Missing City Hall painting leaves Chicago in limbo

missing City – A 3-foot-by-5-foot abstract painting by Bill Cass—last known to hang in the City Hall office of Paul Goodrich, a top aide to former Mayor Lori Lightfoot—has been unaccounted for since the 2023 transition. City officials say they can’t trace what happened, emai

When a small abstract painting disappears, it’s easy to treat it like an administrative glitch. But in Chicago City Hall, where public art is meant to be cataloged and kept, the absence of one work has stretched into a two-year uncertainty.

The painting—an abstract work by artist Bill Cass—has been missing after being last known in the City Hall office of Paul Goodrich. Lori Lightfoot’s chief operating officer. City officials say they do not know what happened to the piece. a 3-foot-by-5-foot work that was part of City Hall’s public art collection going back to the 1980s.

Goodrich was believed to have had the painting in his office from around the end of 2021 until May 2023, when Lightfoot left office and Brandon Johnson succeeded her. It was during that transition window that the painting was discovered missing from Goodrich’s former space.

For artist Bill Cass, the work has its own origin story. Cass has said the painting represented his exploration of “storytelling,” especially folk tales, beginning in a way that he described as connected to Brothers Grimm—before it evolved into something he compared to a Nancy Drew mystery.

City officials say they learned it was missing without being able to locate it during efforts to retrieve it. Emails obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show Johnson aides discussed the painting’s whereabouts and planned to press Goodrich. They never reported the missing painting to the police.

On Aug. 11. 2023. Nathan Mason. the city’s curator of collections and public art. wrote to the first deputy commissioner of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Jennifer Johnson Washington. saying he hadn’t been able to get the Cass painting installed in Goodrich’s office returned. Mason wrote: “I haven’t been able to make headway getting the [Cass] painting that was installed in Paul Goodrich’s office returned. It is not in City Hall. It seems he took it with him when he vacated the office. Can you assist?. I’d be happy to take a van and pick it up if necessary.”.

Later that day, Washington emailed acting Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kenya Merritt, writing: “We have to get this piece back. Can you provide any assistance? We’ve been chasing him since the weekend he moved out and we were turning City Hall over.”

A few days later. Mondine Harding emailed Goodrich. reaching out again about the artwork “that was on the wall in your City Hall office.” Harding wrote that when Goodrich cleaned out his office that Saturday. City Hall engineers and Cultural Center staff came to retrieve the picture after he left and it was no longer on the wall.

Harding also told Goodrich that two other city officials had reached out the same day to inquire about whether he checked his belongings for it, adding, “I don’t recall the outcome,” and urged him to respond “ASAP.”

It’s unclear whether Goodrich responded. The emails and later statements point to a key contradiction in how the search played out: while the painting was believed to be removed from the office during the transition, Goodrich has said he didn’t take it.

Goodrich tells reporters he didn’t have the painting. Cass has said he sold the work to the Chicago Public Library in the 1980s soon after he created it. Cass’s account places the painting’s public life earlier in the city’s art footprint, long before it landed on a City Hall wall.

City officials have also tried to quantify the missing work, even as they couldn’t find it. They estimate the untitled painting is worth between $500 and $1,000. It remains city property. they said. even though it does not appear in the roughly 700 items listed in an inventory of city-owned art objects that spans locations from Millennium Park to branch libraries.

When the cultural affairs department was asked for any list of missing art, it said it “does not maintain a list of missing artworks.”

Goodrich said earlier he planned to check a personal storage locker to confirm whether the painting was there, saying he was “99.99%” sure it wasn’t and that it wasn’t in his possession. Now he says he checked the locker and that the painting wasn’t there.

In an interview, Goodrich said he didn’t remember the artwork until reporters sent him a photograph. “No one at City Hall even said anything to me about this,” Goodrich said, adding he didn’t recall the painting until he saw it in the image.

“I recognize that painting,” he said. Goodrich added that the cultural affairs department “asked if I wanted some art, and I said sure. I liked that painting a lot. I chose that. That is a painting that was in my office.”

He said the painting was likely on the wall on his last official Friday at City Hall in 2023. Over that weekend, he said, crews went into his office as the change in administration was underway. By Monday. he said. his walls were painted fresh and the artwork was taken down. describing the area as having been “sanitized.”.

The painting itself—described as including images of a red house, a shadowy figure and what looks like a wolf head—sits against a yellowish backdrop with markings that look like scribbles.

For two years, its location remained unknown. But the disappearance didn’t surface broadly until it appeared inside documents tied to a different City Hall matter.

Johnson’s office says that in December 2021. the city-owned artwork painted by Cass was moved to Goodrich’s City Hall office following a request Goodrich submitted to the Chicago Public Art Collection. The office says that shortly after Goodrich vacated his space during the mayoral transition. it was discovered the piece was no longer in his former office. In initial outreach, Goodrich told city personnel he did not possess the painting.

Johnson’s office also says the city does not have “any concrete evidence to suggest that Goodrich removed the painting from city premises.” It adds that following a thorough search of City Hall in August 2023. the departments that oversee the Chicago Public Art Collection were unable to locate the artwork.

As situations like this are described as rare. the public art collection. according to Johnson’s office. does not keep records of missing artwork. The Johnson office says the Chicago Public Art Collection includes nearly 700 works of art kept in over 150 city facilities and that. beyond this case. there were “no other open inquiries regarding reports of artwork.”.

The current attention on the missing painting comes alongside an inspector general’s scrutiny of contractors tied to City Hall work. The documents include a brief mention of the painting within Deborah Witzburg’s former Inspector General work. a process that recently concluded with Witzburg leaving the office.

Witzburg determined that a city technology contractor Goodrich had dealings with hired his son as a paid intern. The inspector general also questioned whether EKI-Digital. run by politically connected businessman Robert Blackwell Jr. completed all of the work it invoiced taxpayers for. billing nearly $10 million. Buried in that broader inquiry was the mention of the Cass painting.

Taken together, the facts leave City Hall with an uncomfortable gap: a painting that was physically taken from an office during a transition, discussed in internal emails, and not reported to police, while officials later insisted they couldn’t locate it and Goodrich insisted he didn’t take it.

For now, the painting’s fate remains unresolved—an absence that continues to hang over a public building where art is supposed to be seen, accounted for, and kept.

Chicago City Hall missing artwork Lori Lightfoot Paul Goodrich Brandon Johnson Bill Cass public art collection Deborah Witzburg EKI-Digital Robert Blackwell Jr.