Anita Halpin

Anita E. Halpin (born April 1944) is an English communist and trade union activist of German-Jewish descent who has been successful in having paintings returned to her that were looted by the Nazis from her grandfather, Alfred Hess, in the 1930s.

Her father was Hans Hess, assistant curator at the former Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, who emigrated to England in 1933 via a Canadian internment camp.

[4] After her husband's death in 1931, Tekla Hess toured Europe, selling paintings from the collection to pay her way and sending others to her son Hans, before emigrating permanently to England in 1938.

In 1978 she stood in the Tower Hamlets London Borough Council Election in the Limehouse ward but was not successful, receiving 93 votes.

[6] Halpin has made a number of claims for restitution of paintings that were looted from her grandfather, Alfred Hess, and his widow Tekla, by the Nazis in the 1930s.

[6] In 2016, she was successful in her claim to have Nude by German expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff returned to her legal ownership by the Neue Galerie New York who had bought it for $800,000 in 1999.