FBI returns stolen Paintings to UNM’s Harwood Museum of Art 40 Years after Art Heist

It has been a nearly forgotten, 40-year circuitous path for two brazenly stolen paintings to find their way back to gallery walls at Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico. Victor Higgins’ Aspens and Jospeh Henry Sharp’s Oklahoma Cheyenne are, at long last, returned home in Taos, where both artists lived and worked for most of their careers. FBI Agents from its Santa Fe office delivered the stolen paintings to Harwood Museum of Art’s Collections Department on May 12, 2025, 14 months after agreeing to take the 39-year-old cold case.

“It’s a joy—and a profound relief—to welcome these works by Victor Higgins and Joseph Henry Sharp back to the Harwood,” said Executive Director Juniper Leherissey, who was in elementary school when the 1985 heist took place, and a frequent visitor to the Harwood Public Library and its small gallery. “This homecoming means so much—not just to our staff, board, and members, but to the entire arts and cultural community of Taos. We can’t wait to celebrate their return with everyone.”

Victor Higgins (1884-1949) and Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953), both influential members of the Taos Society of Artists, devoted their work to portraying the Southwest's landscape and culture. Higgins, who was on the Harwood’s founding Board in 1923, is celebrated for his expressive landscapes and modernist approach, which captured the unique light and atmosphere of New Mexico. Sharp, a founder of the Taos Society of Artists (TSA), depicted Indigenous cultures, producing portraits and scenes that
emphasize a romanticized view of Pueblo culture.

A single phone call by an investigative reporter in late 2023 to Executive Director Juniper Leherissey cascaded into a plethora of discoveries by the then 100-year-old institution’s leaders. LA-based writer and art theft sleuth, Lou Schachter informed Leherissey that he had uncovered substantial evidence connecting the dots to the theft of two prized TSA paintings from the walls of the museum’s second floor gallery on March 20, 1985.

In 1985, Harwood was primarily a public library. The art heist of both oil
paintings was a case that had long gone cold, and, for many, forgotten.
Harwood Museum’s Collections Manager, within a half-hour of Leherissey’s request, was able to find documents verifying details of the theft and documentation of due diligence reporting of the incident. The ‘Harwood Heist,’ as it has been called, Schachter explained to Leherissey, was incredibly similar to the well-publicized November 1985 theft of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ocher from the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Rita and Jerry Alter of Cliff, New Mexico are profiled in the 2022 documentary The Thief Collector as the art thieves of Woman-Ocher, which was returned to University of Arizona’s art museum in 2017 after being a cold case for 32 years. In the film, a still photo of Jerry Alter in his living room reveals the stolen Higgins and Sharp paintings hanging on their wall. The Alters were never found guilty of this crime as they each died before the de Kooning was discovered by a Silver City, NM estate sale company hidden behind the couple’s bedroom door.

Leherissey swiftly convened an Art Recovery Task Force composed of Harwood Collection Committee, Board members, and key staff. The task force immediately began gathering additional evidence to build its case. On March 25, 2024, task force members and Leherissey presented a two-inch thick binder to Santa Fe-based stolen art bureau’s FBI Agent Susan Garst. Dozens of documents provided evidence of the due diligence conducted immediately after the theft by the Executive Director David Caffey and
Curator David Witt in 1985, including placing notice of the stolen art on three national and international stolen art lists including International Foundation for Art Research’s and Art Dealers Association of America’s stolen art lists.

Leherissey received another breakthrough phone call on April 17, 2024: the FBI confirmed it would take the Harwood’s case, thus increasing the museum’s opportunity to confirm the whereabouts of its two paintings stolen 39 years prior.

As a result of Schachter’s earlier investigations, it was confirmed that both Harwood paintings were sold in 2018 by the Scottsdale Auction House: Higgins’ Aspens sold for $93,600 and Sharp’s Oklahoma Cherokee/ Indian Boy in Full Dress sold for $52,650. It is noteworthy that the Scottsdale Auction House in its 2018 auction catalogue advertised the paintings with changed titles as Fall Landscape and Indian in a War Bonnet, which are not cited in any documentation as the artists’ titles.