“I had heard the tale and knew what to expect, but it was by far the most damaged painting I had seen. When it arrived, it came into the studio and the damage was almost all that you could see.”

In 2017 Willem de Kooning’s painting Woman-Ochre returned to the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) more than 30 years after it had been stolen off the gallery walls. Because the theft and subsequent treatment of the work had caused significant damage, the UAMA enlisted the Getty Museum and Getty Conservation Institute to help repair the painting. When the work arrived at the Getty in 2019, the damage was so extreme that it was all paintings conservator Laura Rivers could see; prominent cracks and flaking paint obscured the artwork itself. Rivers worked alongside her colleague Douglas MacLennan, a conservation scientist who used advanced analytic methods like X-ray fluorescence and microfade testing to inform their conservation work. The results of their multi-year collaboration are finally on view in the exhibition Conserving de Kooning: Theft and Recovery.

In this episode, Getty Museum conservator Laura Rivers and Getty Conservation Institute scientist Douglas MacLennan discuss their work conserving Woman-Ochre, which is on display at the Getty Center through August 28, 2022.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://www.getty.edu/podcasts/art-and-ideas/damaged-de-kooning-on-display-at-last or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts

To hear more about the theft and conservation process for Woman-Ochre, visit http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-the-recovery-and-conservation-of-a-stolen-de-kooning/

To learn more about the exhibition, visit https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/de_kooning/index.html