New laws revive Los Angeles claims for Nazi-looted art
Two lawsuits filed in Los Angeles seek the return of artworks taken during Nazi persecution, including watercolours made in Auschwitz and an 'Adam and Eve' diptych.
The cases ask major museums to hand back the works to the heirs of the families who lost them. They were reported on 16 September by ARTnews and the Los Angeles Times.
The claims turn on restitution, the legal return of a work to its former owners or their heirs. One suit concerns watercolours linked to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration and extermination camp in occupied Poland. The other concerns a two-panel 'Adam and Eve' painting. A separate filing reported the same day concerns a Renaissance painting held by a California museum and described as allegedly looted by the Nazis, according to Courthouse News.
Lawyers for the claimants say new legislation has reopened the door. That is the core of both Los Angeles cases. Previous claims had stalled over time limits and procedural defences. The new filings argue those barriers should no longer apply.
The federal change is the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2025. It was signed into United States federal law in April 2026. The law sets out procedures for civil claims to recover artwork and other property lost between 1933 and 1945 because of Nazi actions, according to the Library of Congress.
The updated Act is intended to make it easier to bring such claims. It permanently extends protections for Holocaust survivors and their heirs seeking recovery, according to an update from the University of Denver in Colorado published in June.
California has also acted on its own. In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a state law intended to help a Jewish family reclaim an Impressionist painting said to have been looted by the Nazis, after an earlier claim was blocked in the 9th Circuit, the federal appeals court covering the western United States. That state law is part of the background cited for the new filings.
The history shows how long these disputes can run. Federal litigation over a painting by Camille Pissarro, the French Impressionist, has lasted 20 years, according to the Los Angeles Times. The work is reported to be worth tens of millions of dollars. California has rejoined that fight, which involves Spain, over where the painting should rest.
What makes these cases difficult is usually not the history alone. It is the paperwork. Courts must trace provenance, the documented chain of ownership, through war, forced sales and decades of dealer and museum records. Gaps in that chain decide outcomes.
The museums named in the new suits have not yet had their defences tested in court under the new laws. The judges in Los Angeles will now decide whether the claims can proceed, and who holds valid title after more than 80 years.
