Heirs of couple who fled Nazis sue Guggenheim for Picasso painting
Cami Mondeaux
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A Jewish couple trying to flee the Nazis sold one of their most valuable possessions, a Pablo Picasso painting, to help them escape the Holocaust — and now their heirs want the painting back.
The heirs of Karl and Rosi Adler, who sold the painting for $1,552 to an art dealer in 1938, filed a lawsuit against the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to reclaim the 1904 painting Woman Ironing. The painting is now worth up to $200 million.
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“Adler would not have disposed of the painting at the time and price that he did, but for the Nazi persecution to which he and his family had been, and would continue to be, subjected,” read the lawsuit, which lists some of the couple’s great-grandchildren as plaintiffs.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs are demanding either the painting be returned to the heirs or for the Guggenheim Museum to pay its estimated value.
Karl Adler first purchased the painting in 1916 from a prestigious art gallery owner, according to the lawsuit. At the time, he worked as the chairman of the largest leather manufacturer in Europe.
But by 1933, the Nazi regime began targeting Jewish people to seize their financial assets, prompting Adler to sell the Picasso piece to raise money for him and his wife to escape.
“The Adlers needed large amounts of cash just to obtain short-term visas during their exile in Europe. Unable to work, on the run, and not knowing what the future would hold for them, the Adlers had to liquidate what they could to quickly raise as much cash as possible,” the lawsuit read.
Karl Adler initially sought to sell the painting for around $14,000, the lawsuit states — which is now equal to $300,000. However, he failed to find a buyer.
A year later, in 1937, the Nazis began stripping Jewish people of their employment, prompting the Adler family to flee Germany in June 1938. They were then forced to pay “flight taxes” and short-term visas as they bounced around Europe, according to the lawsuit.
The couple sought to escape to Argentina, forcing Adler to reduce the price of the Picasso piece significantly — eventually selling it to art dealer Justin Thannhauser for $1,552.
“Thannhauser was buying comparable masterpieces from other German Jews who were fleeing from Germany and profiting from their misfortune,” the lawsuit read. “Thannhauser was well aware of the plight of Adler and his family, and that, absent Nazi persecution, Adler would never have sold the painting when he did at such a price.”
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The heirs argue the couple had no choice but to sell the painting, noting “they would have undoubtedly suffered a much more tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis.”
Rosi Adler died in 1946 at age 68, and Karl Adler died in 1957 at age 85. However, neither the couple nor their children were aware they could reclaim the painting because they “mistakenly believed it had been lawfully acquired by Thannhauser,” the heirs argued.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Guggenheim Foundation for comment but has not received a response.