Carnegie Museum of Art gives up $1 million Egon Schiele drawing as original owner's heirs drop lawsuit

For the first time since 1960, the Carnegie Museum of Art will be absent its million-dollar Egon Schiele drawing, “Portrait of a Man.”

The museum Wednesday renounced its claim to the 1917 artwork, ending a criminal probe into whether the piece was stolen property and capping a long legal battle with the heirs of its original owner, a Jewish cabaret performer in Austria who died during World War II in a concentration camp.

With the stroke of a pen Wednesday, Steven Knapp, president and chief executive officer of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, surrendered its rights to the drawing by the provocative and irreverent Schiele, one of Austria’s most illustrious artists.

Also giving up a Schiele in similar fashion Wednesday was the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio, which turned over the 1911 watercolor “Girl with Black Hair.”

Both drawings, as well as a third at the Art Institute of Chicago, were the subject of search warrants executed last month by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who was investigating whether they were stolen by Nazis during World War II and eventually passed through New York City.

Under the pressure of a criminal investigation, Knapp signed the surrender agreement, as did Matthew Bogdanos, a prosecutor in Bragg’s office who heads the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and led efforts to look into the heirs’ claims.

Since the Sept. 12 search warrant, which ordered the seizure of “Portrait of a Man” but allowed the Carnegie to safeguard it in Pittsburgh for the time being, Carnegie officials referred all inquiries to a crisis communications firm in New York City.

In the wake of the surrender, the firm issued a statement on behalf of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh:

“If at any time we believed that the Egon Schiele drawing Portrait of a Man had been stolen by the Nazis, Carnegie Museums would have returned it before now to those we believed to be its rightful owners.

“To date, we have relied on a finding confirmed and upheld in federal court that the collection to which this drawing belonged was not, in fact, stolen by the Nazis.

“Now that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has become involved in this matter, we have decided not to contest the DA’s claims and are therefore giving the drawing to the Manhattan DA.”

Bragg was clear to point out his investigation had shown the drawing of a man’s disembodied head, arm and hand had, indeed, been plundered by the Nazis from Fritz Grunbaum, a Viennese cabaret performer and art collector who owned dozens of Schieles.

“I am pleased these two pieces are being returned to the family of Fritz Grünbaum following a criminal investigation by my office,” Bragg said in a statement. “The evidence makes clear the two drawings were stolen by the Nazis and subsequently transported into Manhattan, before landing in these museums.”

The agreement between the Carnegie and the DA’s office says that prosecutors found no evidence the Carnegie or anyone associated with it did anything criminal or wrong in connection with the drawing.

In response to the Carnegie’s action Wednesday, Grunbaum’s heirs dropped their lawsuit against the museum in federal court in New York City.

Raymond J. Dowd, the lawyer representing heirs Timothy Reif, David Fraenkel and Milos Vavra, was thrilled by the turn of events.

“We’re really gratified at the work of the DA’s office, and we’re thankful to the Carnegie for its cooperation with the investigation,” Dowd said Wednesday evening.

“What I can confirm is that civil litigation has ended and we hope that institutions like Carnegie and others will, moving forward, collaborate with us in trying to piece together the full picture of what happened,” Dowd said. “It’s going to be a multi-decade effort, and we’re looking for a collaboration with all the institutions.”

Just last month, Bragg presided over an emotional ceremony in which he restored seven Schiele pieces to the heirs that had been surrendered by private collectors and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

“I hope this moment can serve as a reminder that despite the horrific death and destruction caused by the Nazis, it is never too late to recover some of what we lost, honor the victims, and reflect on how their families are still impacted to this day,” Bragg said at the time.

Dowd said he anticipated some sort of similar ceremony when the latest recovered works are turned over.

The heirs still have several pending lawsuits over Scheile artwork.

They sued the Carnegie last December after a long hiatus since issuing a subpoena to the museum in 2005 and then a demand letter the following year for “Portrait of a Man.”

Litigation surrounding artwork believed to have been looted by the Nazis from Jews in Europe is complex and often has characters and circumstances worthy of a spy novel.

For years, Grunbaum’s heirs have sought “Portrait of a Man,” part of a vast collection belonging to Grunbaum.

As part of the litigation, the Carnegie noted the picture had been donated in 1960 by the owner of a New York City art gallery, which got a tax write-off. The owner had bought it four years earlier in Switzerland.

In pressing its case in court, the Carnegie’s lawyer cited a past court decision in another case involving the heirs and a Schiele.

In that decision, a judge did not find evidence that the Grunbaum collection had been plundered by the Nazis, but rather was in the possession of Grunbaum’s sister-in-law, who then sold the pieces.

But an art expert hired by the heirs disputed that account. Dowd also shot down the notion that Grunbaum’s sister-in-law spirited the Schieles out of Austria.

“She was in concentration camp in Belgium in World War II,” Dowd said. “There was no way to smuggle an art collection under her mattress, which is the fantastical theory that was being floated.”

Even if she had possession, Dowd said, she would not have had a legitimate title.

“The story is ridiculously far-fetched from the outset, and it’s been demonstrated in a court of law to be absolutely false.”