Artworks stolen by Nazis returned to heirs of cabaret performer

'Portrait of a Boy' and 'I Love Antithesis' by Egon Schiele

(Image credit: Manhattan District Attorney's Office)

published 28 September 2023

Relatives of a Viennese cabaret artist murdered by the Nazis in 1941 have won a 20-year battle for the restitution of part of his prized art collection. Fritz Grünbaum, who died at Dachau, owned dozens of works by Egon Schiele, along with many more by other artists, all of which his wife was forced to hand over after his arrest in 1938; she died in a camp in 1942. Labelled "degenerate", the Schieles were sold to fund the Nazi Party; and seven of them wound up in public museums and private collections in the US. Following a lengthy legal process, these were finally returned to Grünbaum's heirs last week, at a ceremony in New York. The works will now be sold, to fund performing arts scholarships in Grünbaum's name.

Ice House to become circus training centre

A 19th century thatched ice house, built on the quay in Great Yarmouth when the town was a thriving centre of the local fishing industry, is to be restored with the aid of a £2m National Lottery grant, and turned into a training centre for circus arts. The transformation of the Grade II building, which was used to keep fish cool before they were sent to Billingsgate Market in London, is part of a wider project to reinvent Great Yarmouth as a capital of circus and street arts.

Dunkirk shipwreck search

More than 800 ships, ranging from small pleasure boats to huge destroyers, helped rescue the British troops stranded at Dunkirk in May-June 1940; 305 never came home. Now, as part of a joint Anglo-French initiative, marine archaeologists are going to search for the wrecks of the boats lost during Operation Dynamo, visit them, and map them. The project is expected to result in some extraordinary photographs and footage for the Dunkirk War Museum; divers will also take measures to make sure the ships are not leaking pollutants into the sea.