A man who secretly hoarded a collection of the world’s great art treasures has died, months after heart surgery.  81-year old Cornelius Gurlitt’s father was an art dealer in nazi Germany, and the paintings are suspected to have been stolen from Jewish families or bought at fire-sale prices as nazi oppression of Jews closed in.

Gurlitt died in his Munich apartment, where authorities in 2012 had discovered his cache of Modernist masterworks by artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Otto Dix, and Max Beckmann.  All were willed to him by Gurlitt’s father, who was one of only four art dealers allowed to buy and sell Modernist works that were reviled by the nazis during the 1930s and ‘40s.

Numbering from 1,280 to 1,400 paintings in different reports, the collection could be worth US$1.5 Billion.  But the find wasn’t made public until a magazine expose in November of last year, which set off an international outcry.  

Before he died, Gurlitt reached a deal with the government to return any artwork that can be proven to have been stolen.  The government put together a task force of art experts to trace each painting’s past ownership.  Many are posted to the German government’s public database for lost or stolen art, http://www.lostart.de/.