Art News

Israel’s national museum returns art to Jewish artist’s heirs decades after it was looted

JERUSALEM (AP).- Israel’s national museum said Thursday that it has returned a painting to the estate of its creator, decades after the masterpiece was looted from a Jewish museum in Nazi Germany. The Israel Museum said “The Return of Tobias,” a 1934 painting by German Jewish artist Max Liebermann, is now in Berlin after it was determined the work belongs to Liebermann’s heirs. Liebermann, who died in 1935 at the age of 88, was a prolific painter who led the avant garde artistic society known as the Berlin Secession. He also served as president of the Prussian Academy of Arts during the 1920s and early 1930s. Some of his works have been valued at more than $1 million. The Israel Museum’s director, James Snyder, said Liebermann loaned his painting to the Jewish Museum in Berlin in the 1930s. The work, along with many others, disappeared from the museum during World War II. German Nazis stole