Lost Superman painting is found

An original oil painting of the Man of Steel that once hung in the offices of DC Comics but went missing has turned up on the wall at a university library.

Martin Pasko, an author of “The Essential Superman Encyclopedia,” which will be published by Del Rey in August, was puzzled. “I had just assumed as a longtime employee of DC that it would have been in the warehouse,” he said. “I know of no other large painting from that period.”

Mr. Saunders knew from his research that Ward had been paid $100 for the Superman painting and that for years, it had had pride of place in the office of Harry Donenfeld, the entrepreneur who had presided over DC Comics, the company that published the Superman comic books and controlled the Superman radio show.