The plaintiffs’ complaint in Grosz v. The Museum of Modern Art had alleged that The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA”) was the wrongful transferee of three Holocaust-era paintings.  The Court’s Order dismissed this contested provenance complaint last month on the ground that the complaint was barred by the statute of limitations.

Since the Grosz complaint was dismissed, attorney Raymond Dowd filed a Notice of Appeal on behalf of the plaintiffs.  Mr. Dowd will also be lecturing on March 24, 2010 at Sotheby’s Institute of Art where he will present “Egon Schiele’s Dead City: Current Issues in Nazi Art Looting and Recovery”.

Perhaps more interesting than the dismissal of the Grosz complaint, are the historical letters discussed by Grosz.  The following letters for example, were respectively mentioned during Grosz, at ¶¶39 & 48 of plaintiffs’ June 23, 2009 Declaration of Jonathan G. Petropoulos:


(Click On Each Of The Letters To Fully View Them)

The above letters are about the late Curt Valentin who had opened and eventually owned the Bucholz Gallery on 57th Street in N.Y.C.  Mr. Valentin had transferred some Holocaust-era art to MoMA, as more fully set forth by “Laundering Holocaust-Era Loot?” and / or “Mr. Curt Valentin’s Nazi-Looted Art“.  “Mr. Curt Valentin’s Nazi-Looted Art” too explains that art from Mr. Valentin’s Bucholz Gallery had been seized by U.S. authorities in 1944 pursuant to The Trading With The Enemy Act.

Copyright 2010 Fred L. Abrams