Art `lost' here - for 20 years // Institute admits it can't find $250,000 O'Keeffe painting

Art Institute officials admitted Monday that one of its GeorgiaO'Keeffe paintings, worth as much as $500,000, is "lost" - and hasbeen for at least 20 years.

Art Institute director James Woods acknowledged that, since1970, museum staffers have been looking for "East River From theShelton," a 12-by-32-inch oil painting created in 1926 by the Schoolof the Art Institute graduate.

For two decades, he said, institute officials had continued tohope the work would be discovered among the institute's 300,000objets d'art.

But now they are nearly certain that the picture is lost andhave officially reclassified it as such so an investigation can belaunched by the FBI and international law enforcement agencies.

"Frankly, the reclassification of the painting as lost from themuseum is long overdue," Woods said. "The painting has been missingfor 20 years. We are acknowledging that unfortunate fact now that wehave failed to find it during a recently completed inventory of themuseum's 20th-century painting and sculpture collection."

The painting, which O'Keeffe donated in 1955 and which Woodsbelieves would now be worth between $250,000 and $500,000, was lastseen in 1966, when it was returned from an exhibition in Houston.

When New York's Whitney Museum of American Art requested it foran exhibition four years later, it couldn't be located.

"I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it could still be onthe premises, but I would call it highly unlikely," said Woods, whocame to the museum in 1980.

He is reluctant to classify the painting's disappearance astheft, he said. "It's pure speculation as to what happened to it," hesaid. "It's conceivable that a painting wrapped in brown wrapper . .. well, it could have been taken out with the garbage."

Woods learned of the painting's "missing" status in 1987, whenthe institute was preparing an exhibition of O'Keeffe's work. Atthat time, he said, he and Charles Stuckey, the newly installedcurator of 20th-century paintings and sculpture, began an intensiveand ultimately unsuccessful search of the department's collections.

The 20th-century department still includes 19 paintings byO'Keeffe, as well as about 1,500 other works of art. The department,one of 10 curatorial sections of the museum, is undergoing arenovation, the first phase of which is due to open in the spring of1991.

Only about 10,000 of the institute's 300,000 objects are ondisplay now, Woods said. The rest are in vast storage areas.

Woods said he hopes the announcement of the loss - and thenotification of law enforcement officials - may result in the returnof "East River From the Shelton."

"Perhaps the FBI will locate it, or perhaps some innocent personhas it and will read about this and return it," he said. "One canreally only hope."

Officials said they believe that O'Keeffe knew the painting wasmissing after the Whitney Museum asked for it.