Guggenheim Says Picasso Painting Is Ours, Lawsuit Bunk

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Guggenheim Museum refutes the claims of a recent lawsuit demanding the return of a $200 million Picasso painting sold by a Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany.

The Guggenheim argues Pablo Picasso's "Woman Ironing" is museum property because it was not stolen by Nazi authorities and legally donated about 40 years ago by the son of a former owner, the successful German Jewish businessman Karl Adler.

"It is unclear on what basis claimants—more than 80 years after Adler’s sale of Woman Ironing—appear to have come to a view as to the fairness of the transaction," the museum said in a statement.

But Adlers' heirs argue in a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme civil court filed Friday — and first reported by Upper East Site — that the museum has no claim to the painting because it was sold out of desperation, and at a heavy discount, as the family sought to escape Nazi persecution.

The purchaser, a Paris-based art dealer named Justin Thannhauser, whose father sold Adler the painting in 1916, sought to purchase "comparable masterpieces from other German Jews who were fleeing from Germany and profiting from their misfortune."

Adler sold the painting to Thannhauser for $1,500, far below a 1931 assessment that priced it at $14,000 (nearly $270,000 in 2023 dollars) after Nazis began freezing bank accounts and charging "flight taxes", the suit states.

“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,” the suit reads.

Decedents of the Adlers, and other charitable organizations who posses elements of the Adler family estate named in the suit, demand that the painting be returned to the family or that the museum pay damages between $100-200 million.

The museum states that because the painting was not confiscated by Nazis, and that it was sold to Thannhauser — a Jew who also faced Nazi persecution — there is no issue regarding ownership.

And, the Guggenheim states, they have been in contact with Adler's son, who lived near the museum, since its donation.

"As yesterday’s complaint strikingly fails to acknowledge, before taking the painting into its collection, the Guggenheim directly contacted Karl Adler’s son, Eric Adler, to confirm the painting’s provenance as part of its own research in the 1970s," the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation wrote to Patch in a statement on Tuesday.

"Eric Adler responded to the Guggenheim’s outreach in writing, confirmed the dates of his father’s ownership, and did not raise any concerns about the painting or its sale to Justin Thannhauser."

The suit filed Monday by Alder's great-grandson, Thomas C. Bennigson, claims that the Alder family has been in communication with the Guggenheim since 2021

This, the museum said, led them to further investigate the Picasso's provenance.

"There is no evidence that Karl Adler or his three children, now deceased, ever viewed the sale as unfair or considered Thannhauser a bad-faith actor, either at the time of the transaction or at any time since," the museum said.

Additionally, the museum claims, another Picasso was entrusted to Thannhauser for safe keeping by Alder's daughter Carlota — Bennigson grandmother — at the time when "Woman Ironing" was sold.

The families remained in contact with each other until at least 1958, reads the statement.

"The Guggenheim reiterates its commitment to fully investigating art restitution claims. Each such claim is fact specific, and the Guggenheim believes the outcome of the present court action will confirm that it is the rightful owner of Woman Ironing."

"Woman Ironing" was completed in 1904 at the end of Picasso's Blue period. The painting has undergone extensive restoration and hi-tech examination at the Guggenheim, which revealed an underlying male portrait, according to their website.

Netherlands-based art detective Arthur Brand, who helps Jewish families find stolen art works, told The Washington Post that the Adler's could have a case, if they can prove that the family had to pay flight taxes or visa fees.

“People think always, look, the Nazis [only] went into the houses of Jews, got their paintings, they stole from them, and they sold it or whatever,” Brand told the Washington Post. “That’s not how the Nazis worked.”

But another recent claim with similar circumstances was rejected by an appeal court in 2019. The case involved a different Picasso painting sold by a Jewish family also fleeing Nazi Germany, the Washington Post wrote.

“The courts haven’t really given very clear guidance on what a sale under duress is,”Leila Amineddoleh, a lawyer specializing in art and cultural heritage law told the Post. “It seems that the courts are kind of punting this question and deciding [cases] on other grounds.”