Denver woman arrested for punching, damaging $30 million Clyfford Still painting



A 36-year-old Denver woman, apparently drunk, leaned against an iconic Clyfford Still painting worth more than $30 million last week, punched it, slid down it and urinated on herself, according to a criminal case against Carmen Lucette Tisch.

"It doesn't appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she's not being charged with that," said Lynn Kimbrough, a spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney's Office, said Wednesday.

"You have to wonder where her friends were."

Tisch is being charged with criminal mischief in the incident that happened at the Clyfford Still Museum at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 29.

Damage to the painting — "1957-J-No. 2." — is estimated at $10,000.

The painting, which is nearly 9 1/2 feet tall and 13 feet wide, is estimated between $30 million and $40 million by the museum.

Tisch allegedly committed the offense with her pants pulled down, according to the police report, and struck the painting repeatedly with her fist.

The officer stated that scratches and other damage to the painting were visible.

A museum spokeswoman declined to describe the damage to painting or answer questions about who would pay the cost for repairs, deferring to the police investigation and museum policy.

The museum released a statement:

"On December 29, 2011, an incident of criminal mischief took place at the Clyfford Still Museum. The police were summoned and the offender was arrested and is currently in police custody. Museum officials are cooperating with the authorities regarding the situation and are in the process of further assessing the incident."

Ivar Zeile, owner of Plus Gallery in Denver, said that if the painting's canvas wasn't pierced, it likely can be restored.

Whether the damage affects the painting's value, however, depends on several factors, including whether it remains a museum piece or goes on the market. Sometimes such damage becomes part of piece's history, he said.

"It does damage the piece, though, even people just knowing that happened," he said.

The Clyfford Still Museum opened on Nov. 18 to exhibit the influential North Dakota-born artist's 60-year body of work.

Still, celebrated as one of the top abstract-expressionists of the 20th century, died at 1980. The city and county of Denver acquired the collection after a long lobbying effort by former mayor John Hickenlooper with the help of Still's nephew, Curt Freed, a Denver doctor.

To fund the musuem's endowment, four of Still's paintings were sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York for more than $114 million.

Freed could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Still's widow, Patricia, agreed in 2004 to give the city hundreds of her husband's works on the condition that Denver build a museum to house them. She died a year later, and her estate were added as well.

The museum's collection includes about 2,400 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, much of which have never been on public display before.

Tisch was still being held in the Denver County Jail Wednesday on $20,000 bond. She is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court Friday morning.

Court records show that Tisch was arrested a year ago on an armed robbery charge in Glendale. She was freed on $50,000 bond, then the charge was dropped on Dec. 16.

She pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in Lakewood in 2008 and received fines, 48 hours of a community service, a 30-day suspended jail sentence and 18 months probation, records show.