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Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wiener Library reopening casts further light on Nazi horrors
From the TimeOut blog: Wiener Library reopening casts further light on Nazi horrors
There’s a Nazi version of the card game Happy Families with portraits of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels on the front of the cards; a story book with illustrations of grotesquely hooked-nose characters to teach children how to spot a Jew; and a version of ‘Mein Kampf’ in English, autographed by Hitler. These startling artefacts can be seen at an exhibition called ‘A is for Adolf –Teaching Children Nazi Values’, that illustrates the range of propaganda targeted at young children under the Nazi regime. The exhibition is the first to be held at the Wiener Library in Bloomsbury which re-opens on December 2 after a £3.5 million redevelopment programme.
The library, formerly located in Devonshire Street, is one of the world’s leading archives on the Nazi era. Its stunning new home in Russell Square boasts a state-of-the-art exhibition area, a light-filled reading room and the latest climate and humidity controlled technology to protect its collection of more than one million items, including 65,000 books and 17,000 images. The Library was established in 1933 by Alfred Wiener, a German Jew who fled his home for Amsterdam when Hitler came to power. There he set up the Jewish Central Information Office, collecting and disseminating information about events happening in Nazi Germany.
The collection was transferred to London in 1939 with Wiener making the resources available to British government intelligence departments. After the war, the library provided material to the United Nations War Crimes Commission and was instrumental in bringing some of the Nazi war criminals to justice. During the 1950s and 1960s it continued to gather eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. The extensive library features books (many of them unique to the library) covering the history and documentation of the Holocaust and of Jewish refugees in the UK, as well as works on anti-Nazi resistance, central European Jewish history, war crimes trials, anti-semitism, Holocaust denial literature and comparative genocide studies.
But it is the artefacts in the collections that really bring the subject to life. Diaries of Jews living in Nazi Germany provide moving eye witness accounts of events such as Kristallnacht in November 1938, where Jewish homes, shops and synagogues were destroyed by stormtroopers and civilians. Personal papers include the notebooks, diaries and correspondence written by the German Jewish fur trader Philipp Manes, that provide a detailed account of his incarceration in the transit camp Theresienstadt – his story only breaking off when he and his wife are deported to Auschwitz on Oct 28 1944, where he later died. His daughter, who fled Germany just before the war, donated his emotional memoirs to the centre. Around one third of the collection is from the pre-war period.
For famillies that have lost relatives in the Holocaust, the library helps with tracing relatives through its archives and it is also an important resource for authors, academics and filmmakers. The centre is staffed by a large number of volunteers, many of whom arrived in Britain on the Kindertransport (the mission that rescued Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe). ‘Now more than ever, it is important to collect and conserve personal stories of the period,’ says Bridget McGing, the Wiener Library’s development director. ‘The generation which survived the Holocaust is passing away and it is important to safeguard their stories for future generations.’
Rebecca Taylor
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Glaser Heirs Sell Van de Velde II Painting Back to the Rijksmuseum
From MMD Newswire.com: Glaser Heirs Sell Van de Velde II Painting Back to the Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam and New York (MMD Newswire) December 21, 2011 -- Following the restitution of the Jan Van de Velde II painting "Winter Landscape" to the heirs of Professor Dr. Curt Glaser, his heirs have now sold the artwork back to the Rijksmuseum. The agreement follows the restitution of the artwork as recommended by the Dutch Restitutions Committee which found that it had been sold due to Nazi persecution in May 1933 auctions in Berlin.
Professor Curt Glaser was the head of the Berlin State Art Library when he was forced from his position in 1933 by a Nazi law forbidding Jews from holding German civil servant positions. In addition, he was also forced out of his state owned apartment in the Prinz Albrecht Strasse in Berlin. After his removal from his apartment the Gestapo established their notorious headquarters in the building where he had lived.
Following the loss of his job and his apartment, Glaser was also unable to write for German publications about the German art scene and decided he had no other choice than to leave Germany. As an advocate for modern art he was a target for the Nazis who regarded art as an important part of their politics.
As a consequence thereof, Glaser sold most of his art collection in May 1933 auctions in Berlin. After WWII, since it was not known what had become of these artworks, his heirs claimed the loss of his collection in German damages proceedings, which found the collection was lost due to Nazi persecution and awarded a small damage compensation for its loss.
In 1998, as a result of the Washington Conference on Nazi looted assets, the Netherlands established a commission to review the possibility of Nazi looted art in its museums. As a result of this search, the Glaser heirs were contacted by the Rijksmuseum about the Van de Velde painting which was part of the Rijksmuseum's collection. The artwork was subsequently restituted to the Glaser heirs following the Dutch Restitutions Committee's recommendation finding that Prof. Glaser was a Nazi victim and that the painting was sold due to Nazi persecution.
The painting has now been sold back to the Rijksmuseum and both the Glaser heirs and the Rijksmuseum wish to thank each other for the responsible manner in which this case has been handled.
For further information regarding other Glaser artworks lost in the May 1933 Berlin auctions, a list can be found at the German government website www.lostart.de.
Amsterdam and New York (MMD Newswire) December 21, 2011 -- Following the restitution of the Jan Van de Velde II painting "Winter Landscape" to the heirs of Professor Dr. Curt Glaser, his heirs have now sold the artwork back to the Rijksmuseum. The agreement follows the restitution of the artwork as recommended by the Dutch Restitutions Committee which found that it had been sold due to Nazi persecution in May 1933 auctions in Berlin.
Professor Curt Glaser was the head of the Berlin State Art Library when he was forced from his position in 1933 by a Nazi law forbidding Jews from holding German civil servant positions. In addition, he was also forced out of his state owned apartment in the Prinz Albrecht Strasse in Berlin. After his removal from his apartment the Gestapo established their notorious headquarters in the building where he had lived.
Following the loss of his job and his apartment, Glaser was also unable to write for German publications about the German art scene and decided he had no other choice than to leave Germany. As an advocate for modern art he was a target for the Nazis who regarded art as an important part of their politics.
As a consequence thereof, Glaser sold most of his art collection in May 1933 auctions in Berlin. After WWII, since it was not known what had become of these artworks, his heirs claimed the loss of his collection in German damages proceedings, which found the collection was lost due to Nazi persecution and awarded a small damage compensation for its loss.
In 1998, as a result of the Washington Conference on Nazi looted assets, the Netherlands established a commission to review the possibility of Nazi looted art in its museums. As a result of this search, the Glaser heirs were contacted by the Rijksmuseum about the Van de Velde painting which was part of the Rijksmuseum's collection. The artwork was subsequently restituted to the Glaser heirs following the Dutch Restitutions Committee's recommendation finding that Prof. Glaser was a Nazi victim and that the painting was sold due to Nazi persecution.
The painting has now been sold back to the Rijksmuseum and both the Glaser heirs and the Rijksmuseum wish to thank each other for the responsible manner in which this case has been handled.
For further information regarding other Glaser artworks lost in the May 1933 Berlin auctions, a list can be found at the German government website www.lostart.de.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Gifts From Hitler? Pompidou Admits Harboring Three Nazi-Looted Paintings Since 1973
From Art Info: Gifts From Hitler? Pompidou Admits Harboring Three Nazi-Looted Paintings Since 1973
As researchers dig deeper into the activities of French institutions during the dark time of the German Occupation in World War II, ever more art controversies are coming to light. During the war, thousands of artworks moved through the former Musée du Jeu de Paume (or Tennis Court Museum) after being confiscated from Jewish dealers and collectors with the help of the Gestapo and the Commissariat for Jewish Questions. We now know that this is what happened to three paintings by artist Fédor Löwenstein that ended up in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center.
According to Rue89, the Pompidou Center has admitted that "Les Peupliers (Poplars)," "Arbres (Trees)," and "Composition" were originally pillaged by the Nazis. Alain Prévet, head of the Archives of French National Museums, and Thierry Bajou, head conservator for the National Heritage of French Museums, made the discovery after studying the invaluable archives of Rose Valland, a conservator at the Jeu de Paume who single-handedly kept track of the art crimes perpetrated by the Nazis at the museum during the Occupation. Valland's records have allowed numerous artworks to be returned to their rightful heirs.
Over the course of the Occupation, Hitler and Göring selected artworks that they liked and had them sent back to Germany, destined for their personal collections, to be given as gifts to high-ranking Nazis, or to be sold on the black market. In 1942, Valland noted that several works that were "not in keeping with the aesthetic of the Third Reich" were stored separately in the museum's so-called "Martyrs Room." Valland listed six works by Löwenstein that were held there.
After the Liberation, the Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg, which had been in charge of confiscating "degenerate" or "Jewish-influenced" art, left behind a handful of photographic negatives of the Marytrs Room. Prévet and Bajou digitized the images and enlarged them, comparing what they saw with Valland's inventory. This allowed them to identify 60 paintings, including two by Löwenstein. When they entered the artist's name into the Pompidou Center's collection database, three works came up, all ostensibly donated in a mysterious gift to the museum in 1973.
Working with the Pompidou Center, the team discovered that the leadership of the museum, unable to account for the Löwenstein paintings, simply transformed them into gifts in order to establish a provenance for the works in their inventory. The paintings have now been removed from that inventory and put on a list of stolen works maintained by the Musées Nationaux Récupération project. The next step is to find the rightful heirs.
This restitution case is far from the first to arise in European museums. Last April, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg had to return Gustave Klimt's "Litzlberg am Attersee," which had been stolen from Amalie Redlich, a collector who died after being deported to a Polish ghetto. Her sole heir has since sold the painting, which fetched $40.4 million at a Sotheby's auction last month. In October, a casino in southern Germany returned a work by Juriaen Pool the Younger to three universities who were the beneficiaries of art dealer Max Stern's will. The universities decided to donate the piece to the Amsterdam Museum.
In yet another recent case, Zürich's Kunsthaus acknowledged that "Madame Le Suire" by Albert von Keller had been pilfered by the Nazis, but the rightful owner's heirs offered to donate the work to the museum on one condition — that the painting be displayed with the following information: "Stolen from Alfred Sommerguth in 1939 by the Nazis. Gift of his heirs and of Mrs. Hannelore Müller in 2010."
Monday, December 12, 2011
Nazi looted painting returned to National Museum in Warsaw
Polish Radio: Nazi looted painting returned to National Museum in Warsaw
A looted work by one of Poland's most celebrated fin-de-siecle painters has been returned to the National Museum in Warsaw after it cropped up at a German auction house.
It is only thanks to the generosity of two private donors that the picture has become part of the public collection once again.
In the Artist's Studio, by Leon Wyczolkowski (1852-1936), was initially the property of eminent doctor and art collector Konstanty Karnowski, who purchased the work in 1883.
Karnowski kept the painting in his apartment on Krakowskie Przedmiescie, Warsaw's grandest thoroughfare, but donated his entire collection to the National Museum in 1918, when Poland regained its independence.
The painting remained at the museum until the Second World War, disappearing in unknown circumstances in 1944 during the German occupation of the city.
When the work cropped up at a Berlin auction house in 2009, Poland's Ministry of Culture endeavoured to reclaim the painting.
However, although the picture was on Poland's lists of missing works, there were no pre-war photographs that could corroborate the Polish claim.
The problem was solved thanks to the generosity of Witold Konieczny and Roman Kruszewski, co- owners of a Warsaw publishing house, who purchased the painting for 50,000 euros (223, 600 zloty), when it came up for auction again this year.
“Not for a moment did we think of keeping the picture for ourselves,” Konieczny told the Polish Press Agency.
In the Artist's Studio will go on show on 17 May next year, chiming in with the reopening of the museum after extensive renovation.
The museum will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its foundation in 2012.
A looted work by one of Poland's most celebrated fin-de-siecle painters has been returned to the National Museum in Warsaw after it cropped up at a German auction house.
It is only thanks to the generosity of two private donors that the picture has become part of the public collection once again.
In the Artist's Studio, by Leon Wyczolkowski (1852-1936), was initially the property of eminent doctor and art collector Konstanty Karnowski, who purchased the work in 1883.
Karnowski kept the painting in his apartment on Krakowskie Przedmiescie, Warsaw's grandest thoroughfare, but donated his entire collection to the National Museum in 1918, when Poland regained its independence.
The painting remained at the museum until the Second World War, disappearing in unknown circumstances in 1944 during the German occupation of the city.
When the work cropped up at a Berlin auction house in 2009, Poland's Ministry of Culture endeavoured to reclaim the painting.
However, although the picture was on Poland's lists of missing works, there were no pre-war photographs that could corroborate the Polish claim.
The problem was solved thanks to the generosity of Witold Konieczny and Roman Kruszewski, co- owners of a Warsaw publishing house, who purchased the painting for 50,000 euros (223, 600 zloty), when it came up for auction again this year.
“Not for a moment did we think of keeping the picture for ourselves,” Konieczny told the Polish Press Agency.
In the Artist's Studio will go on show on 17 May next year, chiming in with the reopening of the museum after extensive renovation.
The museum will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its foundation in 2012.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
A detective’s work at the MFA
From the Boston Globe: A detective’s work at the MFA
This spring in the Netherlands, a curator from the Museum of Fine Arts spotted a 17th-century gold medallion at the famed Maastricht art fair and knew she had to have it. There was just one problem: Nobody could tell her how the precious piece left Germany after World War II.
Enter Victoria Reed, the MFA’s curator of provenance. Her job, which is almost as rare in the museum world as is the medallion, is to research works with questionable histories both in the collection and on the MFA’s shopping list. As a result, Reed’s other job is to break curators’ hearts.
Through months of research, Reed traced the medallion to a museum in Gotha, Germany, that she knew had been looted during the Nazi era. With that information, the MFA’s jewelry curator, Yvonne Markowitz, put the brakes on its purchase. And in September, the Art Loss Register announced that S.J. Phillips Ltd., the dealer who had offered the medallion, would be returning it to the Castle Friedenstein museum.
“It shows our system is working,’’ said Reed. “It’s much better learning the information before than after this becomes a part of the collection.’’
That’s a polite way of explaining her role, which is to make sure the MFA is not embroiled in any of the controversies that have swirled through the museum world in the last decade. In this new era, museums discovered to be holding stolen items face lawsuits and claims from foreign governments that can be costly both in legal fees and in the court of public opinion.
The MFA, which like many museums has had to return works in recent years, took special care in creating Reed’s post in 2010. She is the first and only endowed curator of provenance at an American museum.
In the past, the MFA had conducted research the same way many museums do. Individual curators with expertise in a specific area were asked to do research between their other duties, whether organizing exhibits or acquiring new works. Across the country, a handful of other museum professionals research the histories of artworks as independent consultants or as one of the tasks that make up their jobs.
“It’s something we can’t do constantly the way Victoria Reed is,’’ says Martha Wolff, the curator of European painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Why is that? Time pressures.’’
Another issue is resources. What makes Reed special in the museum world is that her position, funded by MFA donor Monica S. Sadler, will not be cut from the museum’s budget when finances are tight.
“That a patron of the MFA recognized the importance of the issue makes Torie’s position unique,’’ said Nancy Yeide, the head of curatorial records at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. “That’s quite noteworthy and hopefully an impetus for others to do likewise.’’
A mystery story
Reed doesn’t spend all her time in libraries, scouring old auction catalogs. She also serves as the public face of the MFA’s efforts to properly vet art works.
One summer weekday, a group of college students, most of them art history majors, crowded around Reed in a gallery as she spun a fascinating, true tale involving Nazis, art dealers, and stolen paintings. It was like a mystery story, with the art detective hunting for clues.
Afterward, several approached with questions. Asked why they were so inspired, they didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t just the story. It was Reed herself.
Just 37, Reed, who goes by the first name “Torie,’’ is no dour researcher in Coke-bottle glasses. She is lively and easy to approach, an avid runner who favors colorful dresses and heels.
“You meet a lot of curators who aren’t ready to share why they’re so excited about what they do,’’ said Caitlin Costello, 21, an undergraduate majoring in art history at the University of Pennsylvania. “Just smiling and being animated, it’s amazing how much that helps get her message across.’’
The timing of Reed’s talk couldn’t have been better. Just a few days earlier, eight years of off-and-on research had culminated in the MFA’s dramatic announcement of recognition that “Portrait of a Man and Woman in an Interior,’’ an oil painting on a wood panel by the 17th-century Dutch painter Eglon van der Neer, had probably been stolen by the Nazis and passed through a New York gallery before ending up at the MFA in 1941.
