Lost Artworks - 20th Century

20th Century

• The Empire Nephrite (1902), Royal Danish (1903) and Alexander III Commemorative (1909) Fabergé eggs.
• Musik II (1898), Schubert at the Piano (1899), Golden Apple Tree (1903), Procession of the Dead (1903), Klimt University of Vienna Ceiling Paintings: Medicine, Philosophy and Jurisprudence (1899–1907), Farm Garden with Crucifix (1911–12), Malcesine on Lake Garda (1913), Garden Path with Chickens (1916), Portrait of Wally (1916), The Girlfriends (c. 1916-17), Leda (1917), Gastein (1917), all by Gustav Klimt. Destroyed by a fire set by retreating German forces in 1945 at Schloss Immendorf, Austria.
• Tammany Hall at Night by John Sloan was destroyed by fire during transit. The artist later created a replica from photographs.
• Several paintings, sculptures, and furnishings from the RMS Titanic (1912) and the RMS Lusitania (1915).
• Two paintings by Claude Monet, including a major study of Water Lilies, were destroyed in a fire at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in April 1958.
• Diego Rivera's mural Man at the Crossroads (1933) was destroyed and removed in 1934 because its content (including a portrait of Lenin) offended Nelson Rockefeller, who had commissioned the work. Rivera later recreated the work as Man, Controller of the Universe in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.
• Joan Miró's large mural on panels, The Reaper, (1937) depicting a Catalan peasant, was created for the Spanish Republican pavilion of the 1937 Paris Exposition. Afterwards it was sent to Valencia and probably destroyed.
• Over 90% of the public works of German sculptor Arno Breker were destroyed by the allies after World War II.
• Works of Arshile Gorky were lost when his studio burned in 1946. In addition, 15 abstract paintings and drawings by Gorky were lost in a 1962 plane crash."Disasters: Tragedy in Jamaica Bay". Time. Mar. 09, 1962. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939941-2,00.html. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
• Graham Sutherland's portrait of Winston Churchill (1954) was deliberately destroyed by Lady Churchill because she did not like it.
• Numerous works of the Corridart exhibition were removed and impounded or destroyed on the orders of Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau in 1976, creating a scandal.
• Some 20 works were created on camera and then deliberately destroyed by Pablo Picasso for the documentary Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso, 1956) .
• On January 30, 1979, a Varig 707 freighter, registration PP-VLU, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean thirty minutes after departing Tokyo, Japan. The captain had previously been involved in another major accident, that of Varig Flight 820 in 1973. No wreckage or remains were ever located. The aircraft was carrying 153 paintings by the Japanese Brazilian artist Manabu Mabe, worth approximately $1.24 million US.
• "Study after Velazquez III" (1950), Francis Bacon. Third in a series of portraits after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1650. All three were thought destroyed by the artist until the first two surfaced 1999.
• "Untitled Wall Relief", by Craig Kauffman (1967), an acrylic lacquer on Plexiglas piece, fell off the wall and shattered on July 16, 2006 at the Pompidou Center of Paris
• Untitled piece by Peter Alexander (1971), an 8 ft. x 5 in. molded polyester resin work, fell and shattered in April 2006 at the Pompidou Center of Paris
• The "Pearl Monument" (1982), which stood in the centre of the Pearl Roundabout, Bahrain. It was torn down by the Bahraini government on March 18, 2011 because it had been a focal point for protesters.
• Anish Kapoor's wood and cement sculpture "Hole and Vessel" (1984) was discovered missing from its storage unit in 2004.
• Richard Serra's 38-ton metal sculpture "Equal-Parallel/Guernica-Bengasi" (1986),"Equal-Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi". Ministry of Education (Spain). http://www.spainisculture.com/en/obras_de_excelencia/equal_parallel_guernica_bengasi.html. Retrieved February 16, 2012. formerly displayed at the Reina Sofia museum, could not be located in 2006.
• The "Goddess of Democracy" (1989) by students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, was destroyed by The People's Liberation Army during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
• Rachel Whiteread's enormous sculpture "House" (1993) was destroyed by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets council on January 11, 1994.
• Pablo Picasso's painting The Painter was lost aboard Swissair Flight 111 when it crashed into the waters off Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on September 2, 1998.
• Richard Serra's Tilted Arc (1981) was dismantled and removed in 1989.
• Hélio Oiticica's almost whole collection (estimated at 2,000 works, or approximately 90%) was destroyed on October 16, 2009 in a fire at his brother's house.
• Dan Narita's painting Seeds was lost after last exhibited at The Mall Galleries as part of the Threadneedle Prize Exhibition in London 2012.