Raubkunst/Stolen Art Alert in Vienna: Austrian State Treaty of 1955 Requires Austria To Return Nazi Looted Art, Austrian Politicians Continue To Lie

Egon Schiele's Dead City III - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum

Austria's Shameful Disregard of Its Continuing Treaty Obligations

The Austria State Treaty of 1995 permitted the Russians, French, British and U.S. to depart occupied Vienna.   It was written in English, Russian and French so that the rest of the world could understand exactly what Austria had promised to do.   Below is Article 26 of the Treaty.   It says that Austria is supposed to find and return all property belonging to Jews.

Article 26 was a key aspect of the Allied victory in World War II.  American soldiers lost their lives for Article 26, and the U.S. State Department should wake up and demand Austria's obedience to its obligations.

To its shame, Austria and its politicians have lied to the world and done everything possible to ensure that the children and grandchildren of Nazis could enjoy the property stolen from Vienna's Jews.

The Austria State Treaty is the legal equivalent of the U.S. Constitution.  So if an Austrian tells you that an Austrian law prevents Austria from giving back property stolen from Jews, they are simply lying.   In 2009 I confronted Austrian diplomats with the text of Article 26 at a conference in Prague after they denied Austria's ongoing treaty obligations to despoiled Holocaust victims.

Harvey Weinstein's Woman in Gold with Helen Mirren opened in Vienna on this June 4 to a firestorm of press.  Let's hope that Austrians learn from Hollywood and demand that their politicians start to follow the law of their land, rather than shaming Austria in endless litigation in US courts.

 

Article 26

PROPERTY, RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF MINORITY GROUPS

IN AUSTRIA

1. In so far as such action has not already been taken, Austria undertakes

that, in all cases where property, legal rights or interests in Austria have since

13th March, 1938, been subject of forced transfer or measures of sequestration,

confiscation or control on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner,

the said property shall be returned and the said legal rights and interests shall

be restored together with their accessories. Where return or restoration is

impossible, compensation shall be granted for losses incurred by reason of such

measures to the same extent as is, or may be, given to Austrian nationals generally

in respect of war damage.

2. Austria agrees to take under its control all property, legal rights and

interests in Austria of persons, organizations or communities which, individually

or as members of groups, were the object of racial, religious or other Nazi measures

of persecution where, in the case of persons, such property, rights and interests

remain heirless or unclaimed for six months after the coming into force of the

present Treaty, or where in the case of organizations and communities such

organizations or communities have ceased to exist. Austria shall transfer such

property, rights and interests to appropriate agencies or organizations to be

designated by the Four Heads of Mission in Vienna by agreement with the Austrian

Government to be used for the relief and rehabilitation of victims of

persecution by the Axis Powers, it being understood that these provisions do

not require Austria to make payments in foreign exchange or other transfers

to foreign countries which would constitute a burden on the Austrian economy.

Such transfer shall be effected within eighteen months from the coming into

force of the present Treaty and shall include property, rights and interests required

to be restored under paragraph 1, of this Article.

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Brandeis Association Selects Dunnington Partner Raymond J. Dowd To Commemorate 76th Anniversary of Kristallnacht

Egon Schiele's Town on the Blue River - Krumau (1910)

 

            Dunnington partner Raymond J. Dowd has been selected to speak at “Murder, Mystery & Masterpieces: The Ethical Implications of World War II Stolen Art,” to be presented by the Brandeis Association and the Queens Women’s Bar Association. The event will take place the Queens County Bar Association (90-35 148th Street, Jamaica, NY) tonight at 6:00 p.m., the date being chosen to coincide with the 76th anniversary of Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938). A light kosher supper will precede the event, beginning at 5:30 p.m.

 

       The Nazis are infamous for their rampant theft of artworks belonging to Jewish people and others deemed undesirable. Public awareness of this pillaging has only grown in recent years with the release of films such as The Monuments Men (2014) and The Rape of Europa (2006). Additionally, newly opened archives in the United States and Europe have contributed to an ever-increasing number of claims brought by the Nazis’ victims and their descendants. As a result, the body of case law pertaining to such matters is constantly growing and evolving.

 

       Mr. Dowd recently represented the heirs of Holocaust victim Fritz Grunbaum, who was killed at Dachau in 1941, in coming to a restitution settlement agreement concerning the painting Town on the Blue River (Stadt am blauen Fluss – Krumau), painted by Egon Schiele in 1910. The watercolor landscape was among eighty-one works of art by Schiele seized from Mr. Grunbaum’s apartment in Vienna by the Gestapo in March 1938. In 1998, a spotlight was shone upon Mr. Grunbaum’s fate and that of his art when New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau confiscated the painting Dead City III from New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, where it was on loan from Austria. Because the exhibition was immune from seizure as a result of an international treaty, the piece was ultimately returned; however, the incident was key in propelling the movement to restore Nazi-looted artworks to their rightful owners. Town on the Blue River was auctioned at Christie’s at their Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale on November 5, 2014, where it reached a record high of $2,965,000. The proceeds will be shared by Mr. Grunbaum’s heirs and those of Ilona Gerstel, in whose possession the piece spent nearly a half-century.

     Joining Mr. Dowd in this discussion of art stolen during World War II and the legal and ethical complications in which the restitution of such pieces is mired will be Professor John Q. Barrett of St. John’s University School of Law, who also serves on the Expert Advisory Committee of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy. Following presentation of recent happenings relating to Holocaust-era assets and discussion of their longer-term impact, Mr. Dowd and Professor Barrett will welcome questions from the audience.
The event is free. To register, please click here.