The museum agreed to pay restitution to the heir of Jewish art dealer Walter Westfeld, who died in a Nazi death camp, and in exchange, the painting would remain on the MFA’s walls. The finding would give the museum a chance to show the world that it cared deeply about righting the wrongs of the past, when swashbuckling curators acquired paintings and sculptures without doing in-depth research on whether they had been stolen.
Standing in front of the painting in the MFA’s Art of Europe department, Reed told the students of her satisfaction in being able to shed light on an important era in history. Through her work, the public will now know about Westfeld, she said. A lengthy description of the painting’s path would hang on the wall next to the picture.
‘Geeky’ path to curatorship
Growing up outside Portland, Maine, Reed was an artsy and bookish kid.
Her younger sister, Mary Reed, still teases her for what she calls a geeky streak. To satisfy her physical education requirement, Torie Reed took part in a walking club. While other teenagers were out partying, Reed took language lessons at an Italian heritage center. When she was 16, she traveled to Siena, where she worked on watercolors.
“I joke that she’s always been an old lady,’’ says Mary Reed. “She’s more grown up than anybody else.’’
Torie Reed’s path to the MFA started at Sarah Lawrence College, where she earned her degree before getting her master’s and a doctorate in art history at Rutgers University. After college, Reed worked as a research assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, after that, served as a researcher at the Princeton University Art Museum.
She started at the MFA in 2003, hired as a research fellow for provenance in the Art of Europe department to look entirely at Nazi-era issues. It was an opportune time. Just a few years earlier, museum leaders had met in Washington, D.C., in a groundbreaking conference, to create the first real push for restitution for World War II thefts.
The MFA, like most US museums, had followed the common acquire-now, research-later philosophy of collecting. But in 2000, it took a dramatic step to address that. The museum put a list of works from its permanent collection with questionable acquisition histories on the Internet in a quest to solicit more information. That turned heads in the museum world. It also led victimized families, including the Westfelds, to contact the MFA.
“Most museums have their collections online,’’ says James Cuno, the former director of the Harvard University Art Museums and current director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. “What’s different in this case, and is to be commended, is that they identified some works and set them apart from others.’’
That’s where Reed’s job began. Working on Nazi-era claims, she found her knowledge of Italian, German, and French was helpful. So was her determination to pursue all leads, whether in the MFA’s archives or by traveling to Germany to scour rarely viewed auction records and newspaper articles.
During those years, Reed decided that the World War II cases were, in a way, more complicated than those involving works dating to Roman times.
“If something was looted out of the ground in Italy, it’s a pretty clear issue,’’ she said. “Some of the Nazi-era claims are accompanied by ownership questions that may not have a paper trail. Many of the key players may be deceased. You may be dealing with 10 different archives. And even if you have the pieces lined up, there many be disagreement about how to interpret those facts.’’
The facts were often undeniable. Under Reed, the MFA resolved several claims, starting in 2004 when the museum returned to a Polish woman a 15th-century Polish painting, “Virgin and Child,’’ that Reed determined had been plundered during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 before being purchased by the MFA in 1970. Later, the MFA returned a statue stolen in Dresden, Germany, and an embroidered panel from Italy and, after making restitutions, held on to a group of 17th-century tapestries and the van der Neer.
A detective with critics
Not all of Reed’s research has resulted in guilty verdicts.
The MFA fought to keep an Oskar Kokoschka painting, “Two Nudes (Lovers),’’ after a claim was filed in 2007 by an Austrian woman. After reviewing Reed’s research, the MFA decided it had legal title to the work and even filed a lawsuit, which it won in 2009, to confirm its rights.
That led to something Reed had never faced as a behind-the-scenes player: criticism.
Raymond Dowd, a New York lawyer who has filed lawsuits over works that he maintains were taken by the Nazis, disagreed with the Kokoschka finding, particularly as it affected another case he was pursuing. On his website earlier this year, Dowd called Reed “a curator of provenance - which happens to be a synonym for a launderer of stolen artworks.’’
In an interview, Dowd refused to back down. He said the MFA and Reed should publish online the details of their investigations. He believes the MFA is, like the entire US museum community, reluctant to reach out to victims of World War II-era art looting.
“What happened in Vienna in 1938 and 1939, you either believe in the Holocaust that took place in that period and the grip that Adolph Eichmann had on those people or you’re an American museum denying that reality,’’ he said. “And she’s at the forefront of that denial.’’
Dowd’s attack bothered her deeply, Reed acknowledges, but she refuses to counterattack.
“I know that I sound defensive and I’m trying, as I get older, to sound less defensive,’’ she said. “But I think there are a lot of loud voices out there that are inaccurate.’’
The next day, Reed asks that even that mild criticism be struck from the record. She doesn’t want to come off too strong.
She does defend the MFA, which she says shares the results of all its Nazi-era provenance research on its website, on gallery labels, and in gallery talks. The only exception is when there is a legal matter that includes correspondence that is privileged.
Her understated approach is typical of Reed. She wants the evidence from her research to speak for itself without telling her boss, MFA deputy director Katherine Getchell, how to respond.
That makes perfect sense to Getchell.
“Her job is not to be a policymaker or decision maker,’’ said Getchell. “We want her focused on research and analysis and looking at the different options.’’
Reed’s job often takes her to the MFA’s off-site library at Horticultural Hall. On a recent afternoon, she sat with her notes at a table examining art history books on site. She wants to know more about a Dutch painting by Johannes Glauber, which the museum acquired from a dealer in 1979 with little knowledge of its background. She was examining a bronze from the 13th century that’s in the MFA’s Islamic art collection. There were also several works the museum was considering acquiring; she said she couldn’t reveal what those were.
“In the ’40s and ’50s, we might ask a dealer where something came from,’’ she said. “Today, we require much more information. We look at cultural property law, check stolen art databases, import and export records. If there’s a doubt, we postpone acquisition until we can clear up the question.’’
Reed shuffled through the papers on the desk as the subject of the van der Neer came up. Though the claim had been settled, many questions remained. The MFA knows the painting was probably stolen, but there’s a gap in the records from the point when it disappeared in the late 1930s to its reappearance in New York in 1941. Reed was eager to fill in the blank.
“In this work,’’ she said, “you’re never done.’’
This spring in the Netherlands, a curator from the Museum of Fine Arts spotted a 17th-century gold medallion at the famed Maastricht art fair and knew she had to have it. There was just one problem: Nobody could tell her how the precious piece left Germany after World War II.
Enter Victoria Reed, the MFA’s curator of provenance. Her job, which is almost as rare in the museum world as is the medallion, is to research works with questionable histories both in the collection and on the MFA’s shopping list. As a result, Reed’s other job is to break curators’ hearts.
Through months of research, Reed traced the medallion to a museum in Gotha, Germany, that she knew had been looted during the Nazi era. With that information, the MFA’s jewelry curator, Yvonne Markowitz, put the brakes on its purchase. And in September, the Art Loss Register announced that S.J. Phillips Ltd., the dealer who had offered the medallion, would be returning it to the Castle Friedenstein museum.
“It shows our system is working,’’ said Reed. “It’s much better learning the information before than after this becomes a part of the collection.’’
That’s a polite way of explaining her role, which is to make sure the MFA is not embroiled in any of the controversies that have swirled through the museum world in the last decade. In this new era, museums discovered to be holding stolen items face lawsuits and claims from foreign governments that can be costly both in legal fees and in the court of public opinion.
The MFA, which like many museums has had to return works in recent years, took special care in creating Reed’s post in 2010. She is the first and only endowed curator of provenance at an American museum.
In the past, the MFA had conducted research the same way many museums do. Individual curators with expertise in a specific area were asked to do research between their other duties, whether organizing exhibits or acquiring new works. Across the country, a handful of other museum professionals research the histories of artworks as independent consultants or as one of the tasks that make up their jobs.
“It’s something we can’t do constantly the way Victoria Reed is,’’ says Martha Wolff, the curator of European painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Why is that? Time pressures.’’
Another issue is resources. What makes Reed special in the museum world is that her position, funded by MFA donor Monica S. Sadler, will not be cut from the museum’s budget when finances are tight.
“That a patron of the MFA recognized the importance of the issue makes Torie’s position unique,’’ said Nancy Yeide, the head of curatorial records at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. “That’s quite noteworthy and hopefully an impetus for others to do likewise.’’
A mystery story
Reed doesn’t spend all her time in libraries, scouring old auction catalogs. She also serves as the public face of the MFA’s efforts to properly vet art works.
One summer weekday, a group of college students, most of them art history majors, crowded around Reed in a gallery as she spun a fascinating, true tale involving Nazis, art dealers, and stolen paintings. It was like a mystery story, with the art detective hunting for clues.
Afterward, several approached with questions. Asked why they were so inspired, they didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t just the story. It was Reed herself.
Just 37, Reed, who goes by the first name “Torie,’’ is no dour researcher in Coke-bottle glasses. She is lively and easy to approach, an avid runner who favors colorful dresses and heels.
“You meet a lot of curators who aren’t ready to share why they’re so excited about what they do,’’ said Caitlin Costello, 21, an undergraduate majoring in art history at the University of Pennsylvania. “Just smiling and being animated, it’s amazing how much that helps get her message across.’’
The timing of Reed’s talk couldn’t have been better. Just a few days earlier, eight years of off-and-on research had culminated in the MFA’s dramatic announcement of recognition that “Portrait of a Man and Woman in an Interior,’’ an oil painting on a wood panel by the 17th-century Dutch painter Eglon van der Neer, had probably been stolen by the Nazis and passed through a New York gallery before ending up at the MFA in 1941.
The museum agreed to pay restitution to the heir of Jewish art dealer Walter Westfeld, who died in a Nazi death camp, and in exchange, the painting would remain on the MFA’s walls. The finding would give the museum a chance to show the world that it cared deeply about righting the wrongs of the past, when swashbuckling curators acquired paintings and sculptures without doing in-depth research on whether they had been stolen.
Standing in front of the painting in the MFA’s Art of Europe department, Reed told the students of her satisfaction in being able to shed light on an important era in history. Through her work, the public will now know about Westfeld, she said. A lengthy description of the painting’s path would hang on the wall next to the picture.
‘Geeky’ path to curatorship
Growing up outside Portland, Maine, Reed was an artsy and bookish kid.
Her younger sister, Mary Reed, still teases her for what she calls a geeky streak. To satisfy her physical education requirement, Torie Reed took part in a walking club. While other teenagers were out partying, Reed took language lessons at an Italian heritage center. When she was 16, she traveled to Siena, where she worked on watercolors.
“I joke that she’s always been an old lady,’’ says Mary Reed. “She’s more grown up than anybody else.’’
Torie Reed’s path to the MFA started at Sarah Lawrence College, where she earned her degree before getting her master’s and a doctorate in art history at Rutgers University. After college, Reed worked as a research assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, after that, served as a researcher at the Princeton University Art Museum.
She started at the MFA in 2003, hired as a research fellow for provenance in the Art of Europe department to look entirely at Nazi-era issues. It was an opportune time. Just a few years earlier, museum leaders had met in Washington, D.C., in a groundbreaking conference, to create the first real push for restitution for World War II thefts.
The MFA, like most US museums, had followed the common acquire-now, research-later philosophy of collecting. But in 2000, it took a dramatic step to address that. The museum put a list of works from its permanent collection with questionable acquisition histories on the Internet in a quest to solicit more information. That turned heads in the museum world. It also led victimized families, including the Westfelds, to contact the MFA.
“Most museums have their collections online,’’ says James Cuno, the former director of the Harvard University Art Museums and current director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. “What’s different in this case, and is to be commended, is that they identified some works and set them apart from others.’’
That’s where Reed’s job began. Working on Nazi-era claims, she found her knowledge of Italian, German, and French was helpful. So was her determination to pursue all leads, whether in the MFA’s archives or by traveling to Germany to scour rarely viewed auction records and newspaper articles.
During those years, Reed decided that the World War II cases were, in a way, more complicated than those involving works dating to Roman times.
“If something was looted out of the ground in Italy, it’s a pretty clear issue,’’ she said. “Some of the Nazi-era claims are accompanied by ownership questions that may not have a paper trail. Many of the key players may be deceased. You may be dealing with 10 different archives. And even if you have the pieces lined up, there many be disagreement about how to interpret those facts.’’
The facts were often undeniable. Under Reed, the MFA resolved several claims, starting in 2004 when the museum returned to a Polish woman a 15th-century Polish painting, “Virgin and Child,’’ that Reed determined had been plundered during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 before being purchased by the MFA in 1970. Later, the MFA returned a statue stolen in Dresden, Germany, and an embroidered panel from Italy and, after making restitutions, held on to a group of 17th-century tapestries and the van der Neer.
A detective with critics
Not all of Reed’s research has resulted in guilty verdicts.
The MFA fought to keep an Oskar Kokoschka painting, “Two Nudes (Lovers),’’ after a claim was filed in 2007 by an Austrian woman. After reviewing Reed’s research, the MFA decided it had legal title to the work and even filed a lawsuit, which it won in 2009, to confirm its rights.
That led to something Reed had never faced as a behind-the-scenes player: criticism.
Raymond Dowd, a New York lawyer who has filed lawsuits over works that he maintains were taken by the Nazis, disagreed with the Kokoschka finding, particularly as it affected another case he was pursuing. On his website earlier this year, Dowd called Reed “a curator of provenance - which happens to be a synonym for a launderer of stolen artworks.’’
In an interview, Dowd refused to back down. He said the MFA and Reed should publish online the details of their investigations. He believes the MFA is, like the entire US museum community, reluctant to reach out to victims of World War II-era art looting.
“What happened in Vienna in 1938 and 1939, you either believe in the Holocaust that took place in that period and the grip that Adolph Eichmann had on those people or you’re an American museum denying that reality,’’ he said. “And she’s at the forefront of that denial.’’
Dowd’s attack bothered her deeply, Reed acknowledges, but she refuses to counterattack.
“I know that I sound defensive and I’m trying, as I get older, to sound less defensive,’’ she said. “But I think there are a lot of loud voices out there that are inaccurate.’’
The next day, Reed asks that even that mild criticism be struck from the record. She doesn’t want to come off too strong.
She does defend the MFA, which she says shares the results of all its Nazi-era provenance research on its website, on gallery labels, and in gallery talks. The only exception is when there is a legal matter that includes correspondence that is privileged.
Her understated approach is typical of Reed. She wants the evidence from her research to speak for itself without telling her boss, MFA deputy director Katherine Getchell, how to respond.
That makes perfect sense to Getchell.
“Her job is not to be a policymaker or decision maker,’’ said Getchell. “We want her focused on research and analysis and looking at the different options.’’
Reed’s job often takes her to the MFA’s off-site library at Horticultural Hall. On a recent afternoon, she sat with her notes at a table examining art history books on site. She wants to know more about a Dutch painting by Johannes Glauber, which the museum acquired from a dealer in 1979 with little knowledge of its background. She was examining a bronze from the 13th century that’s in the MFA’s Islamic art collection. There were also several works the museum was considering acquiring; she said she couldn’t reveal what those were.
“In the ’40s and ’50s, we might ask a dealer where something came from,’’ she said. “Today, we require much more information. We look at cultural property law, check stolen art databases, import and export records. If there’s a doubt, we postpone acquisition until we can clear up the question.’’
Reed shuffled through the papers on the desk as the subject of the van der Neer came up. Though the claim had been settled, many questions remained. The MFA knows the painting was probably stolen, but there’s a gap in the records from the point when it disappeared in the late 1930s to its reappearance in New York in 1941. Reed was eager to fill in the blank.
“In this work,’’ she said, “you’re never done.’’
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Time Keeps On Slipping Into the Future
Sorry for the dearth of posts recently...I've been working on a project, wanted to devote all my time to it, and kept telling myself...it'll be done today so I can get back to blogging here tomorrow.
The next day it was... okay, it's definitely going to get done today....
Well, today it is done... so back to posting here on a daily basis tomorrow. (With the first post appearing tomorrow afternoon while I'm watching football!)
Thanks for your patience.
The next day it was... okay, it's definitely going to get done today....
Well, today it is done... so back to posting here on a daily basis tomorrow. (With the first post appearing tomorrow afternoon while I'm watching football!)
Thanks for your patience.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Austrian gallery ordered to return Nazi-stolen Romako works
From Austrian gallery ordered to return Nazi-stolen Romako works
VIENNA – Vienna's Albertina art gallery was told Tuesday to return six works by Anton Romako to the descendants of Jewish art collector Oskar Reichel, whose collection was stolen by the Nazis.
