New York Court Orders Art Institute of Chicago to Return Nazi-Looted Schiele Drawing

In Germany, a Jewish family is reunited with a treasured family object — but also a sense of exile

In 2022, an email arrived from Dr. Matthias Weniger, curator at the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, asking Gaby Gropman if she was the granddaughter of Sigmund Marx. “Yes” was the reply, whereupon Weniger said that he had Sigmund’s silver kiddush cup and would be returning it to our family. Sigmund Marx’s handwritten list of his silver items that he turned in to authorities. Photo by Sonya Gropman A 17th century cup, it was skillfully decora…

Art Institute of Chicago told to surrender drawing to heirs of man killed in Nazi concentration camp

A judge in New York ruled on Wednesday that the Art Institute of Chicago must surrender a 1916 drawing by Egon Schiele to investigators who plan to return it to the heirs of a Jewish cabaret entertainer from Vienna who was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp in 1941. The drawing “Russian War Prisoner” was purchased by the Art Institute in 1966, but investigators for the Manhattan district attorney’s office had asserted that it and other works …

Art Institute ordered to return drawing to heirs of Jewish cabaret star killed by Nazis

A New York Supreme Court judge determined that the “Russian War Prisoner” watercolor had been stolen by Nazis from Fritz Grünbaum before the start of World War II.

Returning Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners

Returning Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners 1922 Smith College yearbook photo of Ardelia Hall (Smith College Special Collections) Eighty years ago, Ardelia Hall found herself, through luck and hard work,  the fine arts and monuments adviser at the U.S. Department of State. It was there that she helped — for almost 20 years after World War II — to return stolen European paintings to their rightful owners. By the end of he…

Art Institute of Chicago Must Return Nazi-Looted Schiele Work to Heirs

New York Supreme Court Judge Althea Drysdale on April 23 ordered the Art Institute of Chicago to return a drawing by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele to the heirs of its onetime owner, who died in a concentration camp in 1941. Drysdale’s ruling followed the discovery by the Manhattan district attorney’s office that the 1916 drawing, […]

Judge orders the Art Institute of Chicago to restitute Nazi-looted Schiele drawing

The latest development in the ongoing dispute over a 1916 portrait believed to have been stolen from Fritz Grünbaum by the Nazis