Russian War Prisoner by Egon Schiele
A New York judge has ordered the Art Institute of Chicago to turn over a Nazi-looted Schiele drawing so it can be returned to its rightful owners.
I first wrote about this story in 2023, when the Manhattan District Attorney’s office identified several Egon Schiele drawings in American museums that the Nazis previously stole from the collection of Fritz Grünbaum. Grünbaum was an Austrian Jewish actor, singer, and songwriter popular in Austria and Germany. The Nazis detained and sent him to Dachau concentration camp, where his captors forced him to sign over power of attorney. This allowed the state to confiscate his art collection. He died at the camp in 1941. The Manhattan DA’s office traced three Schiele drawings previously from Grünbaum’s collection to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio, and the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. The work at the Art Institute is a watercolor and pencil drawing entitled Russian War Prisoner, created in 1916 and valued at approximately $1.25 million. The Carnegie and the Allen Museums seemed quick to cooperate with the investigation. Meanwhile, the Art Institute of Chicago took a defensive stance from the beginning. They initially claimed they were “confident in our legal acquisition and lawful possession of this work.”
Judge Althea Drysdale of the New York City Criminal Court has ruled against the museum, saying this is a criminal case involving stolen property rather than a civil matter. Furthermore, because Russian War Prisoner passed through a New York gallery between leaving Europe and its acquisition by the Art Institute, New York criminal courts have jurisdiction in this matter. Drysdale also stated that the Art Institute failed to exercise due diligence in verifying that the Schiele drawing was not previously stolen. A museum spokeswoman expressed disappointment in the ruling, saying they intend to appeal.
In previous filings, the Art Institute claimed that, before the museum acquired the work in 1966, Schiele’s Russian War Prisoner passed legally from Grünbaum to his sister-in-law, who sold it to a Swiss art dealer named Eberhard Kornfeld in 1956. Investigators have been incredibly skeptical that Kornfeld acquired the work legally. The DA’s office has pointed out that the work’s provenance documents contain alterations and forged signatures. The Art Institute has further claimed that an innocuous private company owned the warehouse where the work was kept during and after the Second World War. This runs contrary to information that its proprietor extensively collaborated with the Nazis. Lastly, the museum states that Grünbaum was placed under no duress and legally handed over power of attorney without coercion. Of course, this ignores the fact that he was placed in a concentration camp before he did so. A ruling from the New York State Court of Appeals states, “We reject the notion that a person who signs a power of attorney in a death camp can be said to have executed the document voluntarily.”
The last time I wrote about this legal drama was in April 2024. I asked why the Art Institute is being so stubborn about this, about a drawing that isn’t even on display in the galleries. “The simplest and most likely answer is because of pride. It can be difficult to admit when you’re wrong, or you got fooled. However, sensitive topics like Holocaust loot are not the time to put on a brave face or stand defiant; nor come to the defense of the people who may have tricked you.” It seems the Art Institute chose to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply with even the most basic standards of goodwill and decency. If you have to engage in a drawn-out legal battle over something like this, you rarely end up seeming like the good guys.