Investigators Say Chicago’s Art Institute Is Holding onto ‘Looted Art’

The New York Times (NYT) is reporting that New York investigators trying to seize a drawing from the Art
Institute of Chicago filed an exacting 160-page motion Friday accusing
the museum of blatantly ignoring evidence of an elaborate fraud
undertaken to conceal that the artwork had been looted by the Nazis on
the eve of World War II.

According to the Times article, the drawing, “Russian War Prisoner,” by Egon Schiele, was purchased by the Art Institute in 1966. It is one of a number of works by Schiele that ended up in the hands of museums and collectors and have been sought by the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish cabaret entertainer from Vienna who was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp.

The institute paid about $5,500 for the drawing, which has been valued by investigators today at $1.25 million.

While the court papers, filed by the
Manhattan district attorney’s office, did not accuse the museum of being
party to the fraud, they said it had applied “willful blindness” to
what the investigators said were clear indications that it was acquiring
stolen property.

The case remains in court as both sides argue their respective positions.