Missing for 80 years, Holocaust victim's artwork is finally returning to Paris

A portrait of poet David Knut by the artist Ary Arcadie Lochakov, which was bought by Paris's Museum of Jewish Art and History in 2020. © Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Works by the early 20th-century Jewish artist Ary Arcadie Lochakov are being sent from San Francisco back to Paris, where they'll be housed at the Museum of Jewish Art and History. There are few clues as to how the artworks mysteriously appeared in the US, eight decades after Lochakov's death in Nazi-occupied Paris.

A Port of San Francisco employee, Jermaine Joseph, came across the artworks during his maintenance rounds along the city's waterfront in May 2022. The 48 drawings, prints and paintings were arranged on a bench, some fixed with stones to prevent them from blowing away.