The Austrian culture ministry's art restitution council said that four of the works by the Austrian painter (1832-1839) had been bought by the Albertina gallery in 1939-40 and the two others after World War II.
Reichel, a renowned collector of Austrian art, died in Vienna in May 1943, four months after his wife Malvine Reichel had been deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
She survived the war and was liberated by the Red Army in 1945. Their two sons fled in 1939 but the oldest was murdered by the Nazis in 1940.
Under a 1998 restitution law, Austria has returned some 10,000 Nazi-plundered paintings to the descendants of their former owners.
Most notorious was a painting by Gustav Klimt, a 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which the Austrian state was forced to return to the heirs of its previous owner in 2006 after a lengthy legal battle.
A Klimt landscape stolen by the Nazis and returned this year to the family of the Jewish owner sold for a huge $40.4 million at Sotheby's in New York last month.
VIENNA – Vienna's Albertina art gallery was told Tuesday to return six works by Anton Romako to the descendants of Jewish art collector Oskar Reichel, whose collection was stolen by the Nazis.
The Austrian culture ministry's art restitution council said that four of the works by the Austrian painter (1832-1839) had been bought by the Albertina gallery in 1939-40 and the two others after World War II.
Reichel, a renowned collector of Austrian art, died in Vienna in May 1943, four months after his wife Malvine Reichel had been deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
She survived the war and was liberated by the Red Army in 1945. Their two sons fled in 1939 but the oldest was murdered by the Nazis in 1940.
Under a 1998 restitution law, Austria has returned some 10,000 Nazi-plundered paintings to the descendants of their former owners.
Most notorious was a painting by Gustav Klimt, a 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which the Austrian state was forced to return to the heirs of its previous owner in 2006 after a lengthy legal battle.
A Klimt landscape stolen by the Nazis and returned this year to the family of the Jewish owner sold for a huge $40.4 million at Sotheby's in New York last month.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Leonardo's Lady and the Quest For War Loot Restitution
From 8/11/11
From Huff Post England: Leonardo's Lady and the Quest For War Loot Restitution
The new Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at London's National Gallery opens tomorrow, however it has long been regarded as the highpoint of the city's Winter cultural attractions.
Through the gallery's own treasures and those on loan from the likes of the Louvre in Paris and St Petersburg's Hermitage, the show tells the tale of da Vinci's spell in the late 15th century as court painter to one of Renaissance Italy's most powerful men, Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.
Thanks to the power of the image of Mona Lisa and the imagination of Dan Brown, the da Vinci brand will never lack box office appeal. But, just in case, curators for this new exhibition have used another of the artist's most recognisable works to help drive publicity.
Lady with an Ermine is one of only a handful of Leonardo portraits known to survive. Painted onto a small wooden panel with oils, it depicts Cecilia Gallerani, Sforza's teenage mistress, clutching a stoat. The animal is not thought to have been a random prop but chosen because Leonardo wished to add a further symbol of his subject's purity to please his paymaster. The ermine was believed to rather face death than soil its white winter fur.
Ironically, given the purity to which one of history's most famous polymaths was alluding more than five centuries ago, the painting itself has become one of many symbols of a much darker episode in history, one which stretches back 70 years.
It was one of an estimated 600,000 paintings stolen by Germany during a looting programme instigated by Hitler himself to stock what he intended to be the planet's largest museum in his boyhood home town of Linz.
Through forced sales or confiscations from Jewish collectors, a network of magpie collaborators and agents, and secret trades with renowned state collections anxious to protect their finest pieces, the Nazis acquired one-fifth of the world's fine art treasures.
At least for Lady with an Ermine, the trauma was not to last too long. It had been pulled from its hiding place in an outbuilding at the country home of its owner, the Polish prince Augustin Czartoryski, in December 1939. Just over five years later, it was safely recovered by the Allies from the haul seized from Reichskommissar Hans Frank, the Nazi's officer in charge of Poland, as he tried to flee to safety.
The most famous Leonardo of all was reputed to be among works retrieved in much more dramatic circumstances. While writing our book on the subject of war art loot, myself and Peter Harclerode discovered documents suggesting that 6,500 items, including the Mona Lisa, were down an Austrian salt-mine and only hours from being blown up by retreating Nazis when they were rescued by Allied secret agents.
However, even though the Czartoryskis had Lady with an Ermine returned to them, they are among families still fighting to get back many tens of thousands of other pieces of art stolen just before and during World War Two. Although the wartime owners have died, their heirs have combed archives and libraries as well as arguing in galleries and courtrooms in an attempt to win restitution.
There have been some high-profile successes but, sadly, they are exceptions. Given recent developments in Europe and the United States, any positive momentum looks like being stopped in its tracks even as new initiatives allow access to the sort of paperwork which might support restitution claims.
The US Supreme Court recently decided that California couldn't extend a statute of limitations which might give affected families more time to have missing works handed back to them. Sir Norman Rosenthal, the former leading curator at London's Royal Academy of Art, has called for an end to the restitution process, suggesting that it is not an effective way to erase a painful and destructive chapter in history.
Meanwhile, modern collectors seek to defend their ownership of disputed art by claiming that they had bought pieces in good faith. They include Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was allowed to auction a Picasso for £35 million last year after demands for its return from one Jewish family had halted a previous sale at Christie's auction house in New York.
Despite the potential narrowing of their chances for success and the passage of more than 60 years since the end of the Second World War, the families press on. In Amsterdam, Christine Koenigs is keen to trace more than 2,600 drawings and 46 Old Master paintings which had belonged to her grandfather. Her enquiries also extend to a portrait of van Gogh's physician which once held the title as the most costly work of art ever sold at auction.
Whether her long quest for justice enjoys the same sort of happy ending as those with whom the image of Cecilia Gallerani resides remains to be seen.
From Huff Post England: Leonardo's Lady and the Quest For War Loot Restitution
The new Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at London's National Gallery opens tomorrow, however it has long been regarded as the highpoint of the city's Winter cultural attractions.
Through the gallery's own treasures and those on loan from the likes of the Louvre in Paris and St Petersburg's Hermitage, the show tells the tale of da Vinci's spell in the late 15th century as court painter to one of Renaissance Italy's most powerful men, Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.
Thanks to the power of the image of Mona Lisa and the imagination of Dan Brown, the da Vinci brand will never lack box office appeal. But, just in case, curators for this new exhibition have used another of the artist's most recognisable works to help drive publicity.
Lady with an Ermine is one of only a handful of Leonardo portraits known to survive. Painted onto a small wooden panel with oils, it depicts Cecilia Gallerani, Sforza's teenage mistress, clutching a stoat. The animal is not thought to have been a random prop but chosen because Leonardo wished to add a further symbol of his subject's purity to please his paymaster. The ermine was believed to rather face death than soil its white winter fur.
Ironically, given the purity to which one of history's most famous polymaths was alluding more than five centuries ago, the painting itself has become one of many symbols of a much darker episode in history, one which stretches back 70 years.
It was one of an estimated 600,000 paintings stolen by Germany during a looting programme instigated by Hitler himself to stock what he intended to be the planet's largest museum in his boyhood home town of Linz.
Through forced sales or confiscations from Jewish collectors, a network of magpie collaborators and agents, and secret trades with renowned state collections anxious to protect their finest pieces, the Nazis acquired one-fifth of the world's fine art treasures.
At least for Lady with an Ermine, the trauma was not to last too long. It had been pulled from its hiding place in an outbuilding at the country home of its owner, the Polish prince Augustin Czartoryski, in December 1939. Just over five years later, it was safely recovered by the Allies from the haul seized from Reichskommissar Hans Frank, the Nazi's officer in charge of Poland, as he tried to flee to safety.
The most famous Leonardo of all was reputed to be among works retrieved in much more dramatic circumstances. While writing our book on the subject of war art loot, myself and Peter Harclerode discovered documents suggesting that 6,500 items, including the Mona Lisa, were down an Austrian salt-mine and only hours from being blown up by retreating Nazis when they were rescued by Allied secret agents.
However, even though the Czartoryskis had Lady with an Ermine returned to them, they are among families still fighting to get back many tens of thousands of other pieces of art stolen just before and during World War Two. Although the wartime owners have died, their heirs have combed archives and libraries as well as arguing in galleries and courtrooms in an attempt to win restitution.
There have been some high-profile successes but, sadly, they are exceptions. Given recent developments in Europe and the United States, any positive momentum looks like being stopped in its tracks even as new initiatives allow access to the sort of paperwork which might support restitution claims.
The US Supreme Court recently decided that California couldn't extend a statute of limitations which might give affected families more time to have missing works handed back to them. Sir Norman Rosenthal, the former leading curator at London's Royal Academy of Art, has called for an end to the restitution process, suggesting that it is not an effective way to erase a painful and destructive chapter in history.
Meanwhile, modern collectors seek to defend their ownership of disputed art by claiming that they had bought pieces in good faith. They include Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was allowed to auction a Picasso for £35 million last year after demands for its return from one Jewish family had halted a previous sale at Christie's auction house in New York.
Despite the potential narrowing of their chances for success and the passage of more than 60 years since the end of the Second World War, the families press on. In Amsterdam, Christine Koenigs is keen to trace more than 2,600 drawings and 46 Old Master paintings which had belonged to her grandfather. Her enquiries also extend to a portrait of van Gogh's physician which once held the title as the most costly work of art ever sold at auction.
Whether her long quest for justice enjoys the same sort of happy ending as those with whom the image of Cecilia Gallerani resides remains to be seen.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Former Nazi Art Dealer Leaves Collection to Friends, Family
The article below is from July 12, 2007!
Nevertheless, it makes for an interesting story.
From Art Info: Former Nazi Art Dealer Leaves Collection to Friends, Family
Bruno Lohse, a German art dealer appointed by HermannGoering to acquire looted art in occupied France in the 1940s, died on March 19at the age of 95, leaving his private collection of Dutch 17th-centurymasterpieces and expressionist paintings to friends and family, Bloomberg reports.Since May, the collection has been the focus of a three-nation investigationinto a looted Camille Pissarro painting discovered in a Swiss bank safeconnected to the dealer. However, historian, documentary maker, and Lohse’sacquaintance Maurice-Philip Remy said that of the 40 artworks in Lohse’scollection, there are only three paintings where he ``is not yet sure'' of theprovenance. ``I know every painting in the collection,'' Remy said. ``It is nota stash of looted art.''
Nevertheless, it makes for an interesting story.
From Art Info: Former Nazi Art Dealer Leaves Collection to Friends, Family
Bruno Lohse, a German art dealer appointed by HermannGoering to acquire looted art in occupied France in the 1940s, died on March 19at the age of 95, leaving his private collection of Dutch 17th-centurymasterpieces and expressionist paintings to friends and family, Bloomberg reports.Since May, the collection has been the focus of a three-nation investigationinto a looted Camille Pissarro painting discovered in a Swiss bank safeconnected to the dealer. However, historian, documentary maker, and Lohse’sacquaintance Maurice-Philip Remy said that of the 40 artworks in Lohse’scollection, there are only three paintings where he ``is not yet sure'' of theprovenance. ``I know every painting in the collection,'' Remy said. ``It is nota stash of looted art.''
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Stolen Art Returns Home after 60 Years
From ArtFixDaily.com: Stolen Art Returns Home after 60 Years
A painting stolen from Berlin in the chaotic aftermath of WWII, and subsequently sold to the Indiana University Art Museum, is finally on its way back to Germany after years of investigation, according to the IU News Room.
The 15th century oil on panel, which depicts the flagellation of Christ, was originally part of an altarpiece and created by an unknown artist of the Cologne school. The relatively small image shows a bound and bloodied Christ encircled by four tormentors who brandish flails and clubs.
The piece was part of an IU Art Museum research project regarding the looting and destruction of art during World War II.
A British soldier took the artwork from the Jagdschloss Grunewald Museum in Berlin sometime during the summer of 1945. From him, it passed into the hands of an art dealer and then on to former IU President Herman Wells, who bought it for his personal collection in 1967. In 1985 Wells donated the “Flagellation of Christ” to the IU Art Museum, not realizing it was a piece of looted art. While the IU agreed to return the painting to Berlin some time ago, the painting remained in their possession while the Jagdschloss Grunewald Museum was undergoing major renovations.
The painting is just one of 3,000 works listed by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation in recently created catalogues detailing art lost during and after World War II.
The return of the “Flagellation of Christ” coincides with the return of two other looted German art works, both by Expressionist painter Karl Schmitt-Rottluff. According to Bloomberg, the paintings belonged to Berlin businessman Robert Graetz, who was deported to Auschwitz during World War II and later killed there. The paintings, a landscape and a self-portrait, are together valued at $4 million.
Schmitt-Rottluff was part of a group of artists called Die Brücke(or the Bridge) who favored intense color combined with an emphasis on primitivism. Other prominent members of the group included Emile Nolde and Ernst Kirchner, both of whom also created works of art that have been at the center of a looting controversy. All three artists were part of Hitler’s ban on what he deemed entartete Kunst of “Degenerate Art.”
The exact details of the disappearance of the paintings are not known. However, after a government panel looked into the matter, Germany decided the best course of action was to return the paintings to the victim’s heir and grandson, Roberto Graetz.
Germany is a supporter of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi confiscated art created in 1998. The city of Berlin will return the paintings.
A painting stolen from Berlin in the chaotic aftermath of WWII, and subsequently sold to the Indiana University Art Museum, is finally on its way back to Germany after years of investigation, according to the IU News Room.
The 15th century oil on panel, which depicts the flagellation of Christ, was originally part of an altarpiece and created by an unknown artist of the Cologne school. The relatively small image shows a bound and bloodied Christ encircled by four tormentors who brandish flails and clubs.
The piece was part of an IU Art Museum research project regarding the looting and destruction of art during World War II.
A British soldier took the artwork from the Jagdschloss Grunewald Museum in Berlin sometime during the summer of 1945. From him, it passed into the hands of an art dealer and then on to former IU President Herman Wells, who bought it for his personal collection in 1967. In 1985 Wells donated the “Flagellation of Christ” to the IU Art Museum, not realizing it was a piece of looted art. While the IU agreed to return the painting to Berlin some time ago, the painting remained in their possession while the Jagdschloss Grunewald Museum was undergoing major renovations.
The painting is just one of 3,000 works listed by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation in recently created catalogues detailing art lost during and after World War II.
The return of the “Flagellation of Christ” coincides with the return of two other looted German art works, both by Expressionist painter Karl Schmitt-Rottluff. According to Bloomberg, the paintings belonged to Berlin businessman Robert Graetz, who was deported to Auschwitz during World War II and later killed there. The paintings, a landscape and a self-portrait, are together valued at $4 million.
Schmitt-Rottluff was part of a group of artists called Die Brücke(or the Bridge) who favored intense color combined with an emphasis on primitivism. Other prominent members of the group included Emile Nolde and Ernst Kirchner, both of whom also created works of art that have been at the center of a looting controversy. All three artists were part of Hitler’s ban on what he deemed entartete Kunst of “Degenerate Art.”
The exact details of the disappearance of the paintings are not known. However, after a government panel looked into the matter, Germany decided the best course of action was to return the paintings to the victim’s heir and grandson, Roberto Graetz.
Germany is a supporter of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi confiscated art created in 1998. The city of Berlin will return the paintings.
Germany to restitute two Nazi-looted paintings
From JTA: Germany to restitute two Nazi-looted paintings
BERLIN (JTA) -- Germany will return two paintings to the sole heir of a collector who was murdered by the Nazis.
Two paintings by the renowned Expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff -- "Estate in Dangast" (1910) and "Self Portrait" (1920) -- will be turned over to Argentinian businessman Roberto Graetz, 60, the nephew and sole heir of Jewish textile manufacturer and art collector Robert Graetz, who was killed in Auschwitz. Roberto Graetz reportedly had fought for 10 years for the return of the paintings, which are worth an estimated $4 million.
German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann announced the decision Nov. 19 by the so-called Limbach Commission to return the paintings "based on the overall situation, the persecution of Robert Graetz, and given the fact that there was no concrete evidence" opposing the claim that Graetz had lost his collection due to Nazi persecution, according to the German news agency dpa.
The Limbach Commission was established in 2003 to help resolve disputes over cultural inheritance.
The Schmidt-Rottluff paintings are on loan currently to the Neue Nationalgalerie, one of Berlin's premier modern art museums. Roberto Graetz and the Prussian Foundation are expected to hold talks to arrange for the works to remain at the museum.
