Lawrence M. Kaye

Managing Member

Larry represents a wide range of domestic and international clients in complex litigations and commercial transactions. Among Larry's accomplishments, he is noted for representing foreign governments, victims of the Holocaust, families of renowned artists and other claimants in the recovery of art and antiquities.

Early in his career, Larry was a lead attorney in the landmark case of Federal Republic of Germany v. Elicofon, in which two early masterpieces by Albrecht Durer, stolen at the end of the Second World War, were recovered and returned to the Weimar Art Museum.

Larry has represented many other museums, families and foreign governments in connection with a variety of cultural property matters, including: the Republic of Turkey in its efforts to recover the fabled Lydian Hoard antiquities, long held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and some 1,800 ancient Greek and Lycian coins which Connoisseur Magazine called "The Hoard of the Century” and many other repatriations; the heirs of the Russian artist, Kazimir Severinovich Malevich in their claims against New York's Museum of Modern Art, Harvard University's Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; and Marei von Saher, the sole heir of the noted Dutch dealer and collector, Jacques Goudstikker, in connection with the restitution of Nazi looted art works from the Dutch Government and numerous museums and collections throughout the world.

He has also represented leading art world stakeholders in a variety of complex litigations and transactional art matters, including: the estate of art collector Frances Lasker Brody in the historic sale of its collection at Christie's, including the $106.5 million sale of Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, a then record price for a work of art at auction; Leon D. Black, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, in an international dispute over the ownership of Pablo Picasso’s "Bust of a Woman” plaster sculpture; and Neue Galerie New York in its historic acquisition of Gustav Klimt's painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold, at the time reported to be the most valuable painting ever sold.

Larry served as the Legal Advisor to the Republic of Turkey's delegation to the diplomatic conference held in Rome in June 1995, at which the UNIDROIT Convention on the International Return of Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects was adopted. He writes and lectures extensively on international art litigation and the repatriation of cultural property. Larry also has presented papers at numerous academic and business forums, including those sponsored by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation, the American-Turkish Council, the Institute of International Business Law and Practice, Lloyd's of London Press, the American Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Columbia University, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, Bard College, New York University, Princeton University, the American Institute of Archaeology, and many law schools, including Harvard, Villanova, Fordham, Texas Tech, Rutgers, Cardozo, Willamette and the University of Texas.

While pursuing his law degree, Larry was Editor-In-Chief of the St. John's Law Review. He has served two terms as a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's Art Law Committee and was the Program Chairman for their Cultural Property Roundtable.

Memberships & Associations

  • Association of the Bar of the City of New York

  • International Bar Association

  • Member, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA)

  • Board Member and Secretary, Turkish Philanthropy Funds

Managing Member
lkaye@kayespiegler.com
(212) 498-6921

EDUCATION

  • St. John's University School of Law (J.D., 1970)

    • Editor in Chief, St. John's Law Review

  • University of North Carolina

ADMISSIONS

  • New York

  • U.S. Supreme Court

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit

  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District, New York

  • U.S. District Court, Southern District, New York

  • U.S. District Court, District of Columbia

ACCOLADES

Award Methodology