September 25, 2023 - Chase College of Law will present the inaugural lectureship of its newly launched David and Nancy Wolf Program in Ethics and Professional Identity. The lecture will offer a lawyers account of recovering artwork stolen during the Holocaust in the days before World War II.
The presentation by Los Angeles lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg also includes a conversation with Professor Jack Harrison, who holds the Wolf Endowed Chair in Ethics and Professional Identity at Chase.
The event will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Cincinnati Museum Center, and is in conjunction with the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, located at the museum center.
Mr. Schoenberg is a litigator and grandson of Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg who fled Nazi persecution prior to World War II. The junior Schoenberg took on the challenge to recover for a family friend six paintings by Gustav Klimt held by an Austrian state museum that ultimately were valued at more than $325 million. Among them was 鈥淕olden Lady,鈥 an early 20th century portrait utilizing application of gold leaf, that gave name to the 2015 movie 鈥淲oman in Gold.鈥 The movie recounted Mr. Schoenberg鈥檚 decade-long legal quest that began in the late 1990s. At the time, Mr. Schoenberg had been practicing law for less than 10 years.
Mr. Schoenberg successfully argued to the Supreme Court of the United States that his client, Maria Altman, from whose family the paintings had been stolen in 1938 in Nazi-aligned Austria, could sue Austria for their return. He subsequently prevailed in a 2006 arbitration in Austria, ordering the paintings be returned to Ms. Altman, who had fled Austria following Nazi Germany鈥檚 unopposed annexation of the country.
To attend the presentation by Mr. Schoenberg and conversation with Professor Harrison:
