An auction last week of eight paintings by Felix Nussbaum, an artist who died in Auschwitz in 1944, fetched over $500,000, four times more than had been estimated.
Before the Dec. 10 auction at Christie’s Amsterdam, a settlement was reached by the man who had offered them for auction and Nussbaum’s heirs, sisters Augusta Moses Nussbaum and Sophie Yaari Nussbaum, now both living in Jerusalem.
The paintings were put up for sale by Lucas Kok, a carpenter.
The Nussbaum sisters accepted a settlement in which they would receive part of the proceeds from the auction. This would avoid long, drawn-out and expensive litigation, the outcome of which would be uncertain.
Kok, who was born after the war, had inherited the paintings from his aunt, who had been a neighbor of Felix Nussbaum’s parents. The neighbor said they had donated the paintings to her when they were about to be deported in 1942. They perished in Sobibor.
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