Comment | Time is running out for justice on Nazi-looted art—but it is not yet too late for museums to act

Time Running Out for Justice on Nazi-Looted Art

According to Gideon Taylor, president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, it is time for Congress to pass the new HEAR Act and for museums to deliver provenance transparency.

In 1938, a Jewish couple from Germany, Paul and Alice Leffmann, made a desperate decision while fleeing Nazi persecution. They entrusted a treasured Pablo Picasso painting to a non-Jewish German acquaintance, hoping it would survive the Second World War.

The painting, The Actor (1904), was sold under duress to finance their escape to Brazil and has been hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1952.

In 2016, Laurel Zuckerman, the Leffmanns’ heir, brought a case seeking the return of the painting, but her claim was rejected by the courts.

Gideon Taylor writes that it is not yet too late for museums to act.

Author's summary: Justice for Nazi-looted art is running out of time.

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The Art Newspaper The Art Newspaper — 2025-11-05

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