Ronald Lauder reaches deal with Jewish heirs for Klimt painting lost under Nazis
Jewish philanthropist will retain renowned Austrian artist’s piece after reaching agreement with family who said it went missing amid Nazi persecution in pre-war Europe
Luke Tress is a JTA reporter and a former editor and reporter in New York for The Times of Israel.
Prominent Jewish philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder will retain a painting by the renowned artist Gustav Klimt after reaching a restitution deal with the heirs of a Jewish woman who said the artwork went missing amid Nazi persecution in pre-war Europe.
Lauder and the heirs of Irene Beran worked out a “mutual restitution agreement” regarding “The Black Feather Hat,” a 1910 piece by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, Lauder said in a Friday statement.
Lauder will restitute and reacquire the artwork as part of the arrangement. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The agreement came after several years of joint efforts between the two parties and expert researchers to better determine the artwork’s provenance, or chain of ownership, the statement said.
“We have worked arduously to uncover the full history of this artwork and trace its trajectory through time. While our joint research leaves gaps remaining, I have long championed the importance of restitution,” Lauder said. “I felt it was of utmost importance to arrive at a just and fair solution that recognizes the family’s history with this painting.”
Despite the years of research, it remained unclear how the painting went missing or where it was located between 1934 and the late 1950s.
Lauder is the president of the World Jewish Congress and the billionaire heir to the Lauder cosmetics company. He is a lifelong art collector and founded the Neue Galerie New York, a Manhattan museum that focuses on Austrian and German art.
Ronald S. Lauder and the descendants of Irene Beran (1886–1979) announced today that they have reached a mutual restitution agreement regarding "The Black Feather Hat" (1910) by Gustav Klimt. This agreement, which includes the restitution and reacquisition of the painting…
1/3 pic.twitter.com/ItKJgakU4j
— Neue Galerie New York (@NeueGalerieNY) February 10, 2023
Several Klimt paintings are highlights of the museum, including his masterpiece “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” a painting of a Jewish socialite known as “The Woman in Gold.”
He acquired “The Black Feather Hat” in 1973. The artwork has been exhibited numerous times, including at the Neue Galerie from 2019 to 2020.
Irene Beran owned the painting until at least 1934 in today’s Czech Republic. Beran fled Europe in 1943 due to fears of Nazi persecution.
Other members of the Jewish family died in the Nazi concentration camps.
Around 600,000 pieces of art were taken from Jews under Adolf Hitler’s regime, starting with the dictator’s rise to power in the early 1930s. The Nazis wanted to strip the Jewish people of its heritage and any wealth, and enrich the Third Reich and its leadership.
Art was taken in organized seizures, haphazard plundering, theft and forced sales.
In many cases, Jews sold off artwork to exploitative non-Jewish civilians under duress.
The whereabouts of many of the plundered objects are still unknown. A Holocaust Era Assets conference in the Czech Republic in 2009 estimated that 100,000 had not been returned.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that online databases and digitized records made tracking and sharing information about art’s provenance widely accessible.
Determining the provenance, especially when forced sales were involved, is complicated, time-consuming and costly, making the restitution process difficult.
New York museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art, have settled with Jewish heirs or restituted art in recent years.
In other cases, leading museums, including the Met, have won lawsuits against Jewish claimants.
A Jewish family is suing the Guggenheim in New York for a $200 million Pablo Picasso painting, saying it was sold under duress for a fraction of its value in 1938.
New York State passed a law last year requiring museums to label art that was looted under the Nazis in an effort to boost Holocaust awareness. The Neue Galerie closely adheres to the law.
