Join us for the guest lecture: “Nazi-looted Art: Murder, Mysteries, and Masterpieces. Fritz Grünbaum–A Family’s Decades-Long Search for Truth” on Tuesday, March 19 at 6:00pm in the Alumni Reading Room.
Fritz Grünbaum was a well-known cabaret performer, librettist, writer, film actor, and director in interwar Vienna, known for his clever and ironic humor. He was also a well-known art collector, especially of Austrian modernist art. His extensive art collection, totaling 450 pieces––80 of which were by Expressionist painter Egon Schiele––was looted in its entirety by Nazi agents in 1938. Grünbaum was deported to the Dachau concentration camp where he was killed in January 1941. His wife, Elisabeth, was forced to turn over their art collection and was also deported and killed the following year. Between 1933-45, the Nazis stole an estimated 50,000 works of art, the majority from Jewish families who were murdered in the Holocaust.
This talk considers one of the art world’s longest-running Holocaust restitution cases. It follows the path of the Grünbaum’s and their artworks and the ways in which their heirs––through State and Federal courts–– have sought justice for more than a quarter of a century. In September 2023, seven works were returned from several leading art museums among them the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.
About the lecturer
Judge Timothy Reif, Grünbaum’s grandnephew, is a United States Federal judge serving on the U. S. Court of International Trade since August 2019. Prior to his nomination and confirmation, Judge Reif was General Counsel in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in the Executive Office of the President and then Senior Counsellor to the U.S. Trade Representative. From 2009 to 2017, he was General Counsel at USTR, and from 1998 to 2009, the Chief International Trade Counsel Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives. Previously, Judge Reif was Special International Trade Counsel with Dewey Ballantine LLP and from 1993 to 1995, he served as Trade Counsel to the Ways and Means Committee. He drafted major portions of and developed legislative strategy for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Uruguay Round-World Trade Organization (WTO) implementing bills, including IP enforcement, state and national regulatory provisions, dispute settlement and unfair trade remedies. From 1989 to 1993, Judge Reif served as Associate General Counsel at USTR, and prior to that he was an attorney advisor with the U.S. International Trade Commission, litigating cases in federal court and drafting administrative decisions. Judge Reif has had several academic appointments, including as Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School since 2014, Visiting Professor, Princeton University, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (2017, 2012, 2008, 2004), and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law School (1995-2007).
In 1985, Judge Reif graduated from Columbia Law School with a J.D. as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs with an M.P.A. He is a 1980 graduate of Princeton University. He was also a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt (1980).
To RSVP for the event, click here.
* This event is for Pratt community.