Ex-Director Sued Over Missing Art

The Southwest Museum filed suit against its former director, Patrick T. Houlihan, on Thursday, contending that he improperly removed 127 items from the museum’s collection and sold or traded them for personal gain.

The suit places a value of $2.2 million on the items that the museum says are missing from its renowned collection of American Indian art.

“Those value assessments on the items are safe, conservative figures,” said Michael Heumann, the attorney representing the museum and a member of its board.

The suit was filed a day after Houlihan, director of the Southwest Museum from 1981 until 1987, pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court to 11 counts of theft and embezzlement in connection with the missing items and was released on his own recognizance.

Houlihan returned home to Taos, N.M., where he is director of the Millicent Rogers Museum, which also specializes in American Indian art.

Neither he nor his lawyer had received a copy of the suit and said they could not comment.

The suit asks for the items to be returned or that the museum be reimbursed for their value. It asks for an additional $1 million in compensation for the loss of the use of the items while they have been missing, $50,000 for staff expenses in connection with the missing items and unspecified punitive damages.

Museum officials said the list of missing items was compiled during inventory checks of the 200,000-item collection in 1989.

The items in the suit range from a Hopi pottery bowl valued at $100 to two large paintings by the late American artist Maynard Dixon valued at $300,000 apiece.

Both Dixon paintings are portraits of American Indians. One--”Taos Indian Man,” dated 1931--was a gift from the artist to the museum, which has been amassing its collection since 1907.

Another item on the list is a Navajo poncho-style serape, woven about 1850, that the museum values at $250,000. During Houlihan’s arraignment, it was alleged that he sold the serape to an Arizona-based dealer for $60,000 and used the money to make a down payment on a house in Rimrock, Ariz.

Heumann said the values were determined by several experts in American Indian art.