Give us our Jackie back!
Battle for ‘stolen’ first lady painting
A long-lost portrait of a teenage Jackie Bouvier has been secreted away in East Hampton for years — and her family is suing to get it back.
The forgotten work is believed to have been stolen in the late 1960s from Grey Gardens, the notorious Long Island haunt of Jackie’s aunt and cousin, “Big Edie” Beale and daughter “Little Edie,” whose eccentric life of squalor and delusion was immortalized in a 1975 documentary, a musical and an HBO film.
The painting, done in 1950 by artist Irwin Hoffman, shows a then-19year-old Jacqueline Bouvier in close-up, primly dressed, her dark bob and brown eyes staring out from the framed canvas.
The portrait was commissioned by Jackie’s dad, John Vernou Bouvier III, who was known as “Black Jack,” and later bequeathed to Big Edie, his sister.
Black Jack had the painting done after his beloved daughter fell in a horse-riding accident and spent several days unconscious, according to the book “Janet and Jackie,” about the future first lady and her mother, Janet. Big Edie died in 1977. The painting may have been stolen in 1968 during one of the last public outings by the motherdaughter duo, when they attended the “debut” of a friend’s daughter. They returned to Grey Gardens to discover they had been robbed of $15,000 worth of property, New York magazine reported in 1972.
The Edies were reluctant to report the theft in the midst of a longrunning battle with local authorities over the downtrodden state of their home, according to court papers.
Before her own death in 2002, Little Edie urged her nephew, Bouvier Beale Jr., and his wife, Eva, to recover the family’s stolen items and reminded them of the Jackie portrait, Beale said in the Brooklyn federal-court papers.
In 2004, Eva Beale spotted a painting of Jackie at the Wallace Gallery in East Hampton, but owner Terry Wallace wouldn’t identify from whom he bought it, according to the lawsuit.
The Beales reignited their efforts to retrieve the painting in 2016 after they discovered a 1998 Hamptons Magazine article about the portrait in Little Edie’s belongings.
Wallace allegedly repeatedly refused to return the art but insisted the provenance of the portrait was “impeccable,” according to the lawsuit.
The family wants the artwork back and is “seeking justice and wants to reclaim this important piece of its legacy,” said lawyer Megan Noh, who represented Little Edie’s estate.
The gallery owner cast doubt on Beale’s claim.
“I got the painting 30 years ago from a very reputable art and antiques dealer,” Wallace told The Post. “I can’t give you the name but I can only tell you they were reputable . . . It has a very good provenance.”
When asked if the Beales were in the chain of ownership, Wallace said, “It didn’t come from those people.”
He wouldn’t put his reputation at risk for one painting, he said.
“If the painting was stolen I would cheerfully and gladly return it to the right owner, but that’s not the case,” Wallace said. “The Beale family insists they own this painting but there’s no evidence of that.
“I’ve helped the FBI solve cases,” he boasted. “I don’t think they would come to me if I were a dishonest person.”
Wallace claims the painting isn’t “that valuable.”
“I think they should have come to me and just tried to buy the painting from me,” he said. “They tried to steal it now. That’s how I think of it.”
Wallace’s reluctance to make the painting’s chain of ownership clear is strange, according to Noh, because “such information is regularly provided even to potential buyers.”