Randol Schoenberg

Los Angeles attorney Randol Schoenberg has invested an inordinate amount of his career on a case that, until now, many legal experts considered impossible to win. For six years, Schoenberg has represented Maria Altmann, an 88-year-old Cheviot Hills woman who is trying to reclaim six valuable Gustav Klimt paintings seized by the Nazis from her uncle in Vienna and now in the possession of the Austrian national museum. The legal saga has taken him from Vienna to the U.S.

The riches and treasures of Europe vacuumed up by Hitler's Third Reich are still turning up, including some paintings Hitler bought for himself that were just found in a Czech monastery. But most of the Fuhrer's loot was just that: looted. Once in a while, it gets returned to its rightful owners. Los Angeles lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg joined forces with Maria Altmann in a legal battle to reclaim her family's collection of paintings, seized by the Nazis in 1938. The artworks, by Gustav Klimt, included a famous portrait of Altmann's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, that was hanging in plain sight in an Austrian state museum.

The riches and treasures of Europe vacuumed up by Hitler's Third Reich are still turning up, including some paintings Hitler bought for himself that were just found in a Czech monastery. But most of the Fuhrer's loot was just that: looted. Once in a while, it gets returned to its rightful owners. Los Angeles lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg joined forces with Maria Altmann in a legal battle to reclaim her family's collection of paintings, seized by the Nazis in 1938. The artworks, by Gustav Klimt, included a famous portrait of Altmann's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, that was hanging in plain sight in an Austrian state museum.

Los Angeles attorney Randol Schoenberg was just a boy when he first saw Vienna, the hometown of his grandfather Arnold, the composer. At the national art museum in baroque Belvedere Castle, his mother stood in a roomful of paintings by Gustav Klimt and pointed to the shimmering portrait of a sultry, enigmatic beauty suspended in gold. Schoenberg never forgot the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which was seized by the Nazis in 1938 and delivered to the museum with the salutation "Heil Hitler."

Los Angeles attorney Randol Schoenberg was just a boy when he first saw Vienna, the hometown of his grandfather Arnold, the composer. At the national art museum in baroque Belvedere Castle, his mother stood in a roomful of paintings by Gustav Klimt and pointed to the shimmering portrait of a sultry, enigmatic beauty suspended in gold. Schoenberg never forgot the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which was seized by the Nazis in 1938 and delivered to the museum with the salutation "Heil Hitler."

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that a legal battle over the ownership of a $10-million Picasso painting looted by the Nazis should be waged in Chicago, rather than Los Angeles, where the lawsuit in the case was filed.

E. Randol Schoenberg, the attorney who engineered the return of five Nazi-looted Gustav Klimt paintings for Los Angeles resident Maria Altmann, will be honored by the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. on May 31. The event will be held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and includes a viewing of the paintings and a screening of the documentary "Klimt: Adele's Last Will."

A judge has ruled that the case of a looted $10-million Picasso painting, taken by the Nazis in World War II, should move from California to Illinois jurisdiction. In December, UC Berkeley law student Thomas Bennigson sued in L.A. to regain control of "Woman in White" from its current owner, Chicago philanthropist Marilynn Alsdorf. According to Bennigson's attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg, the venue change is a stalling tactic: "It could add a year to the case." Schoenberg is appealing the ruling.

Austria has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a federal appellate decision that would allow a Nazi art theft case to go forward in U.S. court. Maria Altmann of West Los Angeles is suing Austria to reclaim paintings by Gustav Klimt valued at $150 million and now owned by the Austrian National Museum. Altmann claims that the paintings, stolen by the Nazis, belonged to her uncle.

Apparently, Ruben Martinez finds it somehow symbolic that UCLA's Schoenberg Plaza has been appropriated and renamed "Plaza Aztlan" by Chicano activists ("The Emergence of L.A.'s True Identity," Commentary, June 9). The transformation is supposed to symbolize the reawakening of L.A.'s Mexican past. Schoenberg Plaza is not named after merely another "dead European composer," but after my grandfather, Arnold Schoenberg, a Jew born in Vienna who fled Nazi persecution in Europe in 1933 and spent the last 17 years of his life right here in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles attorney Randol Schoenberg has invested an inordinate amount of his career on a case that, until now, many legal experts considered impossible to win. For six years, Schoenberg has represented Maria Altmann, an 88-year-old Cheviot Hills woman who is trying to reclaim six valuable Gustav Klimt paintings seized by the Nazis from her uncle in Vienna and now in the possession of the Austrian national museum. The legal saga has taken him from Vienna to the U.S.

The University of Southern California and the heirs of Arnold Schoenberg have found some common ground in their long-running battle over the school's treatment of the eminent composer and the massive, world-renowned collection of his scores, artifacts and papers. The collection still will be pulled from USC--and probably from Southern California--but a settlement reached Wednesday puts an end to the ongoing legal battles.

In an agreement that will end a eight-year legal battle, 89-year-old Cheviot Hills resident Maria Altmann and the Republic of Austria have agreed to end their litigation in U.S. District Court regarding six Gustav Klimt paintings and to submit the dispute to binding arbitration in Austria.