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The missing picture from 1956 in the series "Struggle: From the History of the American People" shows an uprising by American farmers in Massachusetts
Photo:
Anna-Marie Kellen / dpa
A visitor to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) discovered a painting in her neighbor's apartment that had been missing for decades.
The picture by the US artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) is now part of the exhibition on loan, the museum announced on Wednesday (local time).
It is one of 30 from the series "Struggle: From the History of the American People" made by the Afro-American artist at the time of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, which the Metropolitan Museum is currently exhibiting.
Five of the pictures were considered missing, of two only the titles were known - including the one that has now been rediscovered.
The woman had therefore visited the exhibition and immediately thought of the painting in her neighbors' apartment on the Upper West Side, not far from the Metropolitan Museum.
Back home, she encouraged her neighbors to contact the museum.
The neighbors bought the picture for a small sum at a local charity auction in 1960 - and, according to their own statements, were not aware of its art historical relevance.
"A friend looked at the exhibition and said: 'There's a white spot on the wall and I think that's where your picture belongs,'" said the owner of the New York Times.
"I felt I owed it to both the artist and the Met to allow the picture to be shown."
She was 27 years old when she and her husband bought it.
"The picture has been hanging untouched in my living room for 60 years."
The museum was finally able to confirm that it was the original, as it was called.
"A discovery of this importance in modern art is rare," said the Austrian director of the Metropolitan Museum, Max Hollein.
"And it's exciting that a local visitor is responsible for it."
The Met is the largest art museum in the United States.
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ngo / dpa
