For many, it represented Big Sur’s forgotten past. A painting that was familiar to decades of diners, hung in plain sight in one of the region’s most fabled spaces, has disappeared.

Nobody knows what happened to the painting, allegedly lifted from the property’s dining room, according to those who work at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn.

“Over the weekend, a beloved George Choley painting was stolen right off the dining room wall at Deetjen’s,” a post on Deetjen’s Instagram said earlier this week. “For decades, it quietly watched over guests as they shared meals and stories here in Big Sur.”

“We don’t know much about other than the painting itself is a treasure,” Deetjen’s general manager Matt Glazer told SFGATE on Friday via phone. “George Choley was a local Big Sur artist and he gifted this painting to Deetjen’s; and it’s hung on the wall through all the turmoil that Deetjen’s has experienced. Even when everything was packed up, when Deetjen’s thought it was closing, that was the last thing hanging on the wall, the last to go.”

The painting, according to Deetjen’s social media post, was a “gift from Choley himself to Helmuth Deetjen, and a reminder of the deep connection between art, land, and community.”

“It’s special,” Emma Pugh, a Deetjen’s employee working the front desk on Friday, told SFGATE. “It was donated to the original owner and it’s just been a part of our property since. It’s fairly small, I don’t think it’s much bigger than a foot across.”

Deetjen’s Glazer said he didn’t want to get into too many specifics on the few details they already know about the nature of the suspected theft, but he said its absence was first registered about two weekends ago.

“I think it was noticed on a Sunday, but it was unclear to the staff that it had come off the wall because it [might have been] being repaired,” Glazer said. “But it was [confirmed] Monday that it was gone and another painting was moved in its place.”

Deetjen's Big Sur Inn., April 28, 2009. (MaxVT via Flickr CC 2.0)

Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn., April 28, 2009. (MaxVT via Flickr CC 2.0)

Glazer added that a police report was filed at the end of that week. He said painting was a “critical” part of Deetjen’s art collection, which features mainly local artists like Choley and his contemporaries: “There’s a lot of things hanging on the walls, a lot of collectibles and valuables,” he said. “We do believe it was a targeted theft. It was a singular piece by this artist. … He is pretty narrowly understood within this community. Of all the things that could be taken from the wall, we think it’s someone that knew of him and knew of the art.”

“It’s probably safe to say that he is the most loved Big Sur artist of all,” Magnus Toren, director of the Henry Miller Library, told the Carmel Pine Cone last week.

The painting, Deetjen’s employee Pugh said, features a small barn surrounded by gold-hued grass with an old fence in the foreground.

When he was alive – he died in 1998 at 74 – Choley was known for his painting and his work ethic toward manual labor. He reportedly “could often be found clearing brush or unclogging culverts – despite his age,” the Pine Cone reported. “This no doubt puzzled many of his friends and neighbors.”

The artist, “made paintings that looked like a lot of other modernist-flavored paintings with little distinction other than a palette of colors in turmoil,” Monterey County Now wrote in 2004. “His forms display modest draftsmanship, his colors a struggle between brightness and mud. But his compositions of personal subjects are interesting for the history in them.”

Deetjen’s Glazer said that Choley’s stature has grown over the decades, mostly because of his deep connection to the area. “There’s definitely a direct correlation between his art and Deetjen’s as a place that presents an experience,” he said. “People think of Choley, and they think of Big Sur, and they think of Deetjen’s.”

The George Choley painting painting at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn., March 25, 2012. (Chris D 2006 via Flickr CC 2.0)

The George Choley painting painting at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn., March 25, 2012. (Chris D 2006 via Flickr CC 2.0)

It was Choley’s work ethic and presence as an all-around personality in Big Sur that is so carefully stitched into not only the art, but the community, Glazer said, explaining that the physical absence of one of his most famous paintings leaves a gaping hole at Deetjen’s.

“It’s important to say that Deetjen’s is a living museum,” he said. “You become part of the exhibit – that’s the experience we’re curating.”

The Deetjen’s general manager said the business will possibly release information on a reward next week. If the painting is returned, they have a “no questions asked” policy for now.

People with information are also encouraged to contact the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.

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