Fritz Grünbaum's Schiele drawings, returned to his heirs

On 16 July 1938, in the Dachau concentration camp, Fritz Grünbaum was made to sign a power of attorney for his wife, Elisabeth. Grünbaum was a Viennese cabaret performer and art collector. A New York appeals court later held that he signed under duress. Four days later, on 20 July, a Nazi official made an inventory of his collection. It listed 81 works by Egon Schiele, five oils and 76 on paper. The court record says the collection was placed with Schenker and Company, a shipping firm under Nazi control. It has no export stamp, so it never left Austria legally.

The Nazis arrested him in 1938, after the Anschluss, Germany’s takeover of Austria. He was held at Dachau and Buchenwald, and returned to Dachau in October 1940. He died there on or about 14 January 1941, the date given by the Buchenwald Memorial and by the First Department, the New York appeals court. Elisabeth was killed at Maly Trostinec on or about 5 October 1942.

The collection is untraced until 8 September 1956. On that day 65 Schiele works appeared in a selling exhibition at a Bern gallery, soon after the Austrian claims period closed on 31 July 1956. The catalogue gave no provenance except for one painting. The Bern dealer said later, first in 1998, that he bought the works from Elisabeth’s sister. The courts, including the First Department in 2019, found no proof that she held good title. A dealer with a New York gallery then bought a large group and sold them to collectors and museums.

In 2018 a New York judge ruled for Grünbaum’s heirs on two works held by a London dealer. On 9 July 2019 the First Department affirmed, holding that a power of attorney signed in Dachau passed no title. In 2022 the heirs asked the Manhattan District Attorney (DA) to investigate. The DA’s account, and the courts’ reading of the record, is that these drawings were taken from Grünbaum. That is not a separate finding for each sheet, because the 1938 inventory lists most of the Schieles in bulk, mostly without titles.

The DA counts eleven drawings returned to the heirs. Seven came back on 20 September 2023, from five holders, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library. The DA valued them at about $9.5 million. A private collector surrendered one in October 2023. Two came back on 19 January 2024, from Oberlin College’s Allen Memorial Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art. The eleventh, on 26 July 2024, came from the estate of a family that had bought it in 1961 and cooperated. Press reports differ on some titles and values. This account follows the DA.

The twelfth work, Russian War Prisoner (1916), is at the Art Institute of Chicago, which bought it in 1966 for $5,500. The heirs asked for it in 2006 and were refused. The museum says it holds legal title. On 23 April 2025 a New York judge ordered it handed over for return to the heirs, finding that it was stolen from Grünbaum. On 17 September 2026 the First Department, with five justices in agreement, vacated that order and the 2023 seizure warrant. It said the ruling was in no way a finding on who owns the work, left the grand jury inquiry open, and said title should be decided in the heirs’ federal case. The DA’s office said it was reviewing the decision. The sources read record no criminal charge against anyone named in the case. The latest source is dated 10 October 2026.