 and Walter Epstein (May 11, 1874 - February 3, 1918); her maternal grandparents were Adolf Kohn, a prominent German-Jewish banker, and Anna Michaelis.In 1930, Meier-Graefe and Epstein rented an estate called La Banette in Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer and they stayed there to escape the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany, where he was under attack for his promotion of what the National Socialists called "Degenerate Art.