The Erie Artwork Museum has responded to a lawsuit filed on Nov. 7, 2025, by the daughter of an area artist, requesting the return of a watercolor painted by her late father. The artist, George C. Demiel, submitted the portray to be included in an annual juried present in 1966 on the museum, which was then often called the Artwork Middle of Erie. The Artwork Middle didn’t settle for the portray, and Demiel—who died the next yr at age 53—by no means reclaimed the art work.
The Erie Occasions-Information, which has been overlaying the lawsuit, reported that the museum’s December 12 response refers back to the watercolor, titled Home Boats, as “deserted private property.” The response continues to clarify that “After Mr. Deimel didn’t return to retrieve the work and/or notify the Artwork Middle of his intention to reclaim the identical, the Artwork Middle then took possession of what was then deserted private property, and positioned the work in storage till it was formally accessioned to the now Artwork Museum’s everlasting assortment in 1983.” (The establishment modified names that yr.)
Demiel’s 82-year-old daughter Georgia Heynes discovered that the museum nonetheless possessed Home Boats in 2019, when she noticed it hanging in an exhibition on the museum. The present, “The whole lot However the Cabinets,” featured some 1,000 framed artworks that had been in storage on the museum, hung salon-style within the galleries.
At that time Heynes requested for the portray again, and, in keeping with the swimsuit, Joshua Helmer, then-CEO of the Erie Artwork Museum, wrote a letter in March 2019 saying the museum would give the portray to Deimel’s closest dwelling relative when it was deaccessioned from the museum’s assortment. (This apparently by no means occurred, and the museum parted methods with Helmer, who was accused of sexual harassment, in January 2020.) The museum’s response to the November 2025 lawsuit argues that Heynes waited too lengthy to file her swimsuit, declaring that the two-year statute of limitations to file a declare to recuperate an merchandise that was taken has handed.
Joseph M. Walsh III, a decide on the Erie County Court docket of Widespread Pleas, has scheduled a convention for March 16 to evaluation the small print of the case.
