A Czech man is claiming to be the rightful owner of several blue-chip artworks that once belonged to a Jewish cabaret performer and collector who was murdered by the Nazis, and has sued Christie’s for information regarding their whereabouts.
Seeking restitution, Milos Vavra filed a petition against Christie’s Inc. in New York Supreme Court on August 7 that demands the auction house disclose the ownership and location of the works once counted among the collection of Franz Friedrich “Fritz” Grünbaum. Vavra is a descendant of Grünbaum and had previously received 50 percent of the sales proceeds from auctions of several restituted works by Egon Schiele that were auctioned by Christie’s.
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In the petition, Vavra said that he had “recently learned that Christie’s entered a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) with a purported “family in Switzerland” seeking to auction artworks looted from the Grünbaum Collection” and that it was urgent the auction house disclose this information so that Vavra could file claims on the artwork prior to the sunsetting of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (“HEAR Act”), 22 U.S.C. § 1621. in late 2026.
The petition included an email from attorney Dennis Glazer on July 16, and an email from Eileen Brankovic, Christie’s international business director in its restitution department, sent to Vavra’s attorney on July 21. The email included claimed that experts at Christie’s had seen these three of the contested works and described two as being “among the highest quality (and potentially most valuable)” works by the famed Austrian Expressionist they had ever seen.
The HEAR Act established a six-year statute of limitations for claims seeking the recovery of Nazi loot. Grünbaum was killed at the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1941, the Nazis forced him to sign a document giving his wife the authority to transfer his property, including his art collection.
“While imprisoned, the Grünbaum Collection, including works by Egon Schiele, was wrongfully taken and dispersed without his consent,” Vavra’s attorney Raymond J. Dowd wrote in his affirmation in support.
Queried about the lawsuit, a Christie’s spokesperson told ARTnews via email that the auction house “has established an unparalleled record of bringing objects with painful World-War-Two era histories to public sale by respecting the law, the ethics of restitution, and the protocols put in place to support a successful outcome, as we are doing in this case.”
Christie’s is represented by attorney Joseph A. Patella from the law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP. ARTnews has contacted Vavra’s legal representation for comment.
News of the lawsuit was first reported by the New York Post.
