Tampa Police Department is searching for those responsible following incident at Perry Harvey Park. (Credit: Tampa Police Department/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX) Artwork believed to be stolen during the Holocaust from a Jewish art collector and entertainer have been rightly returned to the Nazi victim’s heirs after a 17-year battle with Oberlin College. The Nazis first stole the drawing, “Girl With Black Hair,” by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele, from Fritz Grünbaum, a prominent Jewish art collector and cabaret artist, under the Nazi confiscation of Jewish property. Grünbaum died at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1941.
The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin, a private liberal arts college in Ohio, had the artwork in its collection for several decades. The Equal Protection Project (EPP) of the Legal Insurrection Foundation President William Jacobson revealed that the art museum purchased the drawing in the late 1950s from an art dealer in France. However, the museum failed to investigate the provenance of the artwork, which should have raised suspicions about its potential Nazi looting origins.
The Grünbaum family notified the Allen Memorial Art Museum about the stolen artwork as early as 2006, but the college refused to return it. In 2016, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act) was passed, giving victims of Nazi-era persecution and their heirs an opportunity to recover stolen art. In 2022, the Grünbaum family sued Oberlin for the artwork, leading to a nine-month legal battle.
In September, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office issued a criminal seizure warrant for the disputed drawing. The warrant stated that there was reasonable cause to believe that the artwork was stolen property. Oberlin College, after 17 years of fighting, finally announced its plan to voluntarily return the drawing to the Grünbaum family.
Oberlin College claimed that it had lawfully acquired the artwork in 1958 and had invested significant resources in researching its history. The college emphasized that Charles Parkhurst, the director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum at the time, was celebrated for his efforts in tracking down and returning art looted by Nazis during World War II. Oberlin stated that it was inconceivable for Parkhurst to knowingly purchase stolen artwork.
The college voluntarily returned the drawing once the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office began investigating its ownership. Oberlin expressed hope that the return of the artwork would provide closure to the Grünbaum family. However, this case highlights the irony of Oberlin College’s treatment of different cultural groups, as they recently returned a Native American craft to the Nez Perce tribe but resisted returning the stolen artwork to the Grünbaum family.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has not yet responded to requests for comment. This article was written by Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, a writer on the breaking news team for Digital.
