The Art Institute of Chicago has been granted a temporary win amid its long-standing legal dispute with the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, an Austrian-Jewish art collector who was displaced during World War II, over the ownership of the alleged Nazi-looted Egon Schiele painting.
Judge John G. Koeltl filed his decision last Feb. 28, siding with the Chicagoan institution, which allowed it to retain ownership over the 1916 Schiele piece, dubbed "Russian War Prisoner."
This decision effectively dismissed a motion of reconsideration over a prior ruling on the case back in November 2023, which asked for the painting to be restituted, something the judge ruled against.
Behind the Reif v. The Art Institute of Chicago Case
According to a case review by the Center for Art Law, the plaintiffs Timothy Reif, David Fraenkel, and Milos Vavra initiated the case under the claim that the Russian soldier portrait was illegally acquired by Nazi officials following the seizing of their predecessor's assets and his imprisonment.
As of now, the painting is currently kept at the museum under a short-term lockdown directive from the court.
Delving deeper into Judge Koeltl's recent decision, which rejected the plaintiff's request for reconsideration of the November decision for the legal reason that their claims have expired since 2009 per Chicago law.
He added that the 2016 Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery or HEAR Act is inapplicable to the current state of the case and thus is not enough to "resuscitate" their previous claims. The act itself is in place to expedite any heirs' claims over art confiscated amid WWII.
Before this decision, Reif and two other members of his family tried to alter the initiating date for their claims on the Schiele piece to 1966, the same year that the Chicagoan institution initially acquired the painting.
The court asserted that even with the alterations, the core issue regarding the statute of limitations will still not be addressed. As per the review, the initial claim for restitution is dated 2006.
As per the most recent update to the court documents, the case is still ongoing, which essentially makes it unclear how long the museum will be able to hold the Schiele piece in its collections.
