor New York City public school system conservator Arizona Republic New Mexico State Police master bedroom acrylic Ochre Interstate 10 antique their Arizona counterparts speech pathologist sculpture garden left Beethoven curator Molière estate Gila National Forest news conference