Page 37 - NYLS Magazine • 2014 • Vol. 33, No. 2

By Ruth Singleton
PIerre CIrIC ’09 Makes Headlines as He Seeks to Recover an Impressionist Painting Stolen by the Nazis
When Pierre Ciric ’09 was working in the finance department for pharmaceutical company Sanofi- Aventis and attending New York Law School as an evening student, he could scarcely envision that in a few short years he would be testifying before the Oklahoma Legislature about an impressionist painting stolen by the Nazi government in the 1940s. After all, he is not an impressionist art expert by any means. But a law degree from NYLS can lead to many unexpected opportunities.
Ciric represents Léone Meyer, a French woman whose adopted father, Raoul Meyer, was the owner of an extensive art collection, most notably a Camille Pissarro painting, “La Bergère rentrant des moutons” (“Shepherdess bringing in sheep”). The Nazi occupation forces in France confiscated Raoul Meyer’s art collection, including the 1886 Pissarro painting, in 1941. Unbeknownst to the Meyers, the painting entered the United States in 1956 through the David Findlay Galleries, which sold it to Aaron and Clara Weitzenhoffer. In 2000, Clara Weitzenhoffer included the painting in a bequest to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma. And that is where the painting remains displayed today. University officials have refused to relinquish it, taking the position that there are unresolved questions about its history.
In May 2014, Ciric, along with his client’s son, Raphael Meyer, and art provenance research expert Marc Masurovsky, testified before the
Oklahoma House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Modernization and Accountability about the painting’s provenance. In his testimony, Ciric presented the specifics of how the painting had changed hands, including its theft by the Nazis on February 22, 1941, from a bank safe where Raoul Meyer had placed it. Their testimony received national press coverage, and in an interview, Ciric said he was “totally surprised by the publicity” the case has generated. He attributes it in part to the movie The Monuments Men, which came out in February 2014 and drew national attention to the systematic plunder of artworks from Jews by the Nazis in Europe.
On the day before their testimony, Raphael Meyer went to the museum to see the painting. Said Ciric, “It was very emotional for him—more than he expected as a second-generation family member.” Ciric explained that Raoul Meyer and his wife adopted Léone after World War II—as her birth family had died at Auschwitz.
Like his client, Ciric is French. He received an M.B.A. from a leading French business school and has been working in the United States for the past 25 years, most notably in the pharmaceutical industry. Ciric attributes his decision to go to law school to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the statute enacted in 2002 in response to corporate and accounting fraud at Enron and other companies, which requires top management to individually certify the accuracy of financial information. “When Sarbanes-Oxley came in, I spent all my time with lawyers. That’s when I realized, I can do this.”
Ciric graduated summa cum laude from the Law School, where he was Notes Editor of the New York Law School Law Review. After working at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice and at the law firm of Proskauer Rose LLP, he decided to start his own firm, which focuses on commercial litigation services for businesses, nonprofit organizations, and individuals. Ciric came to represent Léone Meyer, through her son, Raphael. He observed that what is needed in such cases is not an art background, but strong investigative skills and a deep understanding of the client’s needs.
Ciric filed the lawsuit in May 2013 in the Southern District of New York. After the court ruled it to be an improper venue, he refiled the case in Oklahoma. He emphasizes that U.S. law differs from that of European countries, such as Switzerland, where a plaintiff must prove bad faith on the part of a purchaser in order to prevail. “Bad title is the issue in the U.S.,” he said. As he testified before the Oklahoma House of Representatives, “the original owner retains title to the stolen object. It does not matter if a subsequent purchaser did not know the object was previously stolen.” The Oklahoma legislature introduced a resolution demanding a return of the painting to Ms. Meyer, but that resolution is nonbinding.
Ciric said that recovering the painting is a personal quest for Léone Meyer, and her whole family is united behind it. “She lost her birth family to Auschwitz, and her adopted parents lost the art,” he said. “They don’t want money; they just want the painting returned.” •
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