Nazi-Looted Art Ordered Returned to Holocaust Victim's Heirs

  • Two Egon Schiele paintings are at the heart of the dispute
  • London art dealer plans to appeal New York judge’s ruling

A New York judge awarded two Nazi-looted paintings to the heirs of an Austrian-Jewish Holocaust victim whose collection of hundreds of pieces of art was systematically stolen by Hitler’s army in 1938.

A U.K art dealer claimed that the two paintings in his possession -- Egon Schiele’s “Woman in a Black Pinafore” and “Woman Hiding her Face” -- couldn’t be seized under the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act signed into law by former President Barack Obama in 2016. Justice Charles E. Ramos in Manhattan on Thursday rejected the argument.