Nothing haunts art researchers like the paintings, sculptures, and prints that they can’t track down—whether for a catalogue raisonné, an artist’s archive, or a scholarly article. This is felt even more acutely by those with a sentimental connection to an artwork that has disappeared into a private collection or changed hands without leaving a paper trail.
Such was the case with a portrait of modernist artist Anna Walinska, painted by her close friend Arshile Gorky. The Arshile Gorky Foundation was hoping to track down the oil on canvas for a catalogue raisonné, and Rosina Rubin, Walinska’s niece and founder of Atelier Anna Walinska, wanted to find out what happened to this painting, which she remembered hanging in the entryway of her family’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
I heard about the search through the Atelier Anna Walinska newsletter, reached out to Rubin and the Gorky Foundation, and wrote an article that we hoped would cause this never-exhibited painting to resurface. For two years there was no response . . . until there was. A neighbor of the private collector who owns the painting saw the article, recognized the portrait, and said something. A happy reunion ensued.
Artworks are never really lost, of course, unless they’re destroyed. They do wander, though (and occasionally do get stolen), thus distancing themselves from those that know their stories most fully. Here are 10 such pieces, long separated from people hoping to study them. Have you seen these artworks?
The post “Have You Seen This Missing Artwork?” by Anne Doran was published on 11/18/2024 by www.artnews.com