The state of Berlin reportedly had claimed that there was not enough evidence to prove the works had been stolen or confiscated by the Nazis. They said that Robert Graetz still owned the paintings in 1938 and they were sold at a gallery in 1953 for 3,500 German marks, or under $900. But researchers were unable to document what had happened to the paintings after 1938.
The fate of Graetz, however, is known. According to reports, he was forced to sell his home and belongings in 1938 and was deported to Auschwitz in 1942, where he was killed.
His nephew told Bloomberg after the decision that "You cannot undo the past, but it is possible to achieve a little bit of justice."
BERLIN (JTA) -- Germany will return two paintings to the sole heir of a collector who was murdered by the Nazis.
Two paintings by the renowned Expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff -- "Estate in Dangast" (1910) and "Self Portrait" (1920) -- will be turned over to Argentinian businessman Roberto Graetz, 60, the nephew and sole heir of Jewish textile manufacturer and art collector Robert Graetz, who was killed in Auschwitz. Roberto Graetz reportedly had fought for 10 years for the return of the paintings, which are worth an estimated $4 million.
German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann announced the decision Nov. 19 by the so-called Limbach Commission to return the paintings "based on the overall situation, the persecution of Robert Graetz, and given the fact that there was no concrete evidence" opposing the claim that Graetz had lost his collection due to Nazi persecution, according to the German news agency dpa.
The Limbach Commission was established in 2003 to help resolve disputes over cultural inheritance.
The Schmidt-Rottluff paintings are on loan currently to the Neue Nationalgalerie, one of Berlin's premier modern art museums. Roberto Graetz and the Prussian Foundation are expected to hold talks to arrange for the works to remain at the museum.
The state of Berlin reportedly had claimed that there was not enough evidence to prove the works had been stolen or confiscated by the Nazis. They said that Robert Graetz still owned the paintings in 1938 and they were sold at a gallery in 1953 for 3,500 German marks, or under $900. But researchers were unable to document what had happened to the paintings after 1938.
The fate of Graetz, however, is known. According to reports, he was forced to sell his home and belongings in 1938 and was deported to Auschwitz in 1942, where he was killed.
His nephew told Bloomberg after the decision that "You cannot undo the past, but it is possible to achieve a little bit of justice."
Saturday, November 26, 2011
New Archive of Nazi Exhibitions Complicates Our Understanding of Hitler's Art History
From ArtInfo.com: New Archive of Nazi Exhibitions Complicates Our Understanding of Hitler's Art History
Richard Wagner was his favorite composer and Arno Breker his official house sculptor — but Adolf Hitler’s taste in art was surprisingly broad — and gaudy — judging by a vast archive of some 11,000 Nazi-era exhibition installation photos now published online for the first time.
The "Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1937-1944" database lists the Führer as the buyer of some 1313 artworks from the eight grandiose (and heavily-sanitized) exhibitions put on by the Nazi party before and during the Second World War at Munich’s Haus der Kunst. Among the works on which Hitler spent some seven million Reichmarks were a bust of Mussolini's head, paintings of playful leopards, and Anna Elisabeth Rühl's sculpture of a donkey.
The project is the culmination of years-long research and digitalization by the Haus der Kunst and the Central Institute for Art History after researchers began unearthing the forgotten images from the Haus archives in 2004. Together, they suggest a Nazi curating style that was less totalitarian than fractional, beset by factional differences.
"We have to rethink some very easy and clear-cut prejudices," Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister, who spearheaded the project at the Central Institute, told ARTINFO.
In 1933, Hitler grandly promised that Germany would have the world's finest art, and the dictator put a definite end to the avant-gardism of the Weimar Republic. To make good on his claims, he became the country's biggest collector. But beyond proud eagles, muscular athletes, and the regime-glorifying works of Breker and Thorak — and despite the ban on most modern works as "degenerate" — there was no real consensus on the nature of true national socialist art.
There were works by Edmund Steppels, the quasi-Surrealist and former pupil of Max Ernst. In 1937, works by Rudolf Belling were presented both in the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung and in the derisive "Entartete Kunst" exhibition, showing confiscated works that were denounced as having insulted Germany and its people, or possessing what Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels termed a "perverse Jewish spirit." "Today, the challenge is to grasp these contradictions that no one thought about," said Dr. Fuhrmeister.
"The archives reveal that only a minor part of the works admitted to the exhibition openly depicted themes of National Socialist propaganda. A large amount of the works belonged to landscape and genre painting. Small-scale sculptures — mostly of animals and female nudes — had a much greater quantity than the monumental heroic sculptures," said Okwui Enwezor, today's director of the Haus der Kunst. "Hitler's collecting gives us an insight in how banal most of these art works were, and that the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung mainly reflected the taste of a dictator."
Still, the photographs are full of diversity. Seeking to represent all generations of Germans, the exhibition juries accepted soldier portraits painted by a 16-year-old Hitler youth as well as works by a 70-year-old professor. The exhibitions spanned every German region. And the selection process was riddled with infighting, said Dr. Fuhrmeister. "You have a rather heterogeneous and dynamic situation, starting in 1934 when they were discussing Expressionism," he said. "You saw continuous fighting between various institutions about national socialist art. This was a contested field."
The traditional view of totalitarian, top-down curating has endured, in part, because much of the writing about Nazi-era art has been based on the old exhibition catalogs or newspaper reports. Their black-and-white images were mainly of works referencing state iconography, propaganda and the military, which were considered most relevant at the time. It fit nicely with the assumption that Nazi Germany was a monolithic state where Hitler saw all and ruled all. "When you look at the art and art politics, you get a very different picture," said Dr. Fuhrmeister. "You now have this huge mass of rather petty-bourgeois, 19th-century-style painting, of landscapes, flowers, still life and so on." A few of these did also make it into catalogs — but not in proportion to their vast numbers, he noted.
Since 2007, the researchers have been identifying the more than 12,500 works shown in the pictures, from old paper catalogs, curator's hand-scribbled notes with occasional mistakes — and the Haus der Kunst's old accounting ledgers that only identified works by cross-referenced numbers. None of the photographs were precisely dated and some showed artworks that were not in the catalog, or omitted works that were.
"We had thousands of exhibition views, with no idea what we were looking at," said Dr. Fuhrmeister. "You have images from the opening, but after a few months, some works were sold and taken down — and others brought up from the basement and put on the wall. Sometimes, particularly in the case of Hitler photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, works were rearranged specifically to create a more impressive array of images — then put back in place." Little information was available for the years 1937 and 1944, so the researchers had to reconstruct those exhibitions visually. They perused the Bavarian state and Munich municipal archives for log books and went through the some 700 oil paintings today housed in Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum.
Visually, the exhibition views are a dull crop, and the German media has gleefully greeted their "immense boredom," as Die Welt described it. The debate about showing Nazi-era art has been controversial over the past decades, and some still subscribe to German-born Jewish art historian Nikolaus Pevsner's famous assertion that any word said about Nazi architecture is a word too much, extending this opinion to visual art.
"This kind of talk does not belong to art history at all," insisted Dr. Fuhrmeister, noting that copyright issues — since few of the artists' works are yet in the public domain — had been much more worrisome than debates over old taboos. "The Central Institute is housed in the Nazi party's former administration building and developed after America chose the site for its art institute and restitution work after the war — so for us, the legacy of national socialism is a common, everyday experience. We would not accept any taboos or restrictions. We saw that the difference between what the literature says about national socialist art and what you see in the photographs was so big that we had to bring this new material into the scholarly discourse, and perhaps change its perceptions."
The Haus der Kunst itself is "a testimony of the time," said Enwezor. "I am of the opinion that we absolutely have to not only show the material in our archives, we have to properly contextualize it and defetishize it." He added that for its 75th anniversary next year, the Haus is planning an exhibition based on its archives, and that of the Große Kunstausstellung, which took over the mantle of great exhibitions after the Nazis and until the 1960s.
Richard Wagner was his favorite composer and Arno Breker his official house sculptor — but Adolf Hitler’s taste in art was surprisingly broad — and gaudy — judging by a vast archive of some 11,000 Nazi-era exhibition installation photos now published online for the first time.
The "Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1937-1944" database lists the Führer as the buyer of some 1313 artworks from the eight grandiose (and heavily-sanitized) exhibitions put on by the Nazi party before and during the Second World War at Munich’s Haus der Kunst. Among the works on which Hitler spent some seven million Reichmarks were a bust of Mussolini's head, paintings of playful leopards, and Anna Elisabeth Rühl's sculpture of a donkey.
The project is the culmination of years-long research and digitalization by the Haus der Kunst and the Central Institute for Art History after researchers began unearthing the forgotten images from the Haus archives in 2004. Together, they suggest a Nazi curating style that was less totalitarian than fractional, beset by factional differences.
"We have to rethink some very easy and clear-cut prejudices," Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister, who spearheaded the project at the Central Institute, told ARTINFO.
In 1933, Hitler grandly promised that Germany would have the world's finest art, and the dictator put a definite end to the avant-gardism of the Weimar Republic. To make good on his claims, he became the country's biggest collector. But beyond proud eagles, muscular athletes, and the regime-glorifying works of Breker and Thorak — and despite the ban on most modern works as "degenerate" — there was no real consensus on the nature of true national socialist art.
There were works by Edmund Steppels, the quasi-Surrealist and former pupil of Max Ernst. In 1937, works by Rudolf Belling were presented both in the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung and in the derisive "Entartete Kunst" exhibition, showing confiscated works that were denounced as having insulted Germany and its people, or possessing what Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels termed a "perverse Jewish spirit." "Today, the challenge is to grasp these contradictions that no one thought about," said Dr. Fuhrmeister.
"The archives reveal that only a minor part of the works admitted to the exhibition openly depicted themes of National Socialist propaganda. A large amount of the works belonged to landscape and genre painting. Small-scale sculptures — mostly of animals and female nudes — had a much greater quantity than the monumental heroic sculptures," said Okwui Enwezor, today's director of the Haus der Kunst. "Hitler's collecting gives us an insight in how banal most of these art works were, and that the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung mainly reflected the taste of a dictator."
Still, the photographs are full of diversity. Seeking to represent all generations of Germans, the exhibition juries accepted soldier portraits painted by a 16-year-old Hitler youth as well as works by a 70-year-old professor. The exhibitions spanned every German region. And the selection process was riddled with infighting, said Dr. Fuhrmeister. "You have a rather heterogeneous and dynamic situation, starting in 1934 when they were discussing Expressionism," he said. "You saw continuous fighting between various institutions about national socialist art. This was a contested field."
The traditional view of totalitarian, top-down curating has endured, in part, because much of the writing about Nazi-era art has been based on the old exhibition catalogs or newspaper reports. Their black-and-white images were mainly of works referencing state iconography, propaganda and the military, which were considered most relevant at the time. It fit nicely with the assumption that Nazi Germany was a monolithic state where Hitler saw all and ruled all. "When you look at the art and art politics, you get a very different picture," said Dr. Fuhrmeister. "You now have this huge mass of rather petty-bourgeois, 19th-century-style painting, of landscapes, flowers, still life and so on." A few of these did also make it into catalogs — but not in proportion to their vast numbers, he noted.
Since 2007, the researchers have been identifying the more than 12,500 works shown in the pictures, from old paper catalogs, curator's hand-scribbled notes with occasional mistakes — and the Haus der Kunst's old accounting ledgers that only identified works by cross-referenced numbers. None of the photographs were precisely dated and some showed artworks that were not in the catalog, or omitted works that were.
"We had thousands of exhibition views, with no idea what we were looking at," said Dr. Fuhrmeister. "You have images from the opening, but after a few months, some works were sold and taken down — and others brought up from the basement and put on the wall. Sometimes, particularly in the case of Hitler photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, works were rearranged specifically to create a more impressive array of images — then put back in place." Little information was available for the years 1937 and 1944, so the researchers had to reconstruct those exhibitions visually. They perused the Bavarian state and Munich municipal archives for log books and went through the some 700 oil paintings today housed in Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum.
Visually, the exhibition views are a dull crop, and the German media has gleefully greeted their "immense boredom," as Die Welt described it. The debate about showing Nazi-era art has been controversial over the past decades, and some still subscribe to German-born Jewish art historian Nikolaus Pevsner's famous assertion that any word said about Nazi architecture is a word too much, extending this opinion to visual art.
"This kind of talk does not belong to art history at all," insisted Dr. Fuhrmeister, noting that copyright issues — since few of the artists' works are yet in the public domain — had been much more worrisome than debates over old taboos. "The Central Institute is housed in the Nazi party's former administration building and developed after America chose the site for its art institute and restitution work after the war — so for us, the legacy of national socialism is a common, everyday experience. We would not accept any taboos or restrictions. We saw that the difference between what the literature says about national socialist art and what you see in the photographs was so big that we had to bring this new material into the scholarly discourse, and perhaps change its perceptions."
The Haus der Kunst itself is "a testimony of the time," said Enwezor. "I am of the opinion that we absolutely have to not only show the material in our archives, we have to properly contextualize it and defetishize it." He added that for its 75th anniversary next year, the Haus is planning an exhibition based on its archives, and that of the Große Kunstausstellung, which took over the mantle of great exhibitions after the Nazis and until the 1960s.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Nazi Loot Panel Urges Berlin to Return $4 Million Paintings to Jewish Heir
From ArtEconomist: Nazi Loot Panel Urges Berlin to Return $4 Million Paintings to Jewish Heir
A German government panel recommended that two Expressionist paintings in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie should be returned to the heir of a Jewish textiles entrepreneur murdered at Auschwitz in World War II.
The paintings by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff belonged to Robert Graetz, a Jewish businessman in Berlin who was deported by the Nazis to Poland in 1942. Now valued at a combined $4 million, the pictures — a 1920 self-portrait and a 1910 landscape titled “Farm in Dangast” — were in Graetz’s villa until at least 1933. The exact circumstances of the loss are not known. They were purchased for Berlin in 1953.
Buenos Aires-based Roberto Graetz, the grandson and heir of Robert Graetz, welcomed the recommendation from the panel, ledby former constitutional judge Jutta Limbach. Graetz argued that even though the details of the loss are unknown, there can be no
doubt it was a result of Nazi persecution. The restitution of the paintings must now be approved by the Berlin regional government, which will decide based on the panel’s
recommendation.
“You can’t undo the past, but it is possible to achieve a little bit of justice,” Graetz said in Berlin shortly after hearing the panel’s recommendation. “Many times over the years I have had tears in my eyes, remembering this family history
while working on the claim. There is a sense of deep satisfaction at this conclusion, but the feelings are contradictory, because those who suffered are no longer here.”
Germany is one of more than 40 countries that endorsed the non-binding Washington Principles on returning looted art in public collections. The German government, states and municipalities pledged in a separate agreement to seek a “fair and just solution” with the heirs for art in public collections that was lost from private ownership due to Nazi persecution. Bruecke Artists
Schmidt-Rottluff was a member of the Bruecke group of artists, along with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde and Otto Mueller. The top price ever paid at auction for a work by Schmidt-Rottluff was almost $6 million for the 1913 “Akte im Freien — Drei badende Frauen” (Outdoor Nudes –Three Bathing Women) at Christie’s in London in 2008, according to the Artnet database.
Berlin in 2006 returned Kirchner’s 1913 “Street Scene” to the descendant of a Jewish family in a controversial restitution decision that sparked a regional parliamentary inquiry. The painting later fetched $38 million at a New York auction. Ladies’ Coats
Robert Graetz co-owned a clothing company that employed about 80 people and specialized in ladies’ coats and suits. Like many wealthy Jews in Germany before World War II, he used his prosperity to build an art collection, purchasing as many as 200 works in the 1920s and 1930s.
He focused on contemporary artists like the Bruecke group, Otto Dix and Georg Grosz, and German impressionists such as Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth, according to a study by Angelika Enderlein, “The Berlin Art Trade in the Weimar Republic and in the Nazi State.”
Graetz’s company was forced to wind down in 1938, as after the end of the year, no Jews were permitted to run businesses or engage in trade in Germany. Graetz lost his income and had to sell his villa and its contents to survive. In 1942, he was forced to pay a “Jewish asset tax” that left him with almost nothing, according to Enderlein’s book.
“My grandfather lost everything he worked for, and then died in a camp,” said 60-year-old Roberto Graetz, owner of a wholesaler in sporting goods in Buenos Aires. “My family first started trying to get these paintings back in 1946, after the war. The decision is good for us, for my children and my children’s children.”
Argentine Escape
Robert Graetz’s daughter, Hilda Rush, emigrated to South Africa in 1935 and his son, Hellmuth Graetz — Roberto Graetz’s father — fled to Buenos Aires in December 1939. Though Robert Graetz and his second wife sent her 14-year-old son to London in 1939, they both remained in Berlin until they were deported.
