Egon Schiele, “I Love Antithesis” (1912)
Source: Alamy
Billionaire Ronald Lauder agreed to give up a murals looted by Nazis in 1938 from a Jewish cabaret performer who was later killed in a concentration camp.
Lauder, the heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune, joined one other collector and three museums in voluntarily surrendering seven drawings by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, in keeping with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The antiquities trafficking unit of the district attorney’s office earlier this 12 months seized the Schiele drawings, which have a complete estimated value of greater than $9.5 million.
Lauder, who’s president of the World Jewish Congress, had possession of Schiele’s 1912 color drawing “I Love Antithesis,” which is price an estimated $2.75 million.
Lauder acquired the drawing “through an art dealer many years after it was misappropriated” by the Nazis, his spokesperson said.
An avid art collector, Lauder co-founded the Neue Galerie in Recent York, which displays a variety of art from Austria and Germany between 1890 and 1940 — including quite a few works by Schiele.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in a press release, said that Grünbaum “was a person of incredible depth and spirit, and his memory lives on through the artworks which are finally being returned to his relatives.”
Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, is seen at Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau on Jan. 26, 2020, at some point before the seventy fifth anniversary of its liberation.
Wojtek Radwanski | Afp | Getty Images
“I hope this moment can function a reminder that despite the horrific death and destruction brought on by the Nazis, it is rarely too late to get better a few of what we lost, honor the victims, and reflect on how their families are still impacted to today,” Bragg said.
The seven artworks being returned had been held by two Recent York museums, the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library & Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California, together with Lauder and the estate of art collector Serge Sabarsky.
Grünbaum acquired a set of 81 Schiele works before he was arrested in Austria in 1938 by the Nazis. They forced him to execute an influence of attorney in favor of his wife, Elisabeth Grünbaum, after which compelled her handy over his entire art collection.
Grünbaum was murdered on the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1941. Elisabeth Grünbaum was killed at a Nazi death camp in Belarus in 1942.
Timothy Reif, a relative of Fritz Grünbaum’s, praised Bragg, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other officials for having “succeeded in solving crimes perpetrated over 80 years ago.”
“Their righteous and courageous collaboration within the pursuit of justice — unique amongst prosecutors and law enforcement in this complete nation, if not the world — shine a shiny light for all to follow,” Reif said, in keeping with the D.A.’s press release.
Reif is a judge on the United States Court of International Trade, which handles civil actions arising out of international trade laws.
Reif was appointed to that court by former President Donald Trump.
Timothy Reif, then U.S. Trade Representative general counsel, speaks a couple of trade enforcement motion during a news conference on the U.S. Trade Representative’s office in Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 2014.
Luis M. Alvarez | AP
Lauder is a longtime acquaintance of Trump, and in 2019 gave nearly $100,000 to the Republican National Committee because it was working to reelect him as president.
Lauder’s spokesman previously told CNBC he wouldn’t back Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
In a press release Wednesday, Lauder said, “I’m pleased and honored to have the ability to assist Fritz Grünbaum’s heirs proceed their laudable efforts to get better his legacy.”
“I hope that this restitution process brings healing to the Grünbaum family and helps to maintain alive the memory of Mr. Grünbaum and his wife Elisabeth, each of whom were murdered in concentration camps through the Holocaust,” said Lauder.
His spokesperson noted that Lauder “was the primary person contacted by the D.A.’s Office who agreed to voluntarily restitute an artwork to the Grünbaum heirs.”
Grünbaum’s heirs have searched for many years to reclaim multiple Schiele works that Grünbaum had owned.
A Recent York civil case in 2018 found that the heirs had proven a right of possession of two Schieles, and an appellate court affirmed that ruling in 2019.
