Van Goes : Theft: Artist Carol Quint emerged from a mall gallery in Woodland Hills to find that her vehicle and 20 years of her best work had disappeared.

Auto theft may be all too common in Los Angeles, but artist Carol Quint lost more than transportation when her Toyota van vanished from The Promenade mall in Woodland Hills.

An estimated 100 etchings, pencil drawings and photographs--20 years of what Quint described as her best work--were in the van that she discovered missing Thursday night, Quint said.

“It’s just like losing a child, like losing a part of yourself,” the 51-year-old West Los Angeles resident sighed Friday.

Quint said the artworks could have sold for $100 to $400 apiece.

Los Angeles police confirmed that Quint had filed an auto theft report, but detectives in the West Valley Division had not yet received it or begun an investigation Friday. The license plate number is 2VQD547.

Quint said she left a mall gallery exhibit of another artist’s work about 9:30 p.m., didn’t see her copper-colored van where she had left it, and at first thought she was simply tired and had made a mistake. She even walked around the nearly empty parking lot with a colleague from the Martin Lawrence Galleries chain, where she works as a director in Brentwood, and then drove around the lot with a mall security guard to make sure the van was indeed gone.

It contained a large portfolio and two binders of her best work, Quint explained, because she had picked them up the day before from a client who had borrowed them to make a selection.

The client, Helene Feldman of Beverly Hills, recalled Quint carrying her portfolio back to the van Wednesday.

“I’m horrified,” Feldman said Friday. “I’m hoping all they want is the van.”

Feldman bought a self-portrait by Quint, but declined to say how much she paid.

Although Quint’s name has yet to become a household word, her work has been exhibited throughout the state, including the Fresno Art Museum, where she was featured in a 1987 retrospective of women artists.

Recently, interpretive portraits of Middle East hostages were displayed in a group show on the Persian Gulf War at Beyond Baroque, a Venice gallery.

“They were so relevant for today, the best pieces I did,” Quint said of the portraits, which were in the van.

Quint was perhaps too prophetic in her work. The lost drawings also included a series titled “Crimes Against Women.”