Jewish heirs fight over Picasso paintings sold when Nazis came.jpgw1440

Jewish heirs fight over Picasso paintings sold when Nazis came to power

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When the Nazi regime came to power in Germany and launched a campaign of terror against the country’s Jewish population, Karl Adler hatched a desperate plan to escape.

According to court documents, he had fled Germany with his wife Rosa and flitted back and forth between the Netherlands, France and Switzerland while they waited to obtain permanent entry visas for their final destination, Argentina. But every stop along the way was costly, and a heavy Nazi “escape tax” on emigrating Jews had robbed Adler, once a successful businessman, of most of his wealth.

With war looming in 1938, Adler reportedly had no choice but to sell a prized possession: a painting by Pablo Picasso.

The painting, a Blue Period portrait titled “Woman Ironing,” eventually secured Adler passage to Argentina. Now, decades later, his family’s heirs want it back. A lawsuit filed Friday in New York County Supreme Court alleges that the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, where the painting is displayed, wrongly owns the Picasso since it was sold under the pressure of Nazi oppression, and demands that it be Adlers heirs is returned.

“Adler would not have disposed of the painting at the time and at the price that he did had he and his family not been and would not have been subject to Nazi persecution,” the lawsuit reads.

An attorney representing Adler’s heirs declined to speak on behalf of the plaintiffs. In a statement, the Guggenheim Foundation denied the claims of the lawsuit.

“The Guggenheim has conducted an extensive investigation and detailed investigation in response to this allegation, has engaged in dialogue with plaintiffs’ attorneys over a number of years and believes that the allegation is without merit,” the statement said.

Adler’s dilemma was a common problem for émigré Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, Dutch-based art detective Arthur Brand told the Washington Post.

“People always think, look, the Nazis [only] went into Jews’ homes, took their paintings, they stole them and sold them or whatever,” said Brand, who helps Jewish families locate stolen artworks. “That’s not how the Nazis worked.”

In the early years of their regime, the Nazi government targeted Jews with a range of fines and taxes, including a heavy property tax and a flight tax on the numerous Jewish émigrés who fled Germany to avoid persecution before Jewish emigration was banned in 1941. The lawsuit, brought by Adler’s heirs, also alleges that Adler incurred additional costs paying for short-term visas to enter various European countries while waiting to receive a permanent visa to Argentina.

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According to the complaint, Adler sold his Picasso painting at a price well below market value. In 1931, he valued it at around $14,000, according to the lawsuit. In 1938, he reportedly sold it in financial distress for around $1,500 to a Jewish collector in Paris, Justin Thannhauser.

“As the leading art dealer of Picasso, Thannhauser must have known that he was acquiring the painting at a sale price,” the complaint reads.

Thannhauser asked that “Woman Ironing” be donated to the Guggenheim after his death, the complaint said. He died in 1976 and the museum foundation took over the painting two years later. “Woman Ironing” has been continuously exhibited at the Guggenheim in the decades since, the Guggenheim Foundation said.

Karl and Rosa Adler died in 1957 and 1946, respectively, according to the lawsuit, and their three children, who died between 1989 and 1994, left the family legacy to several relatives and charitable organizations. Thomas Bennigson, one of the Adler’s great-grandchildren, learned of the family’s alleged “Woman Ironing” claim in 2014 and maintained a law practice, according to the complaint. Bennigson, seven other relatives, and nine charities, all alleged to be Adler’s heirs, are the plaintiffs suing the Guggenheim for the painting’s return.

Brand thinks the heirs have a case.

“I think if the family can prove that, they did not in fact get the market price and Adler himself had to pay flight taxes or visas [fees]they have a chance to get the painting back,” he added.

But Leila Amineddoleh, a New York-based attorney who specializes in arts and heritage law, told The Post that American judges are reluctant to nullify sales on the grounds of coercion. A descendant of a Jewish family who sold another Picasso painting to flee Germany to Italy lost a similarly argued case against New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018. An appeals court sided with the Met in 2019, sidestepping the case however, the matter ruled that the plaintiffs had waited too long to assert their claim.

“The courts haven’t really given clear guidance as to what a forced sale is,” Amineddoleh said. “It seems that the courts are sort of asking and deciding that question [cases] for other reasons”.

In its statement, the Guggenheim Foundation said two of Adler’s children were on good terms with the foundation and with Thannhauser. Before receiving Woman Ironing, the foundation said it contacted one of Adler’s sons, who expressed no concern about the painting or its sale to Thannhauser. It is also said that Adler’s daughter remained in contact with Thannhauser and that the family entrusted him with a second painting around the time of the “Bügelfrau” auction.

“There is no evidence that Karl Adler or his three children, who have since died, ever viewed the sale as unfair or viewed Thannhauser as a bad actor,” the statement said.

Brand said the foundation’s reasoning fails to take into account that opinions may change as awareness grows about the various ways Nazi Germany pressured Jewish families to sell their valuables.

“This family … can change their minds, you know,” Brand said. “We now understand Nazi tactics better. Even if something looked voluntary, that doesn’t always mean that it was really voluntary.”

Brand and Amineddoleh said their unique territory will continue to develop as historical knowledge increases – and conflicts around the world continue. The idea of ​​suing for sales under duress only emerged in the last 20 years, Brand said. Amineddoleh said she expects more cases to follow in the wake of more recent conflicts.

“In the coming years we will be dealing with objects looted from Ukraine,” said Amineddoleh. “Since the first Gulf War, antiques have been looted from Iraq and are still circulating on the market… Unfortunately, art has always been a target.”