The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is suing the Norton Simon Museum over two paintings Nazi forces stole from a Jewish art dealer in 1940.

The federation and its board chair, Daniel Gryczman, filed the lawsuit Sept. 14 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. They are seeking the return of "Adam" and "Eve," a pair of life-size oil paintings on wood panels by Lucas Cranach the Elder, created around 1530.

The paintings were among more than 800 works seized by Hermann Göring, a top Nazi official, from the Netherlands gallery of Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish Old Masters dealer. Goudstikker's granddaughter, Charlène von Saher, told the Los Angeles Times, "My grandfather lost his life fleeing the Nazi invasion, and many of his family members were sent to Auschwitz and did not survive."

Marei von Saher, Goudstikker's daughter-in-law and sole surviving heir, assigned her claimed rights to the paintings to the Jewish Federation on the same day the suit was filed, according to the Pasadena Star-News.

This is not the first legal fight over the Cranachs. Von Saher first demanded the paintings in 2000 and sued the museum in 2007, when the works were appraised at $24 million. Federal courts sided with the museum. In 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case under the "act of state" doctrine, ruling that U.S. courts could not second-guess the Dutch government's postwar handling of the art. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in May 2019.

Two new laws changed the legal landscape. California's AB 2867, signed in September 2024, created a two-year window for claimants to file new lawsuits over art lost through political persecution. The suit was filed just two days before that window closed, The Art Newspaper reported. At the federal level, the expanded Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act), signed by President Trump in 2026, limits the time-based and "act of state" defenses that blocked earlier claims. The federal law specifically cited the Ninth Circuit's 2018 dismissal of the Goudstikker case as a reason to eliminate the act of state defense.

Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said in a statement that the organization is "seeking to reverse a great injustice perpetrated by the Nazi theft of a Jewish family's property."

The Norton Simon Art Foundation said in a statement that courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have confirmed its title to the paintings. The foundation said it will continue to make the works accessible to the public, as it has since 1971.

The museum has not disputed that the paintings were looted by the Nazis, LAist reported. Even the museum founder's grandson, Eric Simon, has pressured the institution to negotiate with the heirs, according to LAist.

If the lawsuit succeeds, the Jewish Federation said it plans to use the majority of any net proceeds to care for about 2,500 impoverished Holocaust survivors in the Los Angeles area. The Art Newspaper reported the museum's response could be filed around mid-October or later.