Nothing is known of the whereabouts of the two Schmidt-Rottluff works from 1933, when they were definitely in Graetz’s possession, until 1953, the year they were sold by a former Berliner then living in Paris called Ernst Graetz, who was probably not related, according to a report commissioned by the Berlin regional government and obtained by Bloomberg News.
The Limbach commission last judged a Nazi-era art claim in January 2009. It can only be called if the claimant and the current holder of an artwork agree. This is its fifth recommendation since it was founded in 2003.
A German government panel recommended that two Expressionist paintings in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie should be returned to the heir of a Jewish textiles entrepreneur murdered at Auschwitz in World War II.
The paintings by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff belonged to Robert Graetz, a Jewish businessman in Berlin who was deported by the Nazis to Poland in 1942. Now valued at a combined $4 million, the pictures — a 1920 self-portrait and a 1910 landscape titled “Farm in Dangast” — were in Graetz’s villa until at least 1933. The exact circumstances of the loss are not known. They were purchased for Berlin in 1953.
Buenos Aires-based Roberto Graetz, the grandson and heir of Robert Graetz, welcomed the recommendation from the panel, ledby former constitutional judge Jutta Limbach. Graetz argued that even though the details of the loss are unknown, there can be no
doubt it was a result of Nazi persecution. The restitution of the paintings must now be approved by the Berlin regional government, which will decide based on the panel’s
recommendation.
“You can’t undo the past, but it is possible to achieve a little bit of justice,” Graetz said in Berlin shortly after hearing the panel’s recommendation. “Many times over the years I have had tears in my eyes, remembering this family history
while working on the claim. There is a sense of deep satisfaction at this conclusion, but the feelings are contradictory, because those who suffered are no longer here.”
Germany is one of more than 40 countries that endorsed the non-binding Washington Principles on returning looted art in public collections. The German government, states and municipalities pledged in a separate agreement to seek a “fair and just solution” with the heirs for art in public collections that was lost from private ownership due to Nazi persecution. Bruecke Artists
Schmidt-Rottluff was a member of the Bruecke group of artists, along with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde and Otto Mueller. The top price ever paid at auction for a work by Schmidt-Rottluff was almost $6 million for the 1913 “Akte im Freien — Drei badende Frauen” (Outdoor Nudes –Three Bathing Women) at Christie’s in London in 2008, according to the Artnet database.
Berlin in 2006 returned Kirchner’s 1913 “Street Scene” to the descendant of a Jewish family in a controversial restitution decision that sparked a regional parliamentary inquiry. The painting later fetched $38 million at a New York auction. Ladies’ Coats
Robert Graetz co-owned a clothing company that employed about 80 people and specialized in ladies’ coats and suits. Like many wealthy Jews in Germany before World War II, he used his prosperity to build an art collection, purchasing as many as 200 works in the 1920s and 1930s.
He focused on contemporary artists like the Bruecke group, Otto Dix and Georg Grosz, and German impressionists such as Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth, according to a study by Angelika Enderlein, “The Berlin Art Trade in the Weimar Republic and in the Nazi State.”
Graetz’s company was forced to wind down in 1938, as after the end of the year, no Jews were permitted to run businesses or engage in trade in Germany. Graetz lost his income and had to sell his villa and its contents to survive. In 1942, he was forced to pay a “Jewish asset tax” that left him with almost nothing, according to Enderlein’s book.
“My grandfather lost everything he worked for, and then died in a camp,” said 60-year-old Roberto Graetz, owner of a wholesaler in sporting goods in Buenos Aires. “My family first started trying to get these paintings back in 1946, after the war. The decision is good for us, for my children and my children’s children.”
Argentine Escape
Robert Graetz’s daughter, Hilda Rush, emigrated to South Africa in 1935 and his son, Hellmuth Graetz — Roberto Graetz’s father — fled to Buenos Aires in December 1939. Though Robert Graetz and his second wife sent her 14-year-old son to London in 1939, they both remained in Berlin until they were deported.
Nothing is known of the whereabouts of the two Schmidt-Rottluff works from 1933, when they were definitely in Graetz’s possession, until 1953, the year they were sold by a former Berliner then living in Paris called Ernst Graetz, who was probably not related, according to a report commissioned by the Berlin regional government and obtained by Bloomberg News.
The Limbach commission last judged a Nazi-era art claim in January 2009. It can only be called if the claimant and the current holder of an artwork agree. This is its fifth recommendation since it was founded in 2003.
Israel Tries to Reunite Owners with Nazi-Looted Art
This is from July 2008... not quite sure why it showed up on my Nazi Art Alert today, but it did...
And its interesting.
From Art Info: Israel Tries to Reunite Owners with Nazi-Looted Art
Israel's national museum is showing two exhibitions of paintings stolen from museums and salons by the Nazis, the New York Times reports. One exhibition, “Looking for Owners: Custody, Research and Restitution of Art Stolen in France During World War II,” highlights works that were looted by the Nazis from France and returned after the war, some of which were neveer reclaimed, presumably because their rightful owners died during World War II, the Associated Press reports. The second show, “Orphaned Art: Looted Art From the Holocaust in the Israel Museum," highlights unclaimed looted art held in the custody of the museum, which is trying to reunite works from that exhibition with their rightful owners. The exhibitions include works by Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, and Georges Seurat.
Visitors who think they might be the rightful owner of a painting in "Orphaned Art" can submit a claim."Our feeling about them is that our job is to hold them in custody, in a way, as a kind of memorial to their loss, and when the opportunity arises to return a work we are happy to do so," said James Snyder, the Israel Museum's director.
An Israeli law that prevents the seizure of art temporarilyexhibited in Israel by those who claim to own it would bar Israelisfrom claiming works in "Looking for Owners."
Experts say somewhere between 250,000 and 600,000 artworks looted by the Nazis remain unclaimed and are in the possession of museums, governments, and private collectors all over the world.
And its interesting.
From Art Info: Israel Tries to Reunite Owners with Nazi-Looted Art
Israel's national museum is showing two exhibitions of paintings stolen from museums and salons by the Nazis, the New York Times reports. One exhibition, “Looking for Owners: Custody, Research and Restitution of Art Stolen in France During World War II,” highlights works that were looted by the Nazis from France and returned after the war, some of which were neveer reclaimed, presumably because their rightful owners died during World War II, the Associated Press reports. The second show, “Orphaned Art: Looted Art From the Holocaust in the Israel Museum," highlights unclaimed looted art held in the custody of the museum, which is trying to reunite works from that exhibition with their rightful owners. The exhibitions include works by Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, and Georges Seurat.
Visitors who think they might be the rightful owner of a painting in "Orphaned Art" can submit a claim."Our feeling about them is that our job is to hold them in custody, in a way, as a kind of memorial to their loss, and when the opportunity arises to return a work we are happy to do so," said James Snyder, the Israel Museum's director.
An Israeli law that prevents the seizure of art temporarilyexhibited in Israel by those who claim to own it would bar Israelisfrom claiming works in "Looking for Owners."
Experts say somewhere between 250,000 and 600,000 artworks looted by the Nazis remain unclaimed and are in the possession of museums, governments, and private collectors all over the world.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Image Comics Removes Swastikas from 'Glory' and 'Pigs' Art in Accordance with German Law
From Comics Alliance: Image Comics Removes Swastikas from 'Glory' and 'Pigs' Art in Accordance with German Law
"I have wanted a [comic I wrote] to be banned forever, so this is very much a dream come true," joked comics writer Joe Keatinge earlier this week, upon learning that Image Comics' Glory #23 will be censored in Germany -- kind of. More accurately, the December 2011 edition of Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews, the catalogue from which retailers around the world purchase new comics, will include Glory #23 artwork that's been modified to remove swastika imagery from a scene in which the titular heroine fights Nazis in a World War II flashback. Additionally, the cover art for Image's Pigs #6 -- featuring a character covered almost completely in bloody, swastika-shaped scars -- is also being censored for Previews, which is distributed in Germany.
The changes are being made in accordance with German law, which prohibits the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations," which naturally includes the Nazis. It's a law that has impacted comics on several occasions.
As pointed out by JK Parkin at Robot 6, the law in play here is a legacy of Denazification, a massive initiative put forth by the Allied Powers at the conclusion of World War II to remove not just certain personnel from positions of power and influence in Germany, but also to promote the erasure of Nazi symbols and propaganda -- like the swastika -- from German culture altogether. It is a broad and deeply fascinating subject that has run up against comic books a number of times, including instances having to do with Art Spiegelman's landmark holocaust graphic novel Maus. While obviously not a work of Nazi propaganda, copies of Maus and other material used to promote the book have occasionally been confiscated by German authorities. German comics blogger Subzero wrote about additional examples of Denazification in comics, such as a collection of Mike Mignola's B.P.R.D. 1946, whose cover artwork was modified in such a way that a swastika appeared to be a kind of square.
Also mentioned by Subzero is perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon, Blade of the Immortal. The very popular and long-running manga by Hiroaki Samura stars a character who wears a left-facing swastika -- sometimes called a sun wheel or sauwastika or manji -- which predates the Nazi version and for many cultures represents decidedly non-nefarious concepts such as peace and harmony. However, because Western editions of Japanese comics are frequently edited so as to be read from left to right, the symbol in Blade of the Immortal can easily become the Nazi swastika. Dark Horse reprints of the series do not use the mirror-imaging technique, but do come with an advisory explaining the provenance and context of the symbol and why the lead character wears it. German editions of Blade of the Immortal feature artwork modified so the symbol on the character's back looks like an "X".
Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson questions the value of this particular German law, as he explained in a blog post about the Pigs and Glory developments.
Swastika-laden images have been prohibited from appearing in publications sold in Germany for decades at this point. I'm not sure I understand what the point is, though. World War II did happen, and Nazis did exist. I understand not wanting to encourage modern day Neo-Nazi groups, but censorship isn't a particularly effective weapon against hate groups of any kind. Plus outlawing specific Nazi iconography seems strangely revisionist, as though it's best to just not acknowledge the impact that symbol had, or the evil associated with it.
There's an exception to the law by which works of "art, science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes" may not be censored, but it would seem that German authorities don't afford comic books that distinction.
With respect to Glory and Pigs, Stephenson told ComicsAlliance that no matter what, those Image titles will be released as intended. "We aren't removing these images from the comics themselves. We only edited them for Previews, otherwise Diamond would not run them," Stephenson explained via email. "The comics will be shipped as they were originally intended to be seen. If that means they're not sold in Germany, then they won't be sold in Germany."
"I have wanted a [comic I wrote] to be banned forever, so this is very much a dream come true," joked comics writer Joe Keatinge earlier this week, upon learning that Image Comics' Glory #23 will be censored in Germany -- kind of. More accurately, the December 2011 edition of Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews, the catalogue from which retailers around the world purchase new comics, will include Glory #23 artwork that's been modified to remove swastika imagery from a scene in which the titular heroine fights Nazis in a World War II flashback. Additionally, the cover art for Image's Pigs #6 -- featuring a character covered almost completely in bloody, swastika-shaped scars -- is also being censored for Previews, which is distributed in Germany.
The changes are being made in accordance with German law, which prohibits the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations," which naturally includes the Nazis. It's a law that has impacted comics on several occasions.
As pointed out by JK Parkin at Robot 6, the law in play here is a legacy of Denazification, a massive initiative put forth by the Allied Powers at the conclusion of World War II to remove not just certain personnel from positions of power and influence in Germany, but also to promote the erasure of Nazi symbols and propaganda -- like the swastika -- from German culture altogether. It is a broad and deeply fascinating subject that has run up against comic books a number of times, including instances having to do with Art Spiegelman's landmark holocaust graphic novel Maus. While obviously not a work of Nazi propaganda, copies of Maus and other material used to promote the book have occasionally been confiscated by German authorities. German comics blogger Subzero wrote about additional examples of Denazification in comics, such as a collection of Mike Mignola's B.P.R.D. 1946, whose cover artwork was modified in such a way that a swastika appeared to be a kind of square.
Also mentioned by Subzero is perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon, Blade of the Immortal. The very popular and long-running manga by Hiroaki Samura stars a character who wears a left-facing swastika -- sometimes called a sun wheel or sauwastika or manji -- which predates the Nazi version and for many cultures represents decidedly non-nefarious concepts such as peace and harmony. However, because Western editions of Japanese comics are frequently edited so as to be read from left to right, the symbol in Blade of the Immortal can easily become the Nazi swastika. Dark Horse reprints of the series do not use the mirror-imaging technique, but do come with an advisory explaining the provenance and context of the symbol and why the lead character wears it. German editions of Blade of the Immortal feature artwork modified so the symbol on the character's back looks like an "X".
Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson questions the value of this particular German law, as he explained in a blog post about the Pigs and Glory developments.
Swastika-laden images have been prohibited from appearing in publications sold in Germany for decades at this point. I'm not sure I understand what the point is, though. World War II did happen, and Nazis did exist. I understand not wanting to encourage modern day Neo-Nazi groups, but censorship isn't a particularly effective weapon against hate groups of any kind. Plus outlawing specific Nazi iconography seems strangely revisionist, as though it's best to just not acknowledge the impact that symbol had, or the evil associated with it.
There's an exception to the law by which works of "art, science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes" may not be censored, but it would seem that German authorities don't afford comic books that distinction.
With respect to Glory and Pigs, Stephenson told ComicsAlliance that no matter what, those Image titles will be released as intended. "We aren't removing these images from the comics themselves. We only edited them for Previews, otherwise Diamond would not run them," Stephenson explained via email. "The comics will be shipped as they were originally intended to be seen. If that means they're not sold in Germany, then they won't be sold in Germany."
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Hitler Art Sale Called Off
From The Jewish Daily, Forward: Hitler Art Sale Called Off
By Nathan Burstein
Wikimedia CommonsTo the relief of Sweden’s Jewish community, the sale of art allegedly painted by Adolf Hitler has been temporarily canceled — largely because the paintings may not truly have been the work of the Nazi dictator.
Swedish news site The Local reports that the paintings were to be auctioned off by Swedish debt collectors who were seeking to reclaim funds owed by Thomas Moller, a former head of the local Hells Angels. Moller says the works are worth 4 million kronor (a little more than $60,000), but their authenticity has been called into question, resulting in the canceled sale.
That’s good news to at least some local Jews, who protested the potential auction when it was first announced. “It is symbolically unfortunate that people earn money on these items,” David Lazar, a rabbi with the Jewish Community of Stockholm, told the Aftonbladet newspaper before the sale was called off.
The reprieve may be only temporary: Christer Davidsson, a representative of the debt collection group, said the agency “will decide” what to do with the seven paintings after receiving an evaluation by the police.
Hitler and the Nazi art archives
From The Christian Science Monitor: Hitler and the Nazi art archives
www.gdk-research.de
Hitler spent millions of dollars on his art collection. Every summer from 1937 to 1944 he sponsored the “Great German Art Exhibitions” in Munich to show the world how creative Germany was under his rule.
Photos of all the art pieces in the exhibitions, as well as information about who bought what, were put together into six massive volumes. But for six decades, those books have collected dust on the shelves of Munich’s Central Institute for Art History. Delving into the aesthetic inclinations of the Nazis was taboo.
But that changed recently when the archive was made available online at www.gdk-research.de. The online exhibit is the result of a collaboration between scientists at the Munich Art Institute, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the German Historical Museum in Berlin.
The online exhibit also shows what prominent Nazi officials bought.
www.gdk-research.de
Hitler spent millions of dollars on his art collection. Every summer from 1937 to 1944 he sponsored the “Great German Art Exhibitions” in Munich to show the world how creative Germany was under his rule.
Photos of all the art pieces in the exhibitions, as well as information about who bought what, were put together into six massive volumes. But for six decades, those books have collected dust on the shelves of Munich’s Central Institute for Art History. Delving into the aesthetic inclinations of the Nazis was taboo.
But that changed recently when the archive was made available online at www.gdk-research.de. The online exhibit is the result of a collaboration between scientists at the Munich Art Institute, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the German Historical Museum in Berlin.
The online exhibit also shows what prominent Nazi officials bought.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Looted painting fetches $40 million
From Montreal Gazette: Looted painting fetches $40 million
A prized landscape by painter Gustav Klimt that was stolen by the Nazis, then returned this year to the Montreal heir of its rightful owner, sold for $40.4 million on Wednesday (Nov 3, 2011) at Sotheby's auction house in New York.
