Erie Art Museum Won’t Return “Abandoned” Watercolor by George Demiel

The Erie Museum of Art responds to a lawsuit filed on November 7, 2025, by the daughter of a local artist seeking the return of a watercolor painted by her late father. Artist George C. Demiel submitted this painting for inclusion in the 1966 annual juried exhibition at the museum (then known as the Erie Art Center). The art center did not accept the painting, and when DeMille died the following year at the age of 53, he never recovered the artwork.

this Erie Times-NewsMedia reports that have been covering the lawsuit say the museum’s response on Dec. 12 was referring to the watercolor, titled houseboatas “abandoned personal property.” The response goes on to explain, “After Mr. Demel failed to return to retrieve the work and/or notify the Art Center of his intention to repossess the work, the Art Center subsequently took possession of the then-abandoned personal property and stored the work until 1983 when it was officially added to what is now the Art Museum’s permanent collection.” (The institution changed its name that year.)

DeMille’s 82-year-old daughter Georgia Haynes learned the museum still had houseboat when she saw it in an exhibit at the museum in 2019. Titled “Everything But the Shelves,” the exhibition features approximately 1,000 framed artworks that had been stored in the museum and hung in salon style in the gallery.

At the time, Haynes requested the painting’s return, and according to the lawsuit, the Erie Museum of Art’s then-CEO Joshua Helmer wrote a letter in March 2019 stating that when the painting was withdrawn from the museum’s collection, the museum would return it to Demel’s next of kin. (That apparently never happened, and the museum parted ways with Helmer, who was accused of sexual harassment, in January 2020.) The museum’s response to the November 2025 lawsuit argued that Haynes waited too long to file suit, noting that the two-year statute of limitations for filing claims to recover stolen items had expired.

Erie County Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph M. Walsh III has scheduled a meeting for March 16 to review the details of the case.