7 Egon Schiele portraits to be returned to heirs of Jewish cabaret star murdered in the Holocaust

Seven artworks by Egon Schiele will be returned to the heirs of a Jewish cabaret performer who had owned the pieces before being murdered in the Holocaust.

The works, most of them portraits of Schiele himself or his wife, were part of a massive art collection owned by the Viennese performer, Fritz Grünbaum, and are estimated to be worth a total of approximately $9.5 million. Grünbaum’s collection also included works by Albrecht Dürer, Auguste Rodin and Camille Pissarro, along with a total of 81 pieces by Schiele, an Austrian expressionist painter active in the early 20th century.

Before being seized by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office earlier this year, the works were in the possession of several prestigious institutions, including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, Morgan Library, Vally Sabarsky Trust and Ronald Lauder Collection, as well as the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. All seven portraits were seized and voluntarily surrendered by the institutions after they were shown evidence that the works were stolen by the Nazis.

The restitution announcement was made on Wednesday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge at a branch of the US Department of Homeland Security.

The effort by Timothy Reif and David Frankel — heirs and co-executors of the Grünbaum estate — to reacquire the Schiele paintings has lasted more than 25 years and has been marked by legal battles due both to statutes of limitations and disputed claims. One claim alleged that the paintings were never stolen, and were instead in the custody of a relative of the Grünbaum family for the duration of the war, until they were sold to art collectors.

Last week, three other Schiele works believed to have come from the Grünbaum collection were seized by Bragg’s office from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio.

Degenerate Jewish art work

Schiele’s work was popular among Jewish art collectors, and was considered “degenerate” art, along with a wide range of other modernist works, by the Nazis. In October 2022, two of Schiele’s paintings, previously in Grünbaum’s collection, were auctioned for charity by Grünbaum’s descendants through Christie’s to support up-and-coming performing artists from underrepresented backgrounds.

As a cabaret artist, Grünbaum performed as a master of ceremonies and wrote operettas and songs. He was also known for his political activity: In 1910, when an Austrian officer made antisemitic remarks, Grünbaum slapped him and was challenged to a duel in which he was injured. In the 1930s, Grünbaum became a vocal critic of the Nazis both in his performances and in a weekly column for a Viennese daily newspaper.

In 1938, Grünbaum and his wife Elisabeth were arrested by the Nazis and he was forced to sign a document giving her power of attorney. Elisabeth was then forced to sign a paper claiming she voluntarily turned over her husband’s art collection to the Nazis. Grünbaum gave his last performance at the Dachau infirmary on Dec. 31, 1940. He died of tuberculosis two weeks later. Elisabeth is presumed to have died at the Maly Trostenets concentration camp near Minsk in 1942.

In emotional ceremony, heirs to ‘Cabaret’ inspiration Fritz Grünbaum take back 7 Egon Schiele works stolen by the Nazis

They had seen the pictures before, in the collections of the museums that owned them until earlier this year. But the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Viennese cabaret performer killed in the Holocaust, said the works had conveyed a powerful effect now that they had been restored to Grünbaum’s estate.

“When viewing these artworks, imagine Fritz and Elisabeth in their lively Vienna apartment, singing, dancing, cracking jokes,” Timothy Reif, a distant relative, said in his remarks during a somber ceremony in downtown Manhattan Wednesday afternoon. He was referring to Grünbaum’s wife, who is presumed to have been killed by the Nazis in 1942. “Remembering their lives defeats Hitler’s plan to erase this brave Jewish man’s name from the book of history.”

Reif and other heirs and co-executors had been called to the ceremony to receive seven pieces by the 20th-century Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele that were part of Grünbaum’s vast art collection. They were seized earlier this year from a number of prestigious museums and collections by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as part of an effort to repatriate art stolen by the Nazis.

“On behalf of my entire family, I offer our deep gratitude to each of you here today, for all you are doing and have done for the cause of justice,” Reif said.

Grünbaum was killed in the Dachau concentration camp in 1941, and the significance of the ceremony’s timing, during the Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, was apparent to the attendees.

“It’s not lost on me where we are on the calendar that our ceremony coincides with the Jewish High Holidays, the time of reflection,” Bragg said to a room of about 100 attendees Wednesday afternoon. “This ceremony has reminded me that despite the horrors of the tragic destruction caused by the Nazis, it is never too late to teach the world about incredible people like Mr. Grünbaum.”

David Frankel, one of the co-executors of Grünbaum’s estate, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the timing “heightens the sense of awe surrounding all of this and the emotional investment that the DA’s office and assistant DA [Matthew] Bogdanos has put into this.”

On Thursday, Grünbaum’s heirs will give the works to Christie’s, which will auction them for charity later this year. The profits are set to go to artists in underserved communities, similar to a previous auction of restituted artworks that Grünbaum’s estate organized in the fall of 2022.

Grünbaum was said to be the inspiration for the master of ceremonies character in the Broadway musical and subsequent film “Cabaret.” In addition to his work as a comedian, librettist, film and radio star, Grünbaum was also known for his political activity and outspoken opposition to antisemitism. In 1910, he famously slapped an Austrian officer after the officer made antisemitic remarks, and then was challenged to a duel in which he was injured. He later became a vocal critic of the Nazis in a Viennese daily newspaper.

“They should remember him as not only as a great artist, but also an anti-Nazi,” Frankel said. “Someone who stands up for human rights and was courageous enough to risk his life to do it.”