Georges Jorisch, 83, of Montreal is the only surviving relative of Amalie Redlich, who owned the painting Litzlberg am Attersee (Litzlberg on the Attersee) before it was stolen in the Second World War. The Austrian government and officials of the museum where the painting was previously displayed said in April a portion of the money earned in the sale would go to Jorisch.
The painting depicts a pastoral scene of towering, wooded hills rising from water into a bright sky. It was stolen after the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and only returned this spring to Jorisch.
Art experts determined there was no doubt it was part of a collection belonging to Redlich that was looted by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Redlich and her daughter, Mathilde, were deported to Lodz, Poland, in 1941 and presumed executed. Mathilde's husband and son, Georges, had fled Vienna in 1938. When they returned after the war, all of Redlich's paintings were gone.
The painting was purchased by an art collector in Salzburg; it was later traded to the Salzburg state gallery, and in 1952 joined the inventory of the Salzburg Modern Art Museum.
This is the second time Jorisch and his legal team have successfully reclaimed a painting by Klimt.
In 2010, the Church of Cassone-Landscape with Cypresses was sold at Sotheby's for $45.4 million. That painting was also part of his grandmother's pilfered collection.
The painting resurfaced in 1962, loaned out for an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of Klimt's birth.
Jorisch split an undisclosed portion of the proceeds of the auction with the collector who owned the painting at the time.
Under a 1998 restitution law in Austria, the country has returned 10,000 Nazi-stolen paintings to the descendants of their former owners.
The estate of another Montrealer, Max Stern, owner of the Dominion Gallery, has also been successful in recovering stolen art.
Stern owned a gallery in Dusseldorf and fled because of anti-Semitism in 1937.
A prized landscape by painter Gustav Klimt that was stolen by the Nazis, then returned this year to the Montreal heir of its rightful owner, sold for $40.4 million on Wednesday (Nov 3, 2011) at Sotheby's auction house in New York.
Georges Jorisch, 83, of Montreal is the only surviving relative of Amalie Redlich, who owned the painting Litzlberg am Attersee (Litzlberg on the Attersee) before it was stolen in the Second World War. The Austrian government and officials of the museum where the painting was previously displayed said in April a portion of the money earned in the sale would go to Jorisch.
The painting depicts a pastoral scene of towering, wooded hills rising from water into a bright sky. It was stolen after the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and only returned this spring to Jorisch.
Art experts determined there was no doubt it was part of a collection belonging to Redlich that was looted by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Redlich and her daughter, Mathilde, were deported to Lodz, Poland, in 1941 and presumed executed. Mathilde's husband and son, Georges, had fled Vienna in 1938. When they returned after the war, all of Redlich's paintings were gone.
The painting was purchased by an art collector in Salzburg; it was later traded to the Salzburg state gallery, and in 1952 joined the inventory of the Salzburg Modern Art Museum.
This is the second time Jorisch and his legal team have successfully reclaimed a painting by Klimt.
In 2010, the Church of Cassone-Landscape with Cypresses was sold at Sotheby's for $45.4 million. That painting was also part of his grandmother's pilfered collection.
The painting resurfaced in 1962, loaned out for an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of Klimt's birth.
Jorisch split an undisclosed portion of the proceeds of the auction with the collector who owned the painting at the time.
Under a 1998 restitution law in Austria, the country has returned 10,000 Nazi-stolen paintings to the descendants of their former owners.
The estate of another Montrealer, Max Stern, owner of the Dominion Gallery, has also been successful in recovering stolen art.
Stern owned a gallery in Dusseldorf and fled because of anti-Semitism in 1937.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Lafayette hosts conference on Nazi-looted art
From ArtEconomist.com: Lafayette hosts conference on Nazi-looted art
Lafayette hosts conference on Nazi-looted art three-day, six-event conference explored multiple aspects of the field of art following World War II and the Holocaust—the genocide and thievery of not only 11 million lives, but also of countless paintings and other works of art. The conference took place October 26 to October 28.
Lafayette hosts conference on Nazi-looted art three-day, six-event conference explored multiple aspects of the field of art following World War II and the Holocaust—the genocide and thievery of not only 11 million lives, but also of countless paintings and other works of art. The conference took place October 26 to October 28.
Part 1- Nazi Art in the 21st Century
By Ryan McCormick
Having dedicated his studies and career to the field of plundered Nazi art and the struggle that still persists for these pieces to be brought back to their rightful owners, Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College Jonathan Pertropoulos is a leading authority on the topic. On October 27, he spoke at Lafayette in a lecture entitled “Nazi Art in the 21st Century.”
Pertropoulous’ lecture showed just how much we continue to be affected by World War II and the horrors of the Nazi reign in Germany. Through his lecture, he confirmed what we already knew: that World War II and its consequences were more than just a war; they were and continue to be a test of the human spirit. Pertropoulos’ study of the field dates back to his graduate school experience at Harvard University. There, Pertropoulos began to study the Nazi generals’ unusual interest in art. Their collections tended to be massive; each individual compilation could be worth millions of dollars. Hitler favored eastern European baroque works and had a collection of over 8,000 pieces—a large amount for one individual.
Pertropoulos was able to study hands on the patterns of the art looted by Hitler’s inner circle. He noticed that they tended to have similar artistic interests to their leader, creating a sort of odd unity amongst them. He theorized that looting art served as a way to further demoralize their victims. According to Pertropoulos, taking peoples’ art was like stealing a piece of their identities, and served to continue victims’ dehumanization.
Pertropoulos dedicated himself to tracking down still-missing artwork and returning the pieces to their rightful owners. The result of this search has led him across Europe, tracking clues and interviewing anyone who could possibly help his cause.
Going so far as meeting with former Nazi officers and their former mistresses, Pertropoulos has stopped at nothing to uncover the truth. Unfortunately, legal technicalities prevented many works from being brought back to their places of origin.
In the lecture, Pertropoulos noted that while steps were made to bring works back to their homes, there is still an overwhelming amount of work to be done.
“This has been my life’s work, and it will be my son’s life work, and after him, his son’s as well,” he said.
His knowledge and insight on the topic made for an informative lecture, well appreciated by his audience.
According to Rose Bayer ’14, “while it is extremely sad that some of these works have yet to be returned to their rightful owners, it is clear that there are many success stories. Hopefully we will continue to see more of that success.”
Part 2- Late Justice: Austria deals with Nazi-Looted Art
By Apratim Mukherjee
In 1997, the Austrian government received a letter drawing attention to the fact that both public museums and private collections all over Austria were in possession of a significant amount of Nazi-looted art. These items were under scrutiny not only because they were plundered, but also because they were never returned to their original owners after the end of the Holocaust.
“Austria was the one country which had most difficulties returning Nazi-looted art, especially to individual Jewish families,” said Lafayette’s Professor of International Affairs Rado Pribic. In a lecture on October 28, Pribic and Head of the Department for International Law at the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs Max Kade and Minister plenipotentiary Gregor Schusterschitz presented a lecture at Lafayette about the Austrian governments’ efforts to deal with the issue.
Shocked by the lack of documentation of Nazi-looted art, Schusterschitz encouraged the government to initiate further programs to return the art to their places of origin. Later the same year, the painting “Portrait of Wally,” by Egon Schiele, made national headlines when it was returned to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. The return strengthened the resolve of the Austrian government to ensure that as much of the Nazi-looted pieces of artwork still in Austria be returned to their origins.
Schusterschitz continued his research and found unsophisticated record-keeping systems in the early to mid 1900′s caused by a number of fraudulent claims of ownership. By the 1960s, there were almost 8,000 pieces of unclaimed artwork in Austria. In 1969 the Austrian government allowed the general public to file petitions to reclaim lost paintings, heavily advertised in newspapers and embassies around the globe. Despite the government’s best efforts, only about 150 of these 8,000 paintings were returned to their proper owners.
“Every looted object, whether a renowned work of art or a family photograph or piece of furniture, carries the weight of its history of ownership,” said Professor of Art History Diane Ahl.
By the end of the 1980′s, Austrian officials decided that the unclaimed art would be auctioned, with proceeds donated to the National Fund Team which assisted Holocaust victims and their families.
In 1998 a committee was founded in which all paintings within the Austrian border would be categorized to help determine where they came from and how they entered Austria.
Pribic put the issue in perspective. “The issue of looted art is globally and historically very pertinent,” he said. “Most countries have “looted art” in their museums and in private collections, like the British Museum, and even the U.S. involvement in Iraq raises questions about some of the sensitivities and treatment of art objects.”
Article source: http://www.thelaf.com/a-e/lafayette-hosts-conference-on-nazi-looted-art-1.2683682
US seizes Italian painting said to be stolen by Nazis
Jose Luis Aguirre, left, and Michelle Smith Grindberg carefully remove a more than 400-year-old Italian painting from the Brogan Museum and ready it for transport on Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, in Tallahassee, Fla.
From Dawn.com: US seizes Italian painting said to be stolen by Nazis
Jose Luis Aguirre, left, and Michelle Smith Grindberg carefully remove a more than 400-year-old Italian painting from the Brogan Museum and ready it for transport on Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, in Tallahassee, Fla. - AP Photo
MIAMI: US agents Friday seized from a Florida museum an Italian Renaissance painting which officials said was stolen from a Jewish family in France during World War II.
The Girolamo Romano work “Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rascal”was seized from the Mary Brogan Museum Of Art and Science in Tallahassee, according to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“The painting was seized through formal legal proceedings, to protect the art until its real ownership is finally confirmed,” an ICE statement said.
The painting, which dates to around 1538 from an artist also known as Il Romanino, depicts Christ, crowned with thorns and wearing a copper-colored silk robe, carrying the cross on his right shoulder while being dragged with a rope by a soldier.
It has been on display at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science since March 18, 2011, and was part of an exhibition of 50 paintings on loan from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Italy.
A US government complaint says evidence showed the painting is among many works of art and other valuable items taken in a forced sale from the estate of Federico Gentili di Giuseppe.
Gentili died in 1940 in Paris months before the Nazi army invaded France.
Gentili’s grandchildren have taken legal steps internationally to find and reclaim works illegally taken from their family during the Nazi occupation in one of many cases involving looted art from the period.
“It’s never too late to right a wrong,” ICE Director John Morton said.
“Many people know about the massive theft and illegal sale of precious art belonging to Jewish families during World War II. They should also know that today there is an international network of law enforcement agencies working diligently to correct these injustices”
Media reports said the painting was insured for $2.5 million and was purchased in 1998 by the Italian museum.
US Attorney Pamela Marsh said that under US law, the painting cannot be returned to Italy until the ownership disputes are resolved.
“Our interest is strictly to follow the law and safeguard this work until the courts determine rightful ownership,” she said. “Through this process, all rightful claimants may be heard, and we can rest assured that justice will be done for all parties involved in the dispute.”
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Helly Nahmad Gallery Sued Over Allegedly Nazi-Looted Modigliani
From ArtInfo: Helly Nahmad Gallery Sued Over Allegedly Nazi-Looted Modigliani
The grandson of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner has filed suit against New York’s Helly Nahmad Gallery over the rightful ownership of a painting by Amedeo Modigliani, according to Courthouse News. Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci, alleges the Nazis left the painting, “Seated Man With a Cane” (1918), in the care of a man named Marcel Philippon in 1939 after the Jewish art dealer fled France in fear of persecution. Maestracci, Stettiner’s sole living heir, argues the painting was sold under duress. He describes his suit against Helly Nahmad as part of a “reasonable and diligent” effort to void unauthorized sales of art works that belonged to his grandfather, who died in 1948.
According to Maestracci, the sale of the Modigliani painting stemmed from a “practice and policy of despoiling Jewish families of property located in the occupied zone by forced sales.” He first discovered the painting in a Sotheby’s catalogue in 2008, where it was consigned for sale by the Helly Nahmad Gallery.
The grandson of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner has filed suit against New York’s Helly Nahmad Gallery over the rightful ownership of a painting by Amedeo Modigliani, according to Courthouse News. Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci, alleges the Nazis left the painting, “Seated Man With a Cane” (1918), in the care of a man named Marcel Philippon in 1939 after the Jewish art dealer fled France in fear of persecution. Maestracci, Stettiner’s sole living heir, argues the painting was sold under duress. He describes his suit against Helly Nahmad as part of a “reasonable and diligent” effort to void unauthorized sales of art works that belonged to his grandfather, who died in 1948.
According to Maestracci, the sale of the Modigliani painting stemmed from a “practice and policy of despoiling Jewish families of property located in the occupied zone by forced sales.” He first discovered the painting in a Sotheby’s catalogue in 2008, where it was consigned for sale by the Helly Nahmad Gallery.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
German casino returns valuable painting
The Canadian Jewish News: German casino returns valuable painting
MONTREAL — A German casino has returned a Nazi-looted painting to the university heirs of the estate of the German-Jewish Montreal art dealer Max Stern.
Representatives of Concordia University, acting on behalf of the executors of the estate and its two other main beneficiaries, McGill University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, were in the Netherlands Oct. 25 for the unveiling of the Dutch Old Master oil that has been restituted by the unidentified German company.
The return of The Masters of the Goldsmith Guild in Amsterdam in 1701 by Juriaen Pool II (1665-1745) took place at the Amsterdam Museum. The work is valued at close to $1 million.
The Pool painting is the ninth work that Stern was forced to sell by the Nazis to be returned to the university heirs. It’s the first recovered from a German owner.
Stern (1904-1987) was forced to dissolve his Düsseldorf art gallery during the Nazi period. In the early 1940s, he settled in Montreal, where, as owner of the Dominion Gallery, he became one of the country’s most important art dealers and collectors.
The location for the Oct. 25 ceremony was significant, as the Dutch museum just opened a children’s wing in a space that was once occupied by the orphanage in which Pool, a leading figure in what is known as the Dutch Golden Age, was raised.
Pool married Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), one of the most prominent female artists of the time. The couple became court painters to the Elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm. Since 2005, Concordia has led an international search for some 250 paintings Stern had to liquidate under duress for prices well below their value, before fleeing Germany in 1937.
Clarence Epstein, who heads the restitution project, said it was learned that this large-scale depiction of some of Amsterdam’s most important citizens had been with the Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf as late as 1937, when it moved to the Galerie Heinemann in Wiesbaden.
After World War II, it was acquired by a casino in southern Germany, where it has been ever since.
The 6-1/2-by-5-foot painting shows five distinguished-looking gentleman sitting around a table on which some of their wares are being displayed.
In 2004, the auction house Sotheby’s contacted the Stern estate regarding the status of the painting. Six years of research ensued, resulting in the discovery of key archival records in the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD). The Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO) of New York State’s department of financial services was instrumental in pressing the case for the painting’s restitution.
“We are extremely grateful to all the important stakeholders — the HCPO, the RKD and Sotheby’s — who were critical to the restitution of this work from a German corporate collection,” said Concordia president Frederick Lowy.
MONTREAL — A German casino has returned a Nazi-looted painting to the university heirs of the estate of the German-Jewish Montreal art dealer Max Stern.
Representatives of Concordia University, acting on behalf of the executors of the estate and its two other main beneficiaries, McGill University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, were in the Netherlands Oct. 25 for the unveiling of the Dutch Old Master oil that has been restituted by the unidentified German company.
The return of The Masters of the Goldsmith Guild in Amsterdam in 1701 by Juriaen Pool II (1665-1745) took place at the Amsterdam Museum. The work is valued at close to $1 million.
The Pool painting is the ninth work that Stern was forced to sell by the Nazis to be returned to the university heirs. It’s the first recovered from a German owner.
Stern (1904-1987) was forced to dissolve his Düsseldorf art gallery during the Nazi period. In the early 1940s, he settled in Montreal, where, as owner of the Dominion Gallery, he became one of the country’s most important art dealers and collectors.
The location for the Oct. 25 ceremony was significant, as the Dutch museum just opened a children’s wing in a space that was once occupied by the orphanage in which Pool, a leading figure in what is known as the Dutch Golden Age, was raised.
Pool married Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), one of the most prominent female artists of the time. The couple became court painters to the Elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm. Since 2005, Concordia has led an international search for some 250 paintings Stern had to liquidate under duress for prices well below their value, before fleeing Germany in 1937.
Clarence Epstein, who heads the restitution project, said it was learned that this large-scale depiction of some of Amsterdam’s most important citizens had been with the Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf as late as 1937, when it moved to the Galerie Heinemann in Wiesbaden.
After World War II, it was acquired by a casino in southern Germany, where it has been ever since.
