Oscar Reichel (1869 – 7 May 1943) was an Austrian physician and art collector. His work was confiscated by the Nazis during World War II, leading to claims from his descendants to restore it to them.

Early life

Reichel was born in 1869 in Vienna.[1]

Art Collector

Reichel was a prominent collector of Austrian Expressionist art, including Egon Schiele, Max Oppenheimer, and Oskar Kokoschka. Reichel collected many artworks by Egon Schiele and Oscar Kokoschka. Egon Schiele painted a portrait of Reichel in 1910[2] as well as a black crayon drawing "Portrait Study of Dr. Oskar Reichel with Raised Left Hand"[3] Other Schiele artworks owned by Reichel included "The Self-Seers"[4] and Black Girl ( Girl in Black).[5] Art by Kokoschka included "Two Nudes"[6] and Susanne (1916)[7]

Persecution by the Nazis

When the Nazi persecution of Vienna's Jews began, with the Anschluss on 12 March 1938, Reichel and his wife Malvine remained in Vienna. Their home furnishings business was forced shut after the anti-Jewish attacks of Kristallnacht in 1938, and in 1941 the Nazis forced them to sell their shares in a family-owned building, with the proceeds going into blocked accounts that they could not access.[8]

The Reichel's eldest son, Maximilian Reichel, born in 1900, was deported in a Transport from Poland to Lodz and murdered by the Nazis in 1942.[9] On 7 May 1943, Oskar died.[8] His widow, Malvine Reichel, was deported with Transport 46c from Vienna, Austria to Theresienstadt Ghetto, in Czechoslovakia on 11 January 1943.[10][11]

Reichel’s two sons, Raimund and Hans fled to South America and the United States, respectively. Their mother, Malvine, survived Theresienstadt and joined her son Hans in the United States after the war.[8]

Claims for Restitution

In March 2007, Claudia Seger-Thomschitz, an heir to Jewish art collector Reichel, requested that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston restitute Two Nudes, a 1913 painting Oskar Kokoschka that Reichel had owned prior to the Nazi Anschluss. She claimed that Reichel had sold the painting under duress in Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1939.[12][13] The MFA responded that Reichel sold the painting voluntarily and "filed suit against her in January in US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to establish legal title to the painting," creating consternation among Holocaust experts.[13][14]

Reichel's business and home were confiscated during World War II, and one of his sons was sent to a concentration camp, where he died. Reichel's wife was deported to a camp, but survived. "To suggest, at that period in Vienna, that there was no pressure is ridiculous," said professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian and former director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. "It's ludicrous."[13]

The case was dismissed by the US court of Appeals which ruled that the claim was "time-barred".[15][16]

In 2009, a restitution claim against Sarah Dunbar for the painting “Portrait of a Youth”, by Oskar Kokoschka, which Reichel had sold to art dealer Otto Kallir in Vienna in 1939 was also unsuccessful. The subject of the painting was Hans Reichel, son of Oskar Reichel.[17][18] Dunbar’s lawyers, Thaddeus Stauber and Jennifer Borum Bechet, argued that "although the Reichel family had long ago sought reparations for property that was stolen by the Nazis, they never sought the return of the Hans portrait."[19] The court ruled in Dunbar's favor and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision, stating that, under Louisiana law, Dunbar is the clear owner of the Kokoschka by “acquisitive prescription,” because she openly held the painting for 10 years.[19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Nazi-Looted Art and the Law: The American Cases. Springer. 2017. p. 203. ISBN 978-3-319-64967-2.
  2. ↑ "akg-images – Portrait of Dr. Oskar Reichel". www.akg-images.co.uk. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  3. ↑ "Lost Art Internet Database – search request". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  4. ↑ "Lost Art Internet Database – search request". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  5. ↑ "Lost Art Internet Database – search request". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  6. ↑ "Two Nudes (Lovers)". collections.mfa.org. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  7. ↑ "Lost Art Internet Database – search request". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 "Claim Resolution 1973.196". Association of Art Museum Directors. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  9. ↑ "Maximilian Reichel – Yad Vashem". yvng.yadvashem.org. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  10. ↑ "Malvine Reiche – Yad Vashem". yvng.yadvashem.org. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  11. ↑ "Untouched by Nazi Hands, but Still . . ". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 9 November 2021. Oskar Reichel carried on a successful art business in Vienna until the March 1938 Nazi Anschluss. By June 1938, Hans Reichel left Austria to settle in Illinois. In November 1938, the Nazis closed down and liquidated Oskar Reichel's art business. By February 1939, he sold his Kokoschka paintings to a longtime business associate living in Paris, the Viennese Jewish art dealer Otto Kallir. The next month, another Reichel son, Raimund, fled Austria for Paraguay. In the two years following, Oskar Reichel was forced by the Nazis to sell his home, and another son, Max, was deported to a concentration camp and killed. In January 1943, Oskar Reichel's wife, Malvine, was also deported to a concentration camp, and a few months later Oskar died of "natural causes."
  12. ↑ Yearbook of Cultural Property Law. Routledge. 2009. p. 122. ISBN 978-1-315-41535-2.
  13. 1 2 3 "Holocaust historians blast MFA stance in legal dispute; Insist pressures of era led to painting's sale". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  14. ↑ Times, The New York (26 January 2008). "Museum Seeks Ruling on Claim to Painting". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  15. ↑ "U.S. Court of Appeals Confirms Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is Rightful Owner of Kokoschka Painting". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  16. ↑ "1973.196". Association of Art Museum Directors. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  17. ↑ "Portrait of a Youth – Reichel Heirs v. Sarah Blodgett Dunbar — Centre du droit de l'art". plone.unige.ch. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  18. ↑ "Case 2:08-cv-00711-ILRL-ALC Document 44 Filed 07/02/09" (PDF).
  19. 1 2 "Kokoschka Portrait Stays in New Orleans". Art Market Monitor. 8 September 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
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