Howard Spiegler
March 29, 2025
As co-chair of the Art Law Group at Herrick, Feinstein, Howard Spiegler has been involved in several of the best-known and most important litigations brought on behalf of foreign governments and heirs of Holocaust victims and others to recover stolen artwork or other cultural property. In one of the first cases involving Nazi-looted art, he represented the Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray to recover a Schiele painting confiscated by a Nazi agent in Austria in the late 1930’s. Working with the U.S. Attorney’s Asset Forfeiture Unit, Howard handled a ten-year litigation against the Leopold Museum in Austria, which possessed the painting, and the Museum of Modern Art, which had it on exhibition. Settled just before trial, the Estate recovered the full value of the painting, and the work was exhibited at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for several weeks before returning to the Leopold Museum, where a plaque describing the true history of the painting is permanently affixed, as required by the settlement. Howard was also involved in the recovery by the heir of the famous Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker of 200 Nazi-looted artworks from the Dutch Government and recoveries on behalf of the Republic of Turkey of numerous valuable antiquities. After practicing for some 50 years, including at the leading art law firm of Kaye Spiegler, which he and his law partner, Larry Kaye, formed and led, Howard retired from the practice of law earlier this year.