The 6-1/2-by-5-foot painting shows five distinguished-looking gentleman sitting around a table on which some of their wares are being displayed.
In 2004, the auction house Sotheby’s contacted the Stern estate regarding the status of the painting. Six years of research ensued, resulting in the discovery of key archival records in the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD). The Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO) of New York State’s department of financial services was instrumental in pressing the case for the painting’s restitution.
“We are extremely grateful to all the important stakeholders — the HCPO, the RKD and Sotheby’s — who were critical to the restitution of this work from a German corporate collection,” said Concordia president Frederick Lowy.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
High life ends for couple who conned art world
From New Zealand Herald.com: High life ends for couple who conned art world
They look more like old hippies than the couple who conned the art world out of an estimated €30 million ($52.4 million). He sports worn jeans, a greying blond mane of shoulder-length hair, a moustache and a beard. Under the unforgiving neon lights of the Cologne courtroom, 60-year-old Wolfgang Beltracchi looks like a bizarre cross between Frank Zappa and King Charles the First.
Helene Beltracchi, his 53-year-old wife and accomplice, dresses in long flowing robes and her hair cascades to her waist in thick tresses. Before each court session, the two embrace passionately in front of the public and press.
Several German newspapers have described the couple as "highly sympathetic" despite the enormity of their crimes: Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi have admitted to masterminding the biggest art forgery scandal in German - if not global - history. With Helene Beltracchi's sister, Jeanette Spurzem, and logistical expert Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus, they face charges of systematically duping the art world over 14 years.
The four are expected to be sentenced for their crimes today. They have confessed to supplying top auction houses, including Sotheby's and Christie's, with scores of forged paintings.
They claimed they were undiscovered works by famous early 20th century artists such as the German Expressionists Max Ernst, Max Pechstein and Heinrich Campendonk. Their victims included the American comedian Steve Martin, who was duped into paying about US$800,000 ($1 million) for a supposed Campendonk painting called Landscape with Horses.
Wolfgang Beltracchi, the promising art student from the north-western provincial town of Geilenkirchen, was the master forger.
Many of the 53 works the Beltracchis sold to art houses fetched over €500,000 apiece. The Beltracchis are believed to have enriched themselves to the tune of €16 million.
They spent their fortune on building an opulent villa in the southern German town of Freiburg and on lavishly restoring the country estate they acquired in southwest France. Neighbours said they were shocked by the couple's obsession with their wealth. The Beltracchis spent up to €17,000 a month on shopping, hotels and travel alone.
But, these days, Wolfgang Beltracchi sucks sweets in the Cologne court where the four have been on trial since the beginning of September. He even shares the occasional joke with the presiding judge.
The couple and their accomplices have cut a deal with Germany's justice authorities.
They have confessed to everything. In return they have been promised jail terms likely to amount to six years for Wolfgang Beltracchi and four for Helene. The others will probably get away with suspended jail terms. If the Beltracchis are lucky they will be allowed to work outside prison by day and spend only nights in a cell.
At their trial, the Beltracchis have even accused the world's art houses of themselves being consumed by "greed and depravity" in their relentless pursuit of sensational works capable of fetching sensational prices.
Yet their 14 years of meticulously planned deception are certain to go down as one of the biggest and most elaborate art frauds ever recorded. The Beltracchis started putting their expert forgeries on the market in 1995.
Helene Beltracchi managed to hoodwink the art world into believing she had been left the works by her grandfather Werner Jagers. She claimed he had bought them at the beginning of the Nazi era from the renowned Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim.
The couple went to extraordinary lengths to make their bogus claims appear convincing. Helene Beltracchi had herself photographed by her husband with her hair up, clad in a sombre black dress and pearls in front of several of the Jagers Collection paintings.
The black-and-white photograph was slightly out of focus and printed on pre-war developing paper.
Helene Beltracchi's impersonation of her grandmother, Josefine Jagers, took in all the art dealers and served as indisputable proof of the authenticity of the collection. "It was great fun," Wolfgang Beltracchi told judges.
To dupe prospective buyers, the Beltracchis bought up pre-war canvases which were then carefully sanded down and made ready for forgeries expertly applied, often with the help of a slide projector. The trick was made easier thanks to experts like Werner Spies, a celebrated Max Ernst authority and former director of the Pompidou arts centre in Paris.
Spies, who admits to having been wholly gullible, appears to have been completely taken in by the paintings and even vouched for their authenticity. In fact, the Jagers Collection never existed. Werner Jagers was a member of the Nazi party who had no interest in art. He made his money in the construction industry and died in 1992. Helene Beltracchi is the daughter of a lorry driver.
Wolfgang Beltracchi grew up as Wolfgang Fischer, later adopting his wife's surname. His father made a living out of restoring church paintings. He was a gifted art student but never completed his studies. His attempts to become an art dealer were also a failure.
"For years I lived on sex, drugs and rock'n'roll," he claimed at his trial. But his life changed dramatically when he met Helene Beltracchi.
Her background was working class. Her mother gave her money to buy books and told her that she would "make it" even without a proper education. Both appear to have had high aspirations which were frustrated.
The Beltracchis' elaborate con trick began to unravel in 2006 after the Lempertz auction house in Cologne was offered a painting by Helene Beltracchi's sister which was conclusively proven to be a forgery. The work, named Red Picture with Horses, was supposed to have been painted by Heinrich Campendonk.
The painting was sold to the Maltese company Trasteco at auction for €2.9 million. But Trasteco became suspicious and commissioned two art historians to investigate. Their findings led to scientific analysis of the paint. It found that the painting contained a colour which did not exist in 1914 when the work was said to have been completed.
Police arrested the Beltracchis in August last year as they were leaving their luxury villa to go out to dinner. Their two homes are now being sold and Wolfgang Beltracchi claims the €1 million remaining in his Swiss bank account has since been handed to the court authorities. But Wolfgang Beltracchi now apparently hopes the publicity from his trial may help him to further his own future career as an artist after jail.
As the presiding judge in Cologne revealed last week: "To clear up any confusion, Mr Beltracchi has agreed to take back all his forgeries and return them to their owners signed - this time - with his own name."
They look more like old hippies than the couple who conned the art world out of an estimated €30 million ($52.4 million). He sports worn jeans, a greying blond mane of shoulder-length hair, a moustache and a beard. Under the unforgiving neon lights of the Cologne courtroom, 60-year-old Wolfgang Beltracchi looks like a bizarre cross between Frank Zappa and King Charles the First.
Helene Beltracchi, his 53-year-old wife and accomplice, dresses in long flowing robes and her hair cascades to her waist in thick tresses. Before each court session, the two embrace passionately in front of the public and press.
Several German newspapers have described the couple as "highly sympathetic" despite the enormity of their crimes: Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi have admitted to masterminding the biggest art forgery scandal in German - if not global - history. With Helene Beltracchi's sister, Jeanette Spurzem, and logistical expert Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus, they face charges of systematically duping the art world over 14 years.
The four are expected to be sentenced for their crimes today. They have confessed to supplying top auction houses, including Sotheby's and Christie's, with scores of forged paintings.
They claimed they were undiscovered works by famous early 20th century artists such as the German Expressionists Max Ernst, Max Pechstein and Heinrich Campendonk. Their victims included the American comedian Steve Martin, who was duped into paying about US$800,000 ($1 million) for a supposed Campendonk painting called Landscape with Horses.
Wolfgang Beltracchi, the promising art student from the north-western provincial town of Geilenkirchen, was the master forger.
Many of the 53 works the Beltracchis sold to art houses fetched over €500,000 apiece. The Beltracchis are believed to have enriched themselves to the tune of €16 million.
They spent their fortune on building an opulent villa in the southern German town of Freiburg and on lavishly restoring the country estate they acquired in southwest France. Neighbours said they were shocked by the couple's obsession with their wealth. The Beltracchis spent up to €17,000 a month on shopping, hotels and travel alone.
But, these days, Wolfgang Beltracchi sucks sweets in the Cologne court where the four have been on trial since the beginning of September. He even shares the occasional joke with the presiding judge.
The couple and their accomplices have cut a deal with Germany's justice authorities.
They have confessed to everything. In return they have been promised jail terms likely to amount to six years for Wolfgang Beltracchi and four for Helene. The others will probably get away with suspended jail terms. If the Beltracchis are lucky they will be allowed to work outside prison by day and spend only nights in a cell.
At their trial, the Beltracchis have even accused the world's art houses of themselves being consumed by "greed and depravity" in their relentless pursuit of sensational works capable of fetching sensational prices.
Yet their 14 years of meticulously planned deception are certain to go down as one of the biggest and most elaborate art frauds ever recorded. The Beltracchis started putting their expert forgeries on the market in 1995.
Helene Beltracchi managed to hoodwink the art world into believing she had been left the works by her grandfather Werner Jagers. She claimed he had bought them at the beginning of the Nazi era from the renowned Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim.
The couple went to extraordinary lengths to make their bogus claims appear convincing. Helene Beltracchi had herself photographed by her husband with her hair up, clad in a sombre black dress and pearls in front of several of the Jagers Collection paintings.
The black-and-white photograph was slightly out of focus and printed on pre-war developing paper.
Helene Beltracchi's impersonation of her grandmother, Josefine Jagers, took in all the art dealers and served as indisputable proof of the authenticity of the collection. "It was great fun," Wolfgang Beltracchi told judges.
To dupe prospective buyers, the Beltracchis bought up pre-war canvases which were then carefully sanded down and made ready for forgeries expertly applied, often with the help of a slide projector. The trick was made easier thanks to experts like Werner Spies, a celebrated Max Ernst authority and former director of the Pompidou arts centre in Paris.
Spies, who admits to having been wholly gullible, appears to have been completely taken in by the paintings and even vouched for their authenticity. In fact, the Jagers Collection never existed. Werner Jagers was a member of the Nazi party who had no interest in art. He made his money in the construction industry and died in 1992. Helene Beltracchi is the daughter of a lorry driver.
Wolfgang Beltracchi grew up as Wolfgang Fischer, later adopting his wife's surname. His father made a living out of restoring church paintings. He was a gifted art student but never completed his studies. His attempts to become an art dealer were also a failure.
"For years I lived on sex, drugs and rock'n'roll," he claimed at his trial. But his life changed dramatically when he met Helene Beltracchi.
Her background was working class. Her mother gave her money to buy books and told her that she would "make it" even without a proper education. Both appear to have had high aspirations which were frustrated.
The Beltracchis' elaborate con trick began to unravel in 2006 after the Lempertz auction house in Cologne was offered a painting by Helene Beltracchi's sister which was conclusively proven to be a forgery. The work, named Red Picture with Horses, was supposed to have been painted by Heinrich Campendonk.
The painting was sold to the Maltese company Trasteco at auction for €2.9 million. But Trasteco became suspicious and commissioned two art historians to investigate. Their findings led to scientific analysis of the paint. It found that the painting contained a colour which did not exist in 1914 when the work was said to have been completed.
Police arrested the Beltracchis in August last year as they were leaving their luxury villa to go out to dinner. Their two homes are now being sold and Wolfgang Beltracchi claims the €1 million remaining in his Swiss bank account has since been handed to the court authorities. But Wolfgang Beltracchi now apparently hopes the publicity from his trial may help him to further his own future career as an artist after jail.
As the presiding judge in Cologne revealed last week: "To clear up any confusion, Mr Beltracchi has agreed to take back all his forgeries and return them to their owners signed - this time - with his own name."
Friday, October 28, 2011
Painting stolen by Nazis returned to Montrealer’s estate
From The Globe and Mail: Painting stolen by Nazis returned to Montrealer’s estate
An 18th-century Dutch painting that once belonged to the prominent German-Canadian art dealer Max Stern has been returned to the dealer’s estate after being in the possession of a casino in southern Germany for many decades.
The Masters of the Goldsmith Guild in Amsterdam in 1701 by portrait painter Juriaen Pool II (1664-1750) is one of an estimated 400 art works Stern was forced to de-accession from his collection by the Nazis before the Second World War.
Stern, who died in 1987, eventually settled in Montreal in 1941; in 1947 he became the owner of the prestigious Dominion Gallery. His estate and its three university beneficiaries (Montreal’s Concordia and McGill Universities and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University) have been working to recover Nazi-looted work for the estate since 2004.
A restitution ceremony for the Pool – a large oil of some of Amsterdam’s most prominent citizens – was held Tuesday at the Amsterdam Museum.
It’s the ninth Nazi-plundered art work to be recovered on behalf of the estate.
Samuel Beckett's Letters Reveal Roots of Resistance
From The Jewish Daily: Samuel Beckett's Letters Reveal Roots of Resistance
Although Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett is known for his tragicomically inert characters, he himself was an anti-Nazi activist during World War II. Unlike the ever-absent Godot, the bedridden vagrant protagonist of his novel “Molloy” or the despairing characters in his play “Endgame” who lack legs and the ability to stand, Beckett — though painfully shy and prone to melancholy — was a dynamic member of the French Résistance. His surprising wartime actions are detailed, if not fully explained, in the 2004 biography from Grove Press, “Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett” by James Knowlson.
Virtuous Man: A new book of letters sheds light on Samuel Beckett’s bravery in the face of Nazism.
John Haynes
Virtuous Man: A new book of letters sheds light on Samuel Beckett’s bravery in the face of Nazism.
Like his mentor, James Joyce, Beckett was unusually philo-Semitic among European modernist writers, and he joined the Résistance, Knowlson notes, soon after Joyce’s Jewish friend and amanuensis, Paul Léon, was arrested in Paris (Léon would later be murdered in Auschwitz). A fuller understanding of Beckett’s motivation for his pro-Jewish and anti-Nazi activism had to wait until two new books appeared.
Taking us from wartime to the early part of the author’s great achievements, Cambridge University Press has just published “The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 2, 1941–1956” following the first volume in 2009. This adds to insight gleaned from “Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936–1937,” released in June by Continuum. Author Mark Nixon, analyzing still-unpublished journals by Beckett, describes the latter’s reactions to a sojourn in Germany intended to improve his grasp of the language and knowledge of the visual arts.
Together, these books underline how profound Beckett’s ties were with the Jewish people. Some literary studies have suggested how, as Irish writers in self-imposed exile, Beckett and Joyce identified intellectually with Jews as people of the Diaspora. Moreover, “otherness,” a sense of apartness and singularity, was a motivating force in both writers’ work, as explored in such studies as Marilyn Reizbaum’s “James Joyce’s Judaic Other” (1999) from Stanford University Press. Yet Beckett’s attraction to Jewishness was more than just metaphoric otherness — it was inspired by family unity.
Beckett’s beloved Aunt Cissie married a Jewish art dealer, William Abraham Sinclair, known as “Boss.” Following Boss’s death, in 1937, his brother Harry Sinclair sued a Dublin writer, Oliver St. John Gogarty, for libel after passages in a book referred to him and Boss as “Two Jews in Sackville Street” and to their grandfather as an “old usurer.” Beckett, quiet and retiring by nature, made a special trip to Dublin from Paris, where he was by then based, to testify on behalf of the plaintiffs. Beckett was fond of Sinclair, and writes to a friend about Boss, “His last words to me were an apology for his poor company.” Beckett added in a letter to a friend, condemning St. John Gogarty and idle bystanders alike, “There are limits to scurrility, & to cynical laissez-faire.”
This moral statement marks an emotional turning point in Beckett’s life. He took a strong public stance, contrary to his own withdrawn and diffident nature, soon after his first exposure, in 1936, to Nazi Germany. Writing from Hamburg to a friend, he noted: “All the lavatory men say ‘Heil Hitler.’” The diaries that Beckett kept during this tour contain “numerous references to people being ‘appallingly Nazi,’” according to Nixon, who quotes Beckett on Third Reich ideology: “The expressions ‘historical necessity’ & ‘Germanic destiny’ start the vomit moving upwards.”
On the contrary, Beckett was drawn to Germany’s Jews, such as the eminent Polish-born art historian Rosa Schapire, who would escape to England in 1939. With typical prescience, Beckett wrote to Irish poet Thomas McGreevy in 1937 that the Nazi “campaign against ‘Art-Bolschevism’ is only just beginning.” To see the paintings of the once acclaimed German-Jewish modernist painter Max Liebermann, Beckett had to obtain permission to visit the Museum of Hamburg basement where they were then hidden from view. As the author of a 1930 book on Marcel Proust, Beckett was surprised to meet a German doctoral candidate who, despite the political situation, was carrying on with a thesis about Proust: “There is something magnificent in doing a doctorate in 1936 with a work on not merely an ‘exquisite,’ but a non-Aryan.”
With a firm understanding of his own historical moment, and a reinforced sense of intellectual courage, Beckett was already prepared for the call to join the Résistance when it came a scant few years later. Back in France after his German experiences, Beckett frequented such friends as the Irish-Jewish critic and scholar Abraham Jacob Leventhal, known as “Con,” and the English poet Lazarus Aaronson.
In 1938 he wrote to a friend and fellow philo-Semite, Arland Ussher, author of “The Magic People: an Irishman Appraises the Jews” (1951). The book likens Ireland to Israel for having a “sense of some special destiny, which enables her to bear her discomfitures with fatalism and secret pride” and praises Jews for holding firm to the belief that “tachlis (purpose) and not tragedy… is the meaning of life.” Beckett informed Ussher of a lunch in a London restaurant with a group that included the “green-foaming” Irish doctor, Edward Morrison, whose “rather anti-Semitic” comments made Beckett flee.
In 1938, although living in penury, Beckett purchased a canvas by Polish-Jewish artist Jankel Adler, whose work he praised for its “beginnings of a delectatio morosa” (morose delight, high praise in Beckettian terms). After the Nazi invasion of France, Beckett would risk his life by translating into English information obtained by Résistance spies so that it could be microfilmed and smuggled into England. In 1942, after members of his Résistance group were arrested — some would be murdered — Beckett and his wife, Suzanne, fled to the Vaucluse department in southeast France, ostensibly a free zone. Yet once there, as he wrote to a member of the Irish Legation in Vichy, local officials couldn’t “believe that I can be called Samuel and am not a Jew.”
After the war, it was only natural that Beckett’s longtime publishers, Jérôme Lindon of Les Editions de Minuit in Paris and Barney Rosset of Grove Press, in New York, would be of Jewish origin. One of Beckett’s most congenial relationships with a director of his plays was with the American Alan Schneider, born Abram Leopoldovich Schneider to a Russian Jewish family in Kharkov. Among Beckett’s most inspiring postwar friendships was the one with Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha, of Romanian Jewish origin whom he met in 1956.These Jewish literary and artistic personalities helped enable Beckett’s creative vision to be realized.
Modern Jewish creativity also intrigued Beckett, as in 1949, when he reported to McGreevy that he had just heard a Paris performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Quintet for Intestines, presented by the indefatigable dodecaphonist [René] Leibowitz. Suzanne loathed it. I was very interested.” The entangled melodic lines as conducted by the modernist 12-tone composer Leibowitz intrigued the gut-obsessed Beckett.
Overall, these “Letters,” more than just presenting a masterful French writer — the original language of many of these missives — give the impression of Beckett’s inherent virtue, as Lindon wrote in a 1967 tribute, his “nobility and modesty, lucidity and goodness… so real, so truly great, and so good.”
Although Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett is known for his tragicomically inert characters, he himself was an anti-Nazi activist during World War II. Unlike the ever-absent Godot, the bedridden vagrant protagonist of his novel “Molloy” or the despairing characters in his play “Endgame” who lack legs and the ability to stand, Beckett — though painfully shy and prone to melancholy — was a dynamic member of the French Résistance. His surprising wartime actions are detailed, if not fully explained, in the 2004 biography from Grove Press, “Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett” by James Knowlson.
Virtuous Man: A new book of letters sheds light on Samuel Beckett’s bravery in the face of Nazism.
John Haynes
Virtuous Man: A new book of letters sheds light on Samuel Beckett’s bravery in the face of Nazism.
Like his mentor, James Joyce, Beckett was unusually philo-Semitic among European modernist writers, and he joined the Résistance, Knowlson notes, soon after Joyce’s Jewish friend and amanuensis, Paul Léon, was arrested in Paris (Léon would later be murdered in Auschwitz). A fuller understanding of Beckett’s motivation for his pro-Jewish and anti-Nazi activism had to wait until two new books appeared.
Taking us from wartime to the early part of the author’s great achievements, Cambridge University Press has just published “The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 2, 1941–1956” following the first volume in 2009. This adds to insight gleaned from “Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936–1937,” released in June by Continuum. Author Mark Nixon, analyzing still-unpublished journals by Beckett, describes the latter’s reactions to a sojourn in Germany intended to improve his grasp of the language and knowledge of the visual arts.
Together, these books underline how profound Beckett’s ties were with the Jewish people. Some literary studies have suggested how, as Irish writers in self-imposed exile, Beckett and Joyce identified intellectually with Jews as people of the Diaspora. Moreover, “otherness,” a sense of apartness and singularity, was a motivating force in both writers’ work, as explored in such studies as Marilyn Reizbaum’s “James Joyce’s Judaic Other” (1999) from Stanford University Press. Yet Beckett’s attraction to Jewishness was more than just metaphoric otherness — it was inspired by family unity.
Beckett’s beloved Aunt Cissie married a Jewish art dealer, William Abraham Sinclair, known as “Boss.” Following Boss’s death, in 1937, his brother Harry Sinclair sued a Dublin writer, Oliver St. John Gogarty, for libel after passages in a book referred to him and Boss as “Two Jews in Sackville Street” and to their grandfather as an “old usurer.” Beckett, quiet and retiring by nature, made a special trip to Dublin from Paris, where he was by then based, to testify on behalf of the plaintiffs. Beckett was fond of Sinclair, and writes to a friend about Boss, “His last words to me were an apology for his poor company.” Beckett added in a letter to a friend, condemning St. John Gogarty and idle bystanders alike, “There are limits to scurrility, & to cynical laissez-faire.”
This moral statement marks an emotional turning point in Beckett’s life. He took a strong public stance, contrary to his own withdrawn and diffident nature, soon after his first exposure, in 1936, to Nazi Germany. Writing from Hamburg to a friend, he noted: “All the lavatory men say ‘Heil Hitler.’” The diaries that Beckett kept during this tour contain “numerous references to people being ‘appallingly Nazi,’” according to Nixon, who quotes Beckett on Third Reich ideology: “The expressions ‘historical necessity’ & ‘Germanic destiny’ start the vomit moving upwards.”
On the contrary, Beckett was drawn to Germany’s Jews, such as the eminent Polish-born art historian Rosa Schapire, who would escape to England in 1939. With typical prescience, Beckett wrote to Irish poet Thomas McGreevy in 1937 that the Nazi “campaign against ‘Art-Bolschevism’ is only just beginning.” To see the paintings of the once acclaimed German-Jewish modernist painter Max Liebermann, Beckett had to obtain permission to visit the Museum of Hamburg basement where they were then hidden from view. As the author of a 1930 book on Marcel Proust, Beckett was surprised to meet a German doctoral candidate who, despite the political situation, was carrying on with a thesis about Proust: “There is something magnificent in doing a doctorate in 1936 with a work on not merely an ‘exquisite,’ but a non-Aryan.”
With a firm understanding of his own historical moment, and a reinforced sense of intellectual courage, Beckett was already prepared for the call to join the Résistance when it came a scant few years later. Back in France after his German experiences, Beckett frequented such friends as the Irish-Jewish critic and scholar Abraham Jacob Leventhal, known as “Con,” and the English poet Lazarus Aaronson.
In 1938 he wrote to a friend and fellow philo-Semite, Arland Ussher, author of “The Magic People: an Irishman Appraises the Jews” (1951). The book likens Ireland to Israel for having a “sense of some special destiny, which enables her to bear her discomfitures with fatalism and secret pride” and praises Jews for holding firm to the belief that “tachlis (purpose) and not tragedy… is the meaning of life.” Beckett informed Ussher of a lunch in a London restaurant with a group that included the “green-foaming” Irish doctor, Edward Morrison, whose “rather anti-Semitic” comments made Beckett flee.
In 1938, although living in penury, Beckett purchased a canvas by Polish-Jewish artist Jankel Adler, whose work he praised for its “beginnings of a delectatio morosa” (morose delight, high praise in Beckettian terms). After the Nazi invasion of France, Beckett would risk his life by translating into English information obtained by Résistance spies so that it could be microfilmed and smuggled into England. In 1942, after members of his Résistance group were arrested — some would be murdered — Beckett and his wife, Suzanne, fled to the Vaucluse department in southeast France, ostensibly a free zone. Yet once there, as he wrote to a member of the Irish Legation in Vichy, local officials couldn’t “believe that I can be called Samuel and am not a Jew.”
After the war, it was only natural that Beckett’s longtime publishers, Jérôme Lindon of Les Editions de Minuit in Paris and Barney Rosset of Grove Press, in New York, would be of Jewish origin. One of Beckett’s most congenial relationships with a director of his plays was with the American Alan Schneider, born Abram Leopoldovich Schneider to a Russian Jewish family in Kharkov. Among Beckett’s most inspiring postwar friendships was the one with Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha, of Romanian Jewish origin whom he met in 1956.These Jewish literary and artistic personalities helped enable Beckett’s creative vision to be realized.
Modern Jewish creativity also intrigued Beckett, as in 1949, when he reported to McGreevy that he had just heard a Paris performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Quintet for Intestines, presented by the indefatigable dodecaphonist [René] Leibowitz. Suzanne loathed it. I was very interested.” The entangled melodic lines as conducted by the modernist 12-tone composer Leibowitz intrigued the gut-obsessed Beckett.
Overall, these “Letters,” more than just presenting a masterful French writer — the original language of many of these missives — give the impression of Beckett’s inherent virtue, as Lindon wrote in a 1967 tribute, his “nobility and modesty, lucidity and goodness… so real, so truly great, and so good.”
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
German project returns to Jews books stolen by Nazis
From Monsters and Critics: German project returns to Jews books stolen by Nazis
Leipzig, Germany - A team in the German city of Leipzig has scoured the local university library, going through endless obscure records to return books stolen by the Nazis to their rightful heirs.
Germany's 1933-45 Nazi regime not only plundered art and other valuables from Jews, but also books.
Searching for books seized by the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) proved hard work, explains librarian Cordula Reuss, who heads the project in Leipzig.
For more than two years, the librarian deciphered faded handwritten lists, went through boxes of indexes and examined thousands of books dating back to the pre-1945 period.
Reuss knows her way around the winding corridors of the Biblioteca Albertina, as Leipzig University library is called.
She stops at one of the many archives, yanks the handle of the sliding shelves, and takes out a book.
The first page bears a stamp reading 'Institutum Judaicum Leipzig.' This volume was confiscated by the Gestapo during Adolf Hitler's rule and ended up here shortly after World War II.
'We found in our archives a total of 3,409 books that had been seized illegally from institutions or private libraries run by Jews or resistance fighters during the Nazi era,' Reuss says.
The Nazi-Looted Assets Project aims to return the largest possible number of the works to heirs or their legal successors.
Reuss and her team of two had to do true detective work at first, as the Gestapo book records were often obscure.
'Frequently, the title of the book had not been entered, but they had written things like, 'A bundle of 172 Marxist brochures',' Reuss explains.
The researchers were luckier with books classified as 'banned and damaging literature,' which had been documented more thoroughly on extra lists by police.
A total of 81 different institutions or persons have now been identified as the legal owners of some of the books in the library.
Research into the origins of property stolen from Jews has been carried out more intensively since the 1998 Washington Declaration. In that document, Germany and 43 other nations agreed to identify in their collections art works and other assets confiscated by the Nazis and to restitute them to their rightful owners.
The former West Germany 'felt that individual restitutions and compensations had been sorted out in the post-war era,' says Uwe Hartmann, head of the Bureau for Provenance Investigation, which was established in Berlin three years ago.
'But lots of looted items have still been found in the archives of some institutions,' he adds. As the former East Germany had blocked all demands by war victims for restitution, that part of the reunited Germany - where Leipzig is located - is now proving a treasure trove for property stolen by the Nazis.
The Berlin bureau helped to fund the two-year project in Leipzig, the results of which will be presented in an exhibition in November.
The owners of the stolen books included Victor Armhaus, a Jewish interpreter from Leipzig who died in the Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp in 1942. Two nieces of his in Israel have made contact.
'It is very moving when there is an heir who remembers a person,' Reuss says. Some of the 59 volumes in Armhaus' private collection will now be sent to his nieces.
Leipzig, Germany - A team in the German city of Leipzig has scoured the local university library, going through endless obscure records to return books stolen by the Nazis to their rightful heirs.
Germany's 1933-45 Nazi regime not only plundered art and other valuables from Jews, but also books.
Searching for books seized by the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) proved hard work, explains librarian Cordula Reuss, who heads the project in Leipzig.
For more than two years, the librarian deciphered faded handwritten lists, went through boxes of indexes and examined thousands of books dating back to the pre-1945 period.
Reuss knows her way around the winding corridors of the Biblioteca Albertina, as Leipzig University library is called.
She stops at one of the many archives, yanks the handle of the sliding shelves, and takes out a book.
The first page bears a stamp reading 'Institutum Judaicum Leipzig.' This volume was confiscated by the Gestapo during Adolf Hitler's rule and ended up here shortly after World War II.
'We found in our archives a total of 3,409 books that had been seized illegally from institutions or private libraries run by Jews or resistance fighters during the Nazi era,' Reuss says.
The Nazi-Looted Assets Project aims to return the largest possible number of the works to heirs or their legal successors.
Reuss and her team of two had to do true detective work at first, as the Gestapo book records were often obscure.
'Frequently, the title of the book had not been entered, but they had written things like, 'A bundle of 172 Marxist brochures',' Reuss explains.
The researchers were luckier with books classified as 'banned and damaging literature,' which had been documented more thoroughly on extra lists by police.
A total of 81 different institutions or persons have now been identified as the legal owners of some of the books in the library.
Research into the origins of property stolen from Jews has been carried out more intensively since the 1998 Washington Declaration. In that document, Germany and 43 other nations agreed to identify in their collections art works and other assets confiscated by the Nazis and to restitute them to their rightful owners.
The former West Germany 'felt that individual restitutions and compensations had been sorted out in the post-war era,' says Uwe Hartmann, head of the Bureau for Provenance Investigation, which was established in Berlin three years ago.
'But lots of looted items have still been found in the archives of some institutions,' he adds. As the former East Germany had blocked all demands by war victims for restitution, that part of the reunited Germany - where Leipzig is located - is now proving a treasure trove for property stolen by the Nazis.
The Berlin bureau helped to fund the two-year project in Leipzig, the results of which will be presented in an exhibition in November.
The owners of the stolen books included Victor Armhaus, a Jewish interpreter from Leipzig who died in the Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp in 1942. Two nieces of his in Israel have made contact.
'It is very moving when there is an heir who remembers a person,' Reuss says. Some of the 59 volumes in Armhaus' private collection will now be sent to his nieces.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Nazi-looted art found in Swiss museum
From YNetNews.com: Nazi-looted art found in Swiss museum
A painting looted from a Berlin Jewish family by Nazis has been found by US authorities at the Kunsthaus museum in Zurich, museum officials said Tuesday.
Confirming a report by local media, the museum said that the painting was an 1887 portrait called "Madame La Suire" by Swiss painter Albert von Keller, who was popular in Berlin and Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century
The painting was acquired by the Sommerguths, a rich Jewish couple from Berlin who had a substantial collection of 106 paintings, including Renaissance masterpieces as well as works by Camille Pissaro
But after the Nazis came to power in Germany, they were forced to give up the collection, which was sold during an auction in 1939.
Alfred Sommerguth, who acquired his fortune as co-director of the German tobacco manufacturer Loeser & Wolff, managed to flee to Cuba in 1941 at the age of 82, before reaching New York where he died a destitute in 1950.
His wife Gertrude died four years later.
The painting was found by chance, during an exhibition on von Keller organised by the Zurich museum.
"We had received a heritage donation of 350 von Keller paintings from the widow of a rich Zurich collector, on condition that we organise an exhibition of the paintings," said a museum spokesman.
In New York, the authorities charged with finding paintings stolen or confiscated from Holocaust victims noticed the portrait and sought explanations from Zurich.
It turned out that the donation to the museum was made in 2006, after the death of the widow of Oskar Mueller, a von Keller collector.
After the origins of the painting were verified, the Sommerguth heirs decided to leave the painting with the Zurich museum. However, they asked for a sign be put up to indicate its origins and the fact that it was part of Nazi spoils.
According to the museum's spokesman, the painting is worth an estimated 10,000 francs ($10,982) today.
An investigation is ongoing regarding the origins of two other paintings from the Mueller collection, said the spokesman.
It is not the first time that a painting from the Sommerguth collection was found. In 2008, another painting was found on a Sotheby's auction catalogue.
Titled "Scene of a forest