---

About the Brandeis Association The Brandeis Association was established in 1969 as a Not for Profit Corporation. The stated purpose of the Bar association, as set forth in both the Brandeis Constitution and Articles of Incorporation, is to encourage friendship and culture among our members, to foster respect for law and legal institutions and to vigorously assert its interest in justice and fair play in the County of Queens and in the City and State of New York. All members of the Judiciary, Lawyers, Court personnel and others who support the Jewish faith and the U.S. Constitution are eligible for membership.
About Dunnington partner Raymond J. Dowd Mr. Dowd’s practice focuses on litigation in federal and state trial and appellate courts, arbitration and mediation for cases involving art law, copyrights, trademarks, cybersquatting, privacy, trusts and decedents’ estates, licensing, corporate and real estate transactions. He lectures frequently on copyright and art-related topics and has presented in many venues, including at the 2009 Prague Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, where he served on an expert panel, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the San Francisco War Memorial, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In 2007, he co-founded the Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Institute at New York County Lawyers’ Association. Mr. Dowd authors Copyright Litigation Handbook (West 7th Ed. 2013-2014)(updated annually). Currently Mr. Dowd serves on the Board of Directors of the Federal Bar Association, having earlier held the positions of President of the Southern District of New York Chapter (2006-2008) and general counsel of the national organization, and as President of the Network of Bar Leaders.
Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP was selected as a 2014 Top Ranked Law Firm for Intellectual Property by Corporate Counsel/ALM/The American Lawyer. Dunnington is a full-service law firm providing corporate, litigation, intellectual property, real estate, taxation and estate planning services for an international clientele. Find out more at www.dunnington.com.

Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes 

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Can A Jewish Man Imprisoned In Dachau Concentration Camp Transfer Valid Legal Title To A Schiele Painting?

Egon Schiele's Seated Woman With Bent Left Leg (1917)

 

 

On October 31, the family of Fritz Grunbaum gathered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial To The Holocaust to thank former District Attorney Robert Morgenthau for his efforts to recover Egon Schiele's Dead City III, an artwork he seized on behalf of Grunbaum's family at the MoMA in 1998.

Mr. Morgenthau, referring to the above drawing, read the following from a concurrence written by Judge Edward Korman when he sat by designation on  a case called Bakalar v. Vavra at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals:

Grunbaum was arrested while attempting to flee from the Nazis. After his arrest, he never again had physical possession of any of his artwork, including the Drawing. The power of attorney, which he was forced to execute while in the Dachau concentration camp, divested him of his legal control over the Drawing. Such an involuntary divestiture of possession and legal control rendered any subsequent transfer void.

Bakalar v. Vavra, 619 F.3d 136, 148 (2d. Cir. 2010)(concurrence).   The three judges on the Second Circuit panel in this published, precedential opinion found that the record suggested evidence that Nazis had looted Fritz Grunbaum's art collection and remanded to the trial court to reconsider the evidence.

Yet, despite what Judge Korman wrote, this week Sotheby's is planning to auction the Drawing without mentioning the Dachau power of attorney that Fritz was forced to execute, without mentioning Schenker, the Nazi looting entity that held the Drawing, and without mentioning Ludwig Rochlitzer, the Aryan trustee appointed to liquidate the Grunbaum's assets in January 1939.

To understand some of the facts relating to the Drawing's provenance, some explanation is necessary.

 

On March 22, 1938 Fritz Grunbaum was arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna and imprisoned in Dachau, where he died penniless.  Shortly after his arrest, a Nazi named Kieslinger inventoried Grunbaum's art collection.  Kieslinger counted 81 Schieles.  Five oils listed by name, including Dead City III.  The remaining 76 Schiele drawings and watercolors were not listed by title.

 

On April 26, 1938, the Nazis passed a decree requiring all Jews to declare their assets over 5,000RM.  According to the law, these Jewish assets were to be available to the Reich at the pleasure of Reichsmarshall Goering.  Each Jew was to declare the assets until the assets were gone or until the Jew had left the Reich.  On June 30, 1938, while in the Dachau Concentration Camp, Fritz was forced to execute a power of attorney (Vollmacht) permitting his wife to liquidate his assets.   Shortly thereafter under Nazi pressure and with her husband in a concentration camp, Fritz's wife Lily filed Jewish Property Declarations declaring Fritz's property, including the art collection with the Kieslinger inventory.  

 

Following Kristallnacht, the Nazis passed a decree forbidding Jews to buy or sell property and requiring the appointment of Aryan trustees to liquidate their property.  On January 1939, attorney Ludwig Rochlitzer wrote to Elisabeth Grunbaum, stating that the Nazis had appointed him to be the guardian of the "whole property" of the Grunbaums.

Thus, as of January 1939, Fritz and Elisabeth had lost control of their property as a matter of Nazi law.

 

The last Grunbaum Jewish property declaration was filed in June 1939.   Nazi-era export records show that a Nazi-controlled freight forwarding company named Schenker had possession of Fritz's art collection.  However, a lack of customs stamps on the export application showed that the art collection never left Vienna while the Nazis were in control.

 

Fritz died in January 1941.  In Nazi-era probate proceedings following Fritz's death, Elisabeth declared, under penalty of perjury, that Fritz had no property at the time of his death.  Elisabeth was deported to Maly-Trostinec, a death camp in Minsk in October of 1942.   She lasted so long because she had real property in Slovakia, and this took some time to sell.  The Nazis waited until a Jewish person had sold every last bit of property, including life insurance policies, before murdering them.

 

In the provenance of the Drawing, Schenker's possession is critically important, because it is the last place the Drawing was before it surfaced in Switzerland in 1956.  From court filings, an excerpt from a Schenker company history below in German with English translation following:

 

 

Schenker Company History - Nazi Looted Artworks By Egon Schiele

 

On September 18, 1956, art dealer Otto Kallir bought Dead City III and 18 other artworks by Egon Schiele, including the drawing above from a Swiss art dealer named Eberhard Kornfeld.   Kallir knew that Dead City III belonged to Grunbaum because he'd catalogued Grunbaum as the owner when he wrote a catalogue raisonee of Schiele's oils in 1930.    Even Eberhard Kornfeld's 1956 catalog listed Fritz Grunbaum as the immediate prior owner of Dead City III.

In 1928, Kallir borrowed 22 Schieles from Fritz Grunbaum for an exhibition at the Hagenbund commemorating the 10th anniversary of Schiele's death.   Many of those drawings were in the batch of Schieles Kallir purchased on September 18, 1956.   Kallir knew Fritz Grunbaum well and knew that Fritz was a famous cabaret performer who had been murdered in the Dachau Concentration Camp.   Thus, Kallir knew when he bought this batch of Schieles that they had been stolen by the Nazis from a concentration camp victim.

In 1998, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally and Dead City III when those works were on loan from Austria to the Museum of Modern Art.  Because Austria successfully questioned the standing of the claimants to Dead City III, the work was returned to Austria where it remains - although stolen from Fritz Grunbaum - in the Leopold Museum today.

In 1998, in the wake of the seizure of Dead City III by Morgenthau, Eberhard Kornfeld was asked where he'd gotten Dead City III and the other Schieles.  For the first time he claimed that he'd bought them in 1956 from Fritz Grunbaum's sister-in-law (despite his 1956 catalogue saying he'd gotten Dead City III from Fritz Grunbaum)  The only problem was that he never produced any invoice from his gallery to Lukacs that included the Drawing.  He produced a mess of obviously forged documents that handwriting experts expressed "massive doubts" as to their authenticity.  I have included a link to the report below.   To produce a final handwriting expert report, the experts needed to see the originals in Berne Switzerland.  However, Bakalar's lawyers and Kornfeld obstructed the experts from independently viewing the documents until court deadlines for discovery had expired.  Thus, no competent handwriting expert has yet been able to conduct a scientifically reliable comparison and thus to prove that the documents Kornfeld produced were forged.   But even among the documents that Kornfeld produced, there was no mention of the Drawing, and thus no documentary reason to include Lukacs in the Drawing's provenance.  Indeed, even assuming the forgeries to accurately list the artworks he acquired, Kornfeld did NOT acquire a 1917 drawing of a headless woman from Mathilde Lukacs.
 

Handwriting Expert Report Regarding Forgeries of Mathilde Lukacs Signatures

 

 

In early 2008, Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos, a Ph.d from Harvard in history and one of the world's experts on Nazi art looting put together a report on the Drawing's provenance.  The report concluded that the Drawing was stolen.  The report concluded that the Mathilde Lukacs story was untrue.  The report can be found here:
http://artstolenfromfritzgrunbaum.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/dbm-005862-5966-petropoulos-expert-report-03-25-20082.pdf   Bakalar put in no expert report, but moved to exclude the report because it was filed after a court deadline.  The trial judge granted Bakalar's motion.

Thus, the trial court in Bakalar v. Vavra never dealt with the substance of the Petropoulos Report and with the proffered expert testimony demonstrating that the Nazis had looted the Drawing and that Mathilde Lukacs never had possesson of the Drawing.

Only time will tell whether Dr. Petropoulos' view of the Drawing's provenance will prevail as the view that is historiographically sound.   Only when handwriting experts gain access to Kornfeld's original documents and examine them with a stereoscopic miscroscope will we have scientifically sound proof of the forgeries.

But as a legal matter, Judge Korman's view of New York law would appear to be the one that the New York Court of Appeals would adopt, following its precedents in Menzel v. List, Guggenheim v. Lubbell, and Matter of Flamenbaum.  New York's Dead Man's statute bars as incompetent testimony relating to a transaction with a deceased, so Kornfeld's self-serving testimony is ordinarily inadmissible under New York law.   Since Kornfeld's own business records contradict the claim that he got the Drawing from Mathilde Lukacs, a New York court might well take the view, based on documentary evidence, that Mathilde Lukacs does not belong in the Drawing's provenance.  But see Bakalar v. Vavra 500 Fed.Appx. 6 2d. Cir. 2012 (unpublished summary order).

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Art Litigation: Holocaust for Dummies - The Murder and Spoliation of Fritz Grunbaum at Dachau

Holocaust for Dummies: Murder and Spoliation of Fritz Grunbaum at Dachau

Austria's Leopold Museum has refused to return artworks stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, a famous Jewish cabaret performer.   Grunbaum was arrested in Vienna by the Gestapo on March 22, 1938.   He died penniless in Dachau never having left Nazi custody on January 14, 1941.   His wife Lily was murdered at Minsk - Maly Trostinec after Fritz's death.

Austria is not alone in denying the Holocaust and the return of stolen artworks.   Oberlin College has Egon Schiele's Girl With Black Hair, which was stolen from Fritz Grunbaum. 

Oberlin's Allen Memorial Art Museum has refused to share its research with the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum or to permit on campus discussions of the work's provenance.  This is a shameful violation of Oberlin's academic mission.   If Oberlin has any Jewish alumni who care about undergraduate studies, I recommend teaching a course there on Fritz Grunbaum studies and demanding that anyone working at the Allen Museum or in the art history department be fired for incompetence.    US museums agreed to research their collections and publish the results under the Washington Principles.  Oberlin's failure to do so is a disgrace.

To assist everyone in understanding how the Holocaust worked and how Fritz Grunbaum's artworks were stolen from him, we have prepared the summary attached in the link above, you can also click here.   

More on Fritz Grunbaum at Art Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum.

More on Fritz Grunbaum here.

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Art Litigation: Nazi-Era Art Restitution - Legal Update Jan 24 New York State Bar Association

Nazi-Era Art Restitution Legal Update NYSBA EASL Jan 24 2011



On Monday January 24, 2011 I will be part of a panel organized by the New York State Bar Association' Entertainment Arts and Sports Law Section, flyer above, direct link and program description below.

http://www.nysba.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Event_List&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=45158

1:35-3:30 p.m. NAZI-ERA ART RESTITUTION: RECENT CASE DEVELOPMENTS


This program will address recent cases brought by heirs of Holocaust victims concerning the ownership of
artworks claimed to have been looted or sold under duress during the Nazi era. When the art resurfaced –
often decades later – in the hands of museums, collectors, galleries and auction houses, ownership disputes
have raised complex procedural, substantive, and policy issues. This panel includes lawyers representing
both sides of several high-profile cases, including the eleven-year battle which resulted in a $19 million
settlement with the Leopold Museum in Vienna in the Egon Schiele - Portrait of Wally case and the
seven-year battle with the Republic of Austria, which resulted in the restitution to the family of Holocaust
victims of a number of important works by Gustav Klimt, valued, in the aggregate, in excess of $300
million. The esteemed panelists will also discuss cases involving the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the
Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and descendants of families who are laying claim to works by Picasso,
Pissarro, Schiele, Kokoschka, Klimt, and Lucas Cranach the Elder

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Art Litigation: 9th Circuit Blocks Spain from Laundering Stolen Art in Cassirer v. Kingdom of Spain

A major international issue is whether a government can purchase a pile of stolen art and then claim immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act 28 U.S.C. 1604 when it then makes the stolen art a tourist attraction and markets it to Americans.

Under U.S. law, receiving stolen property is a crime.  18 USC 662.

Spain scored a cultural coup in the 1990's by purchasing the tainted Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection which was compiled by a famous Nazi family.  Spain put the art collection into a "foundation" and tried to insulate it from claims from an American Jew named Claude Cassirer whose grandmother Lilly had been spoliated by the Nazis in the widely-reported case Cassirer v. Kingdom of Spain.

Austria did this by creating the "Leopold Foundation" to "own" the Leopold Museum.  These "foundations" are legal fictions set up to shield the stolen art from legal claims in violation of international law.  Creation of the Leopold Foundation violates the Austria State Treaty Article 26 which unconditionally requires Austria to return property stolen from Nazi persecutees.   Art 26 has no time limitations and is a continuing obligation that Austria has spent decades avoiding, with the complicity of the U.S. State Department.  More on Rudolph Leopold and the Leopold Foundation here.  Rather than treating Rudolph Leopold as the serial criminal that he was, purchasing stolen property and laundering provenances over the course of decadek, a fawning international art press lionizes him as a "collector" downplaying the facts that he died on theeve of his criminal trial in the U.S. in the Portrait of Wally case.

Now Spain is in the game by snapping up artworks with creepy Nazi provenance and plastering famous Nazi names all over downtown Madrid.  See

Book Review: NAZI CRIME REVELATIONS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA MUSEUM


The late collector Heini Thyssen forced himself to forget his family’s Nazi involvement, but so did the countries that vied for his and his father’s pictures in the 1980s. This well documented book gives the details.

By Anna Somers Cocks
Posted 01 March 2007- From The Art Newspaper


It was the Allies themselves, especially the Americans, who decided to let bygones be bygones and help revive the Thyssen empire in the interest of the German economy and opposing the Soviets. Before Berlin was even taken, Thyssen Gas and Water was working with the Allied Military Governor and by 1948, Bremer Vulkan, the Thyssen shipyard that had made U-boats for the Nazis, had orders from the Allies worth DM11.25m. The fact that in 1946, Averell Harriman, who in January 1941 still nominally held the Thyssen shares in their BVHS bank, became Secretary of State for Commerce almost certainly helped the family get back their banking assets.


Forty years pass and in 1986 the word gets out that Heini Thyssen is thinking of moving his collection from the Villa Favorita on Lake Lugano. Countries fall over themselves to get hold of it (including Prime Minister Thatcher—the only time she takes a direct interest in the arts) and the Nazi past never gets mentioned. As Heini intended from the outset—because it was what his new Spanish wife, Tita, wanted—Spain wins, and in 1993 pays $350m for half the collection.

But check out Wikipedia on the Thyssen-Bornemisza family - not a single mention of the fact that the collection was built from stolen artworks and money from a family that ran its own concentration camp:

http://heirs.typepad.com/heirs_observations_on_pro/2007/05/book_review_naz.html

In addition, Heini’s brother Stephan, who remained in Germany during the war, was chairman of the board of MABAG, a company that sank mine shafts, built machinery, including parts for the V1 and V2 rockets that bombed Britain, and built petrol storage installations. Together with IG Farben, it constructed the Reich’s main fuel-storage depot in the Kohnstein mountains. By the end of 1943 there were more than 10,000 forced labourers living underground and by October 1944, it had become a concentration camp in its own right, Mittelbau, which would hold 60,000 prisoners of whom 20,000 were worked to death. In addition, a US government memo in the Washington Archives says that in 1943, one in two miners in the Thyssen’s Walsum mine was a slave labourer.

So it's a good thing that on August 12, 2010 the Ninth Circuit decided en banc that Spain's Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation is not immune from suit in the United States under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) 28 USC 1605.

The Ninth Circuit decided two good things: 1. that Claude Cassirer was not required to "exhaust" his remedies against Spain in a Spanish court prior to bringing a claim in the US and 2. that Spain's possession of expropriated property together with its commercial activities in the US (e.g., selling pictures of the stolen work to American consumers) exempted Spain from claiming sovereing immunity to suit.

Below is the YouTube video where attorney Thad Stauber of Nixon Peabody gives the Ninth Circuit's panel a "shout out" from William Barron of Smith Gambrell, who represents both Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Leopold Foundation in the Portrait of Wally case.  The argument is really worth watching, kudos to the judge who analogizes the case to the "pawn shop" scenario.




The Ninth Circuit decision below:

Art Litigation: Cassirer v Kingdom of Spain - Camille Pissarro

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Art Litigation: Vienna's Leopold Museum Pays $19 Million For Stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally

Some good reporting on Portrait of Wally from Catherine Hickley of Bloomberg:

Vienna's Leopold Museum Pays $19 Million to Keep Schiele Portrait of Lover - Bloomberg

Piece on Portrait of Wally in the Washington Examiner.

My latest news on Austria buying the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally here.

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Art Litigation: Leopold Museum Capitulates in Egon Schiele - Portrait of Wally Case - Pays Full Price and Admits Artwork Stolen

Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally

Chief Judge Loretta Preska approved a settlement in the Portrait of Wally case.  Herrick Feinstein's press release reporting the settlement terms of the Portrait of Wally case here - Portrait of Wally Case Settles

This is good news for heirs of Holocaust victims and a measure of justice.  It also gives a flavor of just how tainted the Leopold Collection is.  Congratulations to all - the courtroom battle started in 1999 has finally ended.

A very nice touch is that Portrait of Wally will be displayed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City.   This is a very nice vindication for Robert Morgenthau's 1999 seizure of Portrait of Wally at the MoMA.

Dead City III, stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, is still hanging in the Leopold Museum.  For more information on Dead City III, go here.   My posts on Egon Schiele here.

If you have an interest in the topic of Nazi art looting, go here.   There is an incredible amount of stolen art remaining in U.S. museums.  Learn about Nazi agent and art dealer Curt Valentin here.

A really huge scandal and breathtaking example of Holocaust denial in the American museum community, the sad story of Alfred Flechtheim here.

I have copied the text of the press release below:

The United States of America, the Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray and the Leopold Museum Settle the Long-Standing Case Involving “Portrait of Wally” by Egon Schiele


New York, NY (July 20, 2010) -- The Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray (the “Estate”) announced today that the United States Government, the Estate and the Leopold Museum Privat-Stiftung (the “Leopold Museum”) have agreed to settle the long-pending case of United States of America v. Portrait of Wally, which was about to go to trial before Chief Judge Loretta Preska in federal court in Manhattan on July 26, 2010.
The case involves Portrait of Wally, a painting by Egon Schiele (the “Painting”), stolen from a Jewish art dealer and collector by a Nazi agent in the late 1930’s in Vienna. The major terms of the settlement agreement, which has been approved by Judge Preska, are as follows:
(a) the Leopold Museum pays the Estate $19 Million;
(b) the Estate releases its claim to the Painting;
(c) the United States Government dismisses the civil forfeiture action it brought against the Leopold Museum and releases the Painting to the Leopold Museum;
(d) the Leopold Museum will permanently display signage next to the Painting at the Leopold Museum, and at all future displays of the Painting of any kind that the Leopold Museum authorizes or allows anywhere in the world, that sets forth the true provenance of the Painting, including Lea Bondi Jaray’s prior ownership of the Painting and its theft from her by a Nazi agent before she fled to London in 1939; and
(e) before it is transported to the Leopold Museum in Vienna, the Painting will be publicly exhibited at the Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in New York, beginning with a ceremony commemorating the legacy of Lea Bondi Jaray and the successful resolution of the lawsuit.

The Painting was the personal property of Lea Bondi Jaray, a Jewish art dealer in Vienna, who fled in 1939 to London, where she died in 1969. The Painting became the subject of court proceedings in New York City, after it was loaned in late 1997 and early 1998 to the Museum of Modern Art in New York by the Leopold Museum as part of an exhibition of Schieles from the Leopold Museum’s collection. In 1998, Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney, subpeonaed the Painting in connection with his investigation into whether the Painting was stolen property. After the State Court of Appeals ruled in 1999 that such “seizure” of an artwork loaned for exhibition was prohibited under New York State law, the United States Government immediately commenced a civil forfeiture action in New York, alleging that the Painting was stolen from Lea Bondi Jaray during the Nazi era by a Nazi named Friedrich Welz, and was imported into the United States in 1997 by the Leopold Museum in violation of U.S. law. The Customs Service seized the Painting in connection with that action. The Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray asserted a claim to the Painting in the action, and the U.S. agreed that upon forfeiture of the Painting, it would transfer to the Estate all right and title to the Painting.

Based on the evidence presented during the case, Judge Preska ruled last fall that the Painting was the personal property of Lea Bondi Jaray and that it was stolen from her in Vienna in the late 1930's by Friedrich Welz, who was a member and collaborator of the Nazi party. The Court found that the Painting had been seized from Welz by U.S. Forces in Austria after World War II and delivered in 1947 to the Austrian Federal Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments (the “Bundesdenkmalamt”), along with paintings Welz had acquired from Dr. Heinrich Rieger, a Jewish art collector who had perished during the Holocaust. In 1950, the Bundesdenkmalamt delivered artworks to an agent for the Rieger heirs and included the Painting in the delivery. Later that year, the Rieger heirs sold their works to the Austrian National Gallery (the “Belvedere”), and the Painting was included in the delivery of the artworks to the Belvedere. In 1954, the Belvedere traded the Painting to Dr. Rudolf Leopold. In 1994, Dr. Leopold transferred the Painting to the Leopold Museum.

In a statement, representatives of the Estate expressed their appreciation at reaching this historic settlement, which reflects the true value of the Painting, and acknowledges Lea Bondi Jaray’s ownership of the Painting and her and her family’s long quest for justice. In addition, they underscored that the public display of the Painting at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York will mean that visitors will be able to view the Painting in a setting that memorializes the sufferings of so many in the Holocaust and the resilience and resolve of those who escaped and/or survived. They added that the permanent signage reflecting the Painting’s true provenance will ensure that future generations are told the real story of the Painting’s theft from Lea Bondi Jaray during the Nazi era.

In conclusion, the Estate representatives said: “Justice has been served. Finally, after more than 70 years, the wrongs suffered by Lea Bondi Jaray are at last being acknowledged and, to some degree, corrected. We are grateful to the many people who helped Lea and her family during these many years. We especially thank our attorneys at Herrick, Feinstein, and all the members of the Asset Forfeiture Unit team of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Cohen Levin, for their unstinting dedication to the pursuit of justice during the long course of this litigation.”


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Art Litigation: Stolen Art and Austria's "Jewish Exception" To the 1955 Austrian State Treaty

Rudolph Leopold's death on the eve of a criminal trial in the U.S. should have brought Austria to its senses.  Instead, yesterday it installed Leopold's family members as part of a continuing charade to conceal Austria's ownership of stolen Jewish property in the Leopold Museum.  More on Rudolph Leopold here.

Dead City III was stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer murdered in Dachau in 1941. In violation of Art. 26 of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, Austria has thus far failed to return the work, although Dr. Christoph Bazil, the head of an Austrian Commission that was founded because of the Dead City III scandal keeps promising me that he is investigating the matter.
This so-called "Commission for Provenance Research" recently came to NY, program here and claimed that they were reviewing every single item in Austrian museums. Apparently they have not reached "S" for Schiele in the alphabet, something that might safely occur in the next century.
This is of course a preposterous sham.

Dr. Bazil, who works for Minister Claudia Schmied, takes the opinion (that he has refused to put in writing) that Art 26 of the Austrian State Treaty does not require Austria to return property stolen from Jews. But it is written in English and is quite clear and unconditional, so there is no reason that the Austrian police should not simply enter the Leopold Museum and secure and restitute the property. In the United States we have police and prosecutors to handle stolen property. The situation is shocking to me because in Austria it appears that police and prosecutors refuse to act when property has been stolen from Jews, and this "Jewish exception" is nowhere in writing.

In contravention of Art 26 of the Austrian State Treaty, Austria has permitted its civil remedies for Jews to recover property to lapse. Additionally, Austria failed to restore property as required by the Austrian State Treaty, instead dragging its feet for 45 years.
I have included below the text of the Austrian State Treaty, you can easily see for yourself that Austria is in gross violation for failing to return the stolen artworks at the Leopold, the Albertina, and in private collections throughout Austria.
The Austrian State Treaty of 1955 was a contract between the English, the Russians, the French and the US, on the one hand, and Austria on the other. Nowhere in our jurisprudence can one find support for Dr. Bazil's "oral" interpretation of this Treaty, and Dr. Bazil's failure to cite any Austrian jurisprudence in support of his view casts doubts on his assertions.

The Austrian State Treaty of 1955 is the equivalent of the U.S. Constitution.   What is the remedy for a breach?  Should we re-occupy Austria?

Emphasis below is mine.

Article 26
PROPERTY, RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF MINORITY GROUPS
IN AUSTRIA
1. In so far as such action has not already been taken, Austria undertakes that, in all cases where property, legal rights or interests in Austria have since13th March, 1938, been subject of forced transfer or measures of sequestration, confiscation or control on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner, the said property shall be returned and the said legal rights and interests shall be restored together with their accessories. Where return or restoration is impossible, compensation shall be granted for losses incurred by reason of such measures to the same extent as is, or may be, given to Austrian nationals generally in respect of war damage.

2. Austria agrees to take under its control all property, legal rights and interests in Austria of persons, organizations or communities which, individually or as members of groups, were the object of racial, religious or other Nazi measures of persecution where, in the case of persons, such property, rights and interests remain heirless or unclaimed for six months after the coming into force of the present Treaty, or where in the case of organizations and communities such organizations or communities have ceased to exist. Austria shall transfer such property, rights and interests to appropriate agencies or organizations to be designated by the Four Heads of Mission in Vienna by agreement with the Austrian Government to be used for the relief and rehabilitation of victims of persecution by the Axis Powers, it being understood that these provisions do not require Austria to make payments in foreign exchange or other transfers to foreign countries which would constitute a burden on the Austrian economy. Such transfer shall be effected within eighteen months from the coming into force of the present Treaty and shall include property, rights and interests re quired to be restored under paragraph 1 of this Article.

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On the Eve of Criminal Trial in U.S., Rudolph Leopold, Collector of Artworks Stolen from Jews, Dies in Vienna

Egon Schiele's Dead City

Art collector Rudolph Leopold died today in Vienna, Austria.

In 1998, D.A. Robert Morgenthau seized two stolen artworks at the Museum of Modern Art that Leopold had loaned to the MoMA:  Egon Schiele's Dead City and Schiele's Portrait of Wally.

Leopold was scheduled to stand criminal trial this summer before the Hon. Loretta A. Preska in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after Judge Preska determined that Portrait of Wally was stolen.

But MoMA returned the stolen Dead City to the Leopold Museum in Austria.  The Austrian Provenance Commission's head Dr. Christoph Bazil, has repeatedly promised to investigate Dead City's provenance and those of other Schiele's stolen from Fritz Grunbaum that are in the Leopold and Albertina Museums in Vienna, but after 11 years, no report has issued.

Austria purchased Leopold's collection and made Leopold director of the Leopold Museum for life.  It remains to be seen whether Austria will carry through on its promises to investigate and return the stolen works in Leopold's collection.

Article 26 of the 1955 Austrian State Treaty requires Austria to return all property stolen from Nazi persecutees.  Yet Austria has not only failed to return the property, but repeatedly set up enabling legislation designed to frustrate claims and then let the legislation lapse.

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Raubkunst: Fun Summer in Vienna - See The Stolen Schieles at the Albertina and the Leopold

If you would like to show your children beautiful blond men and women enjoying the fruits of what they stole from Jews murdered in concentration camps, then Vienna, Austria is just the spot for you.  And Klaus Albrecht Schroeder's the cute-as-pie curator at the Albertina who'll give you all you're looking for.

Top of your list should be the Albertina and Leopold Museums.  Leopold will be standing criminal trial this summer in the SDNY for trafficking in the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally, which has been locked in a warehouse in Long Island City for the last decade.  But you too can enjoy the exquisite joy of looking at stolen art because in Austria, this art is proudly displayed.

Although Article 26 of the Austrian State Treaty required that Austria return all property stolen from Jews (this is a continuing obligation under their equivalent of a constitution written in conjunction with the four occupying Allied forces), since the Allies left Austria in 1955, Austria has flipped the bird at the United States and the poor despoiled Jews who have spend generations dying while the Austrians stuffed themselves on Sacher tortes.  A series of fake restitution laws were enacted and allowed to expire.  But when your Constitution mandates that you give everything back, how can an expired law deprive a Jew of a remedy without being unconstitutional?

But no one seems to care very much these days.  Holocaust survivors will all soon be dead. So go to Vienna this summer, here is a preview of some of the works stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, who was murdered at Dachau.

11 years ago Austria set up a provenance commission to investigate the provenance of Egon Schiele's Dead City, which was stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, and the other stolen artworks in the Albertina Museum.

11 years later, still no report.   Just waiting for more Jews to die, enjoying the weather and the Mozart.  Oh yes, and the Sacher torte.

Raubkunst - Stolen Schieles at the Albertina and Leopold Museums Vienna

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Lovely Strudel from Demel: Austria's Continuing Extortion of Jews Dispossed of Artworks

Austrian Cultural Forum (thin gray building third from the left) image here.

On March 4-5 the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City held a forum on "Art Restitution in Austria".  I previously wrote about stolen Schieles in Austria's Leopold and Albertina collections here.   You can listen to my presentation at Yad Vashem on the problems of proving the Holocaust in a U.S. court of law and view the corresponding Powerpoint here.

The ACF event was clearly envisioned as a propaganda exercise by the Austrian government.   Here is the press release from the Austrian Embassy in Washington.   For no apparent reason, Austria used an image of Klimt's The Kiss to illustrate its press release.  Morton Maneker's Art Market Monitor covers the event here.

I attended and distributed a document titled "Fritz Grunbaum's Schieles:  Stolen Artworks in the Albertina and Leopold Museums."   You can find the document (a Powerpoint) here.   I asked why the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum had not received a response to their claims in 11 years, despite having been told by the Austrian Commission that a report would be issued - we were told to be patient.   We were also told that there is no legal recourse when decisions don't issue, no judicial oversight of the process, and no right of appeal.

We were served lovely coffee and dainty treats from Demel, for which we were all thankful.

When moderator Marc Masurovsky asked Christoph Bazil whether there was any right of appeal to Austria's decisions not to return stolen art, Bazil had a choking fit.  The choking fit recurred anytime the Leopold Foundation was discussed.

Bazil was utterly confused when Prof. Ed Gaffney suggested that Austria pass a law giving compensation to Jews who'd lost property and had it withheld for decades. Gaffney also suggested passing a law providing for attorneys fees for successful claimants.

A highlight:

Christoph Bazil "No one owns the Leopold Collection"

Andreas Stadler  "Austria purchased the Leopold Collection"

I explained that District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Fritz Grunbaum's Dead City as stolen in 1998 and asked why the Austrians didn't just send in a prosecutor and the police to grab the stolen works and give them back.

I got no understandable answer.   If an Austrian's car is stolen, the police get it back.  If a Jew's painting is stolen, there are no police.

It is clear that Austria continues to do everything in its power to frustrate the rights of Jews to property stolen from them during the Holocaust.  Instead of sending the police into the museums to investigate allegations of stolen property and take sworn statements, Austria has set up a Kafkaesque system of provenance researchers who are counting every artwork in every museum and creating lots of files.   This response is akin to someone saying that every grain of sand on the beach must be counted before returning a stolen diamond ring that was found on the beach.   Fritz Grunbaum's stolen Schieles should have been returned long ago.

Austria's position is that if there is property stolen from Jews in private hands, there is no legal remedy.  A Dorotheum representative explained that when the Dorotheum finds stolen property coming up for auction, the Dorotheum explains to the Jews who have been looted that since they have no rights, they must come to a "just and fair solution".   She explained that this makes no one happy, but everyone must reach a compromise.   Imagine the unhappiness of the poor ex-Nazis and their children learning that they can't keep their stolen loot!

Making someone give up their property rights by telling them that if they don't accept they will have no legal recourse is simple extortion.

Privatizing the Dorotheum and institutionalizing this form of coercion just means that Austria has privatized its continuing extortion of Jews, rather than honoring Article 26 of the Austrian State Treaty which requires Austria to give back all such stolen property.   U.S. museums and private collectors routinely extort Jews in similar ways (relying on statutes of limitations and laches defenses), which has led the U.S. State Department to support the creation of a U.S. Art Restitution Commission.

Minister Claudia Schmid should take immediate and serious measures to return all stolen artworks and to promulgate laws permitting Jews to recover stolen artworks now in private hands.

Owners of stolen art will not be content with apfelstrudel from Demel and a pat on the head.

The program below:

Art Restitution in Austria


(Restitutions from the Federal Collections)

Conference

(March 4-5, 2010, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York)

DAY 1, THURSDAY, MARCH 4: 10.00 A.M. – 5.00 P.M. – SPECIAL EVENT FOR EXPERTS IN THE FIELD OF ART RESTITUTION

9.30 a.m. Welcome Table

9.45 a.m. Introduction by Andreas Stadler, Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum, New York

10.00 a.m. – 10.45 a.m.

Looting of art during the Nazi era in Austria (1938-1945) - Historical and political outline

Presentation by Michael John, Historian and Political Scientist, University of Linz

Followed by Discussion and Q&A (Moderator: Marc Masurovsky, Historian)

11.15 a.m. – 12.00 a.m.

The Austrian Art Restitution Law (”Kunstrückgabegesetz 1998”) as the legal basis of art restitution from the Federal Collections against the background of private and international law. The origins of this bill as well as its amendment in 2009

Presentation by Georg Graf, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies

Followed by a Discussion and Q&A (Moderator: Marc Masurovsky, Historian)

Lunchbreak

2.00 p.m. – 2.45 p.m.

The Commission for Provenance Research – its activities since 1998: from its origin to an established research facility

Presentation by Leonhard Weidinger, Historian, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (MAK)

2.45 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.

The Art Restitution Advisory Board – outline of its functions and decisions

Presentation by Christoph Bazil, Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK)

Coffee Break

4.00 p.m.

Panel Discussion

“Austrian Art Restitution”; Marc Masurovsky in conversation with Michael John, Georg Graf, Leonhard Weidinger, Christoph Bazil, Steven Beller.

Christoph Bazil studied law in Vienna and has worked for the Austrian Federal Ministry for Culture since 1994. He was Deputy Head of the Department for Cultural Heritage, before becoming Head of the Department of Restitution in 2008. He is also administrative Co-Chair of the Commission for Provenance Research. Steven Beller was born in London and educated in Cambridge, England. He currently works in Washington DC as an independent scholar. He has written on various topics of modern Central European and modern Jewish history, including books on “Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History” (1989); “Herzl” (1991); and “Francis Joseph” (1996). He also edited and introduced “Rethinking Vienna 1900” (2001). His book “A Concise History of Austria” was published by Cambridge University Press, followed by his book “Antisemitism” in 2007. Georg Graf has been Professor for Private Law at the University of Salzburg since 2001; he is Head of the Department for Private Law. From 1999 to 2003, he was a member of the Austrian Historical Commission with the mandate to investigate and report on the whole complex of expropriations in Austria during the Nazi era and on restitution and/or compensation (including other financial or social benefits) after 1945 by the Republic of Austria. Since 2009, he has been the chairman of the board of directors of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. Michael John studied History and Political Science at the University of Vienna. He worked as a historian in Vienna, and is since 2001 Professor of Social and Economic History at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. His research interests include: migration and ethnicity in Austria, biographical research, oral/video history, history of minorities, and Jewish history. He has served as director of the projects “Jews in Upper Austria” and „Aryanization and Restitution in Upper Austria, Salzburg and Burgenland” as part of the Historical Commission of the Republic of Austria (2000-2004) and was the head of the Commission for Provenance Research of Art Objects of the Regional Government of Upper Austria (2000 – 2007). He is the author of six books, five editions, and numerous contributions to scientific journals, anthologies, books, including several articles on “looted art”. He was guest professor at the University of Salzburg, and lecturer at the Central European University, Budapest, the University of Nova Gorica and the Academy of Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Marc Masurovsky has investigated and studied since 1980 the thefts and outflows of assets looted during the Holocaust and World War II. In September 1997, he co-founded the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) and served as its Director of Research. In 1999 and 2000, he spent 15 months as Director of Research for Monetary Gold at the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. Masurovsky produced an unpublished final report on the wartime and post-war fate of gold bars and coins looted by the Nazis. From 2001 to 2004, he worked on a pilot project to create a database focused on the spoliated Jewish community of Vienna, Austria, based in part on the records of the Bundesdenkmalamt in Vienna. From 2004 to 2006, he oversaw the design, construction, and execution of a looted art database for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). Its exclusive focus centered on the estimated 20,000 highly-prized works and objets d'art removed by the Nazis from leading Jewish and non-Jewish families and businesses in France and Belgium. In the fall of 2006, he co-authored in French a book on the economic plunder of France during the Vichy years. Masurovsky is currently finishing a book in French with Fabrizio Calvi on the Holocaust, the mechanics of the art market, and the destruction of Europe's Jewish artists, scheduled for publication in 2011. Leonhard Weidinger is a historian and multimedia producer. Since 2005 he has been a member of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research and oversees the collection of the Austrian Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna (MAK). He was Co-Producer of a video documentary about the concentration camp Steyr-Muenichholz, Co-Editor of the volume "… wesentlich mehr Faelle als angenommen”, which presents the first ten years of the work of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research, and author of the upcoming book “Schneidern und Sammeln”, a study of the Viennese Rothberger family.

DAY 2, FRIDAY, MARCH 5: 10.00 A.M. – 1.00 P.M. – PUBLIC EVENT “AUSTRIAN ART RESTITUTION”

Presenters: Christoph Bazil, Leonhard Weidinger

The meeting aims to inform about the Republic of Austria’s actions and measures. After an overview about looting of art during the Nazi era in Austria (1938-1945) and the art restitution since 1945 there will be a focus on the art restitution law of 1998, on its origins as well as on its amendment in 2009. The experts will inform about the work of the Commission for Provenance Research whose members inspect systematically and consistently the Austrian federal museums and collections and about the Art Restitution Advisory Board and its functions and decisions. The practice of art restitution in Austria will be shown with recent examples. Christoph Bazil studied law in Vienna and has worked for the Austrian Federal Ministry for Culture since 1994. He was Deputy Head of the Department for Cultural Heritage, before becoming Head of the Department of Restitution in 2008. He is also administrative Co-Chair of the Commission for Provenance Research. Leonhard Weidinger is a historian and multimedia producer. Since 2005 he has been a member of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research and oversees the collection of the Austrian Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna (MAK). He was Co-Producer of a video documentary about the concentration camp Steyr-Muenichholz, Co-Editor of the volume "… wesentlich mehr Faelle als angenommen”, which presents the first ten years of the work of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research, and author of the upcoming book “Schneidern und Sammeln”, a study of the Viennese Rothberger family.

Coffeebreak

Followed by a Discussion and Q&A

RSVP please to Alexander Bogner for reservations: alexander.bogner@bmeia.gv.at – limited seats available!

Audio Recording and Powerpoint of Nazi Art Looting Presentation at Yad Vashem

Egon Schiele's Self-Seers - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum and Still Missing

Last week I gave a lecture at Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research in Jerusalem.   I dealt with the problems faced by attorneys who need to prove that the Holocaust happened and to prove that transactions involving Nazi persecutees during the period 1933-1945 were presumptively duress transactions.

If you would like to listen to my presentation, the link is here.   The Powerpoint presentation that illustrates the audio is here.  The invitation reproduced below.

The International Institute for Holocaust Research-Yad Vashem


cordially invites you to attend the lecture

Egon Schiele's Dead City

Current Issues In Nazi Art Looting and Recovery
Raymond Dowd, Esq.

Partner - Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP New York

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

10:00-12:00

Lecture Hall, Room 223, Administration and Research Building

Yad Vashem, Mount of Remembrance

In 1998, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Egon Schiele's Dead City and Portrait of Wally at New York's Museum of Modern Art, creating a scandal that changed the legal landscape of Europe and the United States for victims of Nazi persecution and their survivors. Ray Dowd represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer murdered in the Dachau Concentration Camp. Fritz's wife Lily died in the Minsk Death Camp. Grunbaum's art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed circumstances, and in the first Holocaust-era art recovery trial in U.S. history, Bakalar v. Vavra, the District Court found that passing the artwork through Switzerland gave it clean title. The case is on appeal. Many of Fritz's artworks are in the Leopold Museum and the Albertina Museum in Austria. In over ten years, Austria has not even bothered to respond to the heirs' claims.

Egon Schiele's Dead City: Current Issues In Nazi Art Looting and Recovery

Egon Schiele's Dead City III, from the collection of Fritz Grunbaum when he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and then died penniless in Dachau, currently at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, Austria

NYSBA Sections: Entertainment, Arts & Sports and Law (EASL) Section  Events

http://www.nysba.org/

Egon Schiele's Dead City: Current Issues In Nazi Art Looting and Recovery

March 24, 2010
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Sotheby's Institute of Art

570 Lexington Ave., NYC
1.5 MCLE credits in Professional Practice

Register online > www.nysba.org/deadcity
SEATING IS LIMITED PLEASE REGISTER EARLY
Speaker:

Raymond Dowd, Esq.
Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP

Sponsored by the Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Section's Committee on Fine Arts

Program Description:

In 1998, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Egon Schiele's Dead City and Portrait of Wally at the Museum of Modern Art, creating a scandal that changed the legal landscape of Europe and the United States for victims of Nazi persecution and their survivors. Ray Dowd represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer murdered in the Dachau Concentration Camp. Fritz's wife Lily died in the Minsk Death Camp. Grunbaum's art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed circumstances, and in the first Holocaust-era art recovery trial in U.S. history, Bakalar v. Vavra, the District Court found that passing the artwork through Switzerland gave it clean title. The case is now on appeal to the Second Circuit. This presentation will cover the legal and evidentiary obstacles to litigating Holocaust-era expropriation and provide legal practitioners with basic tools to assemble evidence and prove Nazi property looting.

Pricing:

$25.00 for Members
$35.00 for non-members
$15.00 for students

For more information contact: Carolyn Clayton at 518-487-5596 or cclayton@nysba.org

Register online > www.nysba.org/deadcity

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