'How do you just lose a painting like that?': DIA packed in wake of Van Gogh controversy

Detroit — Cheryle Van Wert said she couldn't fathom how a $5 million Vincent van Gogh painting could have disappeared for six years before turning up at the Detroit Institute of Arts, but she said she drove 100 miles on Sunday from Saginaw to the museum to see for herself the artwork that's the subject of a federal lawsuit.

"I thought it was wonderful," Van Wert said of Vincent Van Gogh's, "Liseuse De Romans" — also known as "The Novel Reader" or "The Reading Lady" ― an 1888 oil painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist master. "But how do you just lose a painting like that? Someone stole it and it stayed gone all this time? Why all of a sudden did this all come up?"

On Sunday, the DIA was packed with visitors to the Van Gogh exhibit. A line made up of hundreds of museum-goers for the exhibit snaked through several wings of the DIA. At the end of the queue were sisters Kim and Kristyn Adams of Dearborn.

"I hadn't even heard about (the controversy) — we're both just big Van Gogh fans," Kim Adams said. "We came down to the (Immersive Van Gogh exhibit at the TCF Center) last year, and we were going to come here today anyway."

Kristyn Adams added: "But all this about the ... painting makes coming down here all the more intriguing."

The controversy over the painting started with a lawsuit that was filed last week by a Brazilian art collector who is seeking to recover the rare Van Gogh work. Collector Gustavo Soter claims the painting had disappeared for nearly six years before it was found hanging in the DIA as part of the museum's "Van Gogh in America" exhibit.

The lawsuit by Soter's art brokerage company, Brokerarte Capital Partners LLC, claims that for years there had been an international search for the "Liseuse De Romans" painting before it was discovered in the DIA. The suit also insists that it's crucial for the painting to be returned to Soter before the DIA's Van Gogh exbibit closes Jan. 22.

"Immediate action is urgently needed," Soter's lawyer, Aaron Phelps, wrote in the suit that was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. "If the DIA moves the painting or surrenders possession to a third-party, plaintiff will lose the chance to recover the painting, for which it has been searching for years."

A photo of the painting from the DIA display was attached to the lawsuit. The sign on the artwork display does not name the owner, but instead reads: "Private collection, São Paulo."

The DIA told The Detroit News in a written statement that the museum researches ownership of artwork it displays through the Art Loss Register and the U.S. Federal Register.

"This evening the DIA was made aware of a complaint filed with respect to a work of art currently on loan to the DIA," the statement said after the lawsuit was filed. The DIA has not yet been served with the complaint and cannot comment on the matter."

The exhibit, which opened Oct. 2, features more than 70 works by the artist, whose paintings had received lukewarm receptions in the United States until the DIA in January 1922 purchased an 1887 self-portrait of Van Gogh for $4,200, about $75,000 in today's dollars, at an auction in New York. The purchase gave the DIA the distinction of being the first civic museum in the country to own a Van Gogh work.

"We were pioneers in buying the work of Van Gogh," said Salvador Salort-Pons, the DIA's director, told The News in September, days before the exhibit's opening. "Detroiters were visionaries."

The "Van Gogh in America" exhibit commemorated the 100th anniversary of the DIA's purchase of the self-portrait.

Among the hundreds of visitors to the DIA on Sunday were Jodie and Tom Hornby of Brownstown Township, who were told by an employee upon entering the museum that tickets for the Van Gogh exhibit were sold out.

When the employee pointed the couple to a desk where they could purchase tickets to the exhibit for another day later in the week, they decided to buy the passes and return to the DIA, "but we lucked out," Tom Hornby said. "We were told there'd been a cancellation, so we were able to get in today."

Jodie Hornby said the controversy over the "Liseuse De Romans" painting didn't draw them to the exhibit, "but the chance that we might never see it again (because of the question of ownership) makes me glad we got in today."

Van Wert said she was "inspired" after going through the exhibit.

"To know that Vincent van Gogh's hand actually touched these paintings is really something," she said.

ghunter@detroitnews.com

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Twitter: @GeorgeHunter_DN