Artist Katie O’Neill’s painting, which was one of 11 that was stolen, was found after the Palisades Fire.

Eleven of Katie O’Neill’s paintings were stolen from her studio on Antioch in October 2022.

Then, Los Angeles Detectives took down the following information: about 10:30 p.m., on that Saturday night, a Gelson’s employee saw a man that was described as black and about 6 feet tall, use a crowbar on the window, so he could open the door and gain access to the studio.

The employee shouted out, but the man was threatening. Another person drove by and asked the man what he was doing and supposedly he said, “Some burglar robbed my store,” and that he was dealing with it.

The man then went in and removed 11 paintings. Around 12:30 p.m., a friend of O’Neill’s who was driving by the store called her to say that someone had broken into the store.

The police were called, and after they left around 2 a.m. O’Neill was left alone in the studio, trying to find a company to board up the broken window to keep the rest of her paintings safe.

The next day detectives looked at video cameras from across the street and told O’Neill that the art theft looked like a professional job.

“It’s so personal,” O’Neill said about the loss of her paintings. “I can’t even type this without crying. Why would anyone do this?”  click here.

Her question was never answered, and the paintings were never located.

Until now.

After losing everything in the Palisades Fire, O’Neill was in her current studio at 1819 Stanford in Santa Monica, painting.

She received a mysterious email. “I believe this is yours” was the subject line. An unsigned email informed her that they had one of her paintings but would only be in Los Angeles for a few more days. A grainy photo of one O’Neill’s stolen art works was attached, with the notation “in case you think it is a scam.”

They didn’t give a name, but left a phone number.

With all the internet scams, O’Neill considered not answering. Eventually curiosity won out.

“I called,” O’Neill said and a woman answered and explained the situation. Her husband’s aunt, Ella Zarky, had died last year. Her house had survived the Palisades fire, and they were in town doing remediation and sorting through her estate.

Most of Zarky’s art collection was abstract or street/folk art but when the niece went to the garage, she found this painting which she didn’t seem to think fit the rest of the collection.

She did a google image search of the painting and found the page on O’Neill’s website which showed the stolen art. The woman said she’d be there a few hours if O’Neill wanted to stop by.

“I convinced myself that this was probably not some elaborate plan to murder me and I headed off into the dark and foggy night, through the deserted Alphabet streets, winding up Chautauqua onto a little street with a few inhabited houses,” she said.

“I’ve watched enough true crime shows that I didn’t want to ring the door of the plastic covered entrance, so I called. A friendly woman came out and opened the garage,” O’Neill said. “Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracle – there was my painting! After a year of so much loss and grief, something came back. Something literally survived the fire!”

“I spent hours and hours of my life on the Paris painting,” O’Neill said. “It wasn’t quite done. I had put it aside and planned to go back to it.” That painting and one other “Towards High Point,” had not been signed, yet.

On the back of the Paris painting someone had signed it as K Carr. O’Neill told CTN that if someone tried to sign the front with acrylic, since the painting was oil, it would have just flaked off.

Zarky, who spent seven days a week doing volunteer work and participated in Multiple-Sclerosis Bike-a-thons, until she was 88, most likely bought it from someone who claimed to be the artist.

O’Neill is hoping that maybe one of Zarky’s neighbors knows where she purchased this painting, which might lead to the other 10 pieces of art that are still missing.

Someone signed the back of Katie O’Neill’s painting.

Obituary- Ella Zarky

Ella Zarky at her last MS-Bike ride at age 88.

Born in Manitowoc, Ella Zarky had a happy life; one of summer vacations swimming across nearby Pigeon Lake, piano lessons, volunteering during the war at Anshe Poale Zedek synagogue, and during college at the University of Wisconsin writing for the Octopus, the campus humor magazine.

Moving to southern California for a fresh start, Ella filled the ensuing decades as a teacher, fundraiser, volunteer and friend. For many years, she taught English at Venice High School, and later ESL to immigrants trying to make their way in America. Assisting people in need was something she had first learned from her father, who had himself arrived in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, as a child refugee fleeing Czarist Russia. She also absorbed the example of her mother, whom she joined at the synagogue to help assemble care packages for Jews trapped in the Soviet Union.

Single until her mid-30s a remarkable independence for her era Ella was eventually married and widowed twice. Her first husband was Irv Chernuchin, with whom she worked at his belt company. Her second was Hilbert Zarky, a highly accomplished attorney who during the Roosevelt years had argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

After retiring, Ella devoted herself to volunteer work, usually seven days a week. She collected food from local bakeries which she distributed to homeless people, along with surplus government blankets, thousands of socks, second-hand clothing, toiletries, books and whatever other necessities she could find, finagle or wrangle. Despite the dangerous reputation of LA’s homeless encampments, Ella showed no fear in carrying out her humanitarian work she was on a mission, and she went where she was needed most.

Ella also was a longtime fundraiser for Jewish causes, as well as for research into Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that afflicted her niece and nephew, Jill and Mike Sigman. Relentless in pursuit of pledges for her annual participation in MS bike-a-thons, Ella eventually raised more than $145,000 for the National MS Society, before finally completing her last race at age 88.

In 2021, in recognition of her public service, Ella was honored at the MS Society of Southern California’s “Dinner of Champions,” where she was presented with its prestigious Impact Award. Similarly, the Del Rey Yacht Club long a locus of her social life established the Ella Zarky Distinguished Community Service Award, and the Mariners Outreach Foundation created the Ella Zarky Venice High School Scholarship. Despite such public recognition, Ella remained humble to the last, but never soft. Told once that the homeless people to whom she gave canned food might lack can openers, she snapped: “They’ll find one!”

On July 6, in declining health but just a day after her weekly yoga class, Ella passed away in her sleep. A month shy of her 99th birthday, she died just as she had lived on her own terms.

Ella Zarky is survived by her brother Leon Sigman of Manitowoc, her nephew Mike Sigman and his wife Kelly of La Crosse, her nephew Howard Sigman and his wife Ellen of Paramus, NJ their daughter Jenna, as well as many cousins. Contributions in Ella’s memory may be directed to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.