"Woman-Ochre" (1954–1955) on display at the University of Arizona Museum of Art (courtesy of UAMA)

"Woman-Ochre" on display at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, 1983.

This image courtesy of UAMA and has been reproduced here with permission. Use of this image is granted exclusively for this purpose to the Getty Museum.

Painted by pioneer abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning in the mid-fifties and donated to the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1958, "Woman-Ochre" was a beloved painting exhibited widely over the next three decades.

It disappeared from public view on November 29, 1985 – a fateful day when it was brazenly cut from its frame and stolen from the Museum. The painting’s whereabouts were unknown for almost thirty-two years, until August 2017 when it reappeared at an estate sale in the small town of Cliff, New Mexico.