Austria to return art stolen by Nazis

Austria’s culture minister today agreed to abide by a court ruling and give up ownership of five precious Gustav Klimt paintings to a California woman who says the Nazis stole them from her Jewish family.

But Culture Minister Elizabeth Gehrer proposed her country be allowed to continue displaying the best-known works as national treasures.

Gehrer said Austria would comply with the arbitration court’s decision yesterday that the country is obligated to give the paintings to Maria Altmann under laws mandating the restitution of art objects to Holocaust victims.

Altmann, 89, a retired Beverly Hills clothing boutique operator, was one of the heirs of the family who owned the paintings before the Nazis took over Austria in 1938.

Today, Gehrer said her ministry was exploring ways to be able to keep at least two of the best known pictures on display in Austria but ruled out buying them, saying there was no money for such a solution.

Austria’s decision to give up the artworks that have been displayed for decades in Vienna’s ornate Belvedere castle represents the costliest concession since it began returning valuable art objects looted by the Nazis.

The paintings’ estimated worth is at least $150m (€124m).

But for Klimt lovers, at least one of the disputed paintings – the oil and gold-encrusted portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer I – is priceless. Stylistically similar to Klimt’s world-renowned The Kiss, the painting is replicated on T-shirts, cups and other souvenirs.

Altmann is the niece of Bloch-Bauer, who died in 1925. The subject’s family commissioned her famous portrait and owned it, along with the four other Klimt paintings disputed in the case.

Gehrer alluded to estimates that the one portrait alone is worth at least $84.5m (€69.9m) in ruling out purchasing it.

She said that amount is the total budget of all Austrian federal museums, adding “now’s the time to talk” about other possibilities, including approaching the heirs about displaying at least some of the pictures on loan.

Altmann’s attorney, Randol Schoenberg, said early today that he expected the Austrian government would abide by the court ruling.

“I think it’s finally been resolved,” he said of his client’s seven-year battle to get back the paintings. “It’s been a really difficult process.”

Schoenberg has said it was too early to say exactly what would happen to the paintings in light of the court’s ruling. Altmann has four siblings who are also heirs with claims to the artwork.

Altmann, however, insisted the paintings should remain on public display and not in a private collection. She said she would not object to their remaining at the gallery provided restitution is made.

After Bloch-Bauer died, the paintings remained in her family’s possession. Her husband fled to Switzerland after the Nazis took over Austria. The Nazis then took the paintings and a Belvedere gallery was made the formal owner.

Austria considers the paintings part of its national heritage. Klimt was a founder of the Vienna Secession art movement that for many became synonymous with Jugendstil, the German and central European version of Art Nouveau.

Austria was among the most fervent supporters of Adolf Hitler. Vienna was home to a vibrant Jewish community of some 200,000 before the Seond World War. Today, it numbers about 7,000.

The country has also begun paying compensation to Nazi victims from a €173m fund endowed by the federal government, the city of Vienna and Austrian industries.

The Altmann case stemmed from a 1998 Austrian law that required federal museums to review their holdings for any works seized by the Nazis and determine whether they were obtained without remuneration.