How the Huntington Found a Rare Artwork After It Got Lost

We first reported on the

Johnson, one of the masters of the Harlem Renaissance, carved the 22-foot-long, three-panel screen in 1937 from California redwood, and it features charming iconography of woodland creatures, trees and musicians.

What was left untold is how the screen managed to find its way to its new San Marino home, and therein lies a tale of incompetence (on the part of the University of California, Berkeley), serendipity (on the part of the man who bought the screen) and a canny purchase (by the Huntington's curator of American art, Jessica Todd Smith).

The New York Times has the whole story, which begins tantalizingly:

Everybody misplaces something sometime. But it is not easy for the University of California, Berkeley, to explain how it lost a 22-foot-long carved panel by a celebrated African-American sculptor, or how, three years ago, it mistakenly sold this work, valued at more than a million dollars, for $150 plus tax.

You can read the entire story at The New York Times' website.

Here's more about the Sargent Johnson screen, now in conservation at the Huntington.