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7 Egon Schiele portraits to be returned to heirs of Jewish cabaret star murdered in the Holocaust
(JTA) — Seven artworks by Egon Schiele will be returned to the heirs of a Jewish cabaret performer who had owned the pieces before being murdered in the Holocaust.
The works, most of them portraits of Schiele himself or his wife, were part of a massive art collection owned by the Viennese performer, Fritz Grünbaum, and are estimated to be worth a total of approximately $9.5 million. Grünbaum’s collection also included works by Albrecht Dürer, Auguste Rodin and Camille Pissarro, along with a total of 81 pieces by Schiele, an Austrian expressionist painter active in the early 20th century.
Before being seized by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office earlier this year, the works were in the possession of several prestigious institutions, including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, Morgan Library, Vally Sabarsky Trust and Ronald Lauder Collection, as well as the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. All seven portraits were seized and voluntarily surrendered by the institutions after they were shown evidence that the works were stolen by the Nazis.
The restitution announcement was made on Wednesday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge at a branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The effort by Timothy Reif and David Frankel — heirs and co-executors of the Grünbaum estate — to reacquire the Schiele paintings has lasted more than 25 years and has been marked by legal battles due both to statutes of limitations and disputed claims. One claim alleged that the paintings were never stolen, and were instead in the custody of a relative of the Grünbaum family for the duration of the war, until they were sold to art collectors.
Last week, three other Schiele works believed to have come from the Grünbaum collection were seized by Bragg’s office from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio.
Schiele’s work was popular among Jewish art collectors, and was considered “degenerate” art, along with a wide range of other modernist works, by the Nazis. In October 2022, two of Schiele’s paintings, previously in Grünbaum’s collection, were auctioned for charity by Grünbaum’s descendants through Christie’s to support up-and-coming performing artists from underrepresented backgrounds.
As a cabaret artist, Grünbaum performed as a master of ceremonies and wrote operettas and songs. He was also known for his political activity: In 1910, when an Austrian officer made antisemitic remarks, Grünbaum slapped him and was challenged to a duel in which he was injured. In the 1930s, Grünbaum became a vocal critic of the Nazis both in his performances and in a weekly column for a Viennese daily newspaper.
In 1938, Grünbaum and his wife Elisabeth were arrested by the Nazis and he was forced to sign a document giving her power of attorney. Elisabeth was then forced to sign a paper claiming she voluntarily turned over her husband’s art collection to the Nazis. Grünbaum gave his last performance at the Dachau infirmary on Dec. 31, 1940. He died of tuberculosis two weeks later. Elisabeth is presumed to have died at the Maly Trostenets concentration camp near Minsk in 1942.
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The post 7 Egon Schiele portraits to be returned to heirs of Jewish cabaret star murdered in the Holocaust appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions
ILLUSTRATIVE: The Iranian flag waves in front of the IAEA headquarters before the beginning of a board of governors meeting, in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Iran’s currency fell on Saturday to a new all-time low against the US dollar after the country’s supreme leader rejected talks with the United States and President Donald Trump moved to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran.
The rial plunged to 892,500 to the dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared with 869,500 rials on Friday, according to the foreign exchange website alanchand.com. The bazar360.com website said the dollar was sold for 883,100 rials. Asr-e-no website reported the dollar trading at 891,000 rials.
Facing an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has been gaining against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials at the time of Trump’s re-election in November amid concerns that Trump would re-impose his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
The post Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media
Lebanon’s army chief Joseph Aoun walks after being elected as the country’s president at the parliament building in Beirut, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
i24 News – A photo showing US President Donald Trump’s deputy Middle East envoy donning a ring embellished with the Star of David to a meeting with Lebanon’s leader triggered outrage in Arabic social and broadcast media.
As Morgan Ortagus, who is Jewish, shook hands with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, her Star of David ring was visible in the frame, sparking accusations such as her being “more Zionist than her predecessors.”
Her direct superior, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, is likewise Jewish-American, as is his predecessor Amos Hochstein, who was born in Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ortagus is the first senior Trump admin official to visit Lebanon amid the fragile ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite jihadists of Hezbollah.
The post US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing
Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope
i24 News – Anti-Israeli activists in Britain applied for a permit to stage a demonstration through London on the morning of October 7, 2023, as Gazan jihadists were rampaging through southern Israel and slaughtering civilians, the Daily Telegraph reported.
At 12:50 PM, as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was still ongoing, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) notified the Metropolitan Police that they intended to hold a rally the following week.
Reports and videos of the Hamas-led onslaught began appearing on social media, and Israeli and then international broadcast media, several hours earlier.
“The Met was contacted on Saturday Oct 7 at approximately 12.50pm via telephone call and informed of the intention to protest,” a police spokesman was quoted by the Telegraph as saying. “The Met committed this to our systems on the same day and are satisfied being contacted by telephone was a sufficient means in which to notify the MPS as the event was taking place seven days after notification.”
The group’s spokesperson defended the move, telling the Telegraph it was “clear” as early as Saturday noon that “the Israeli attacks on Gaza would be of an indiscriminate violence we had not witnessed before, and that 2.3 million people in Gaza – more than 50 percent of them children – were at severe risk.”
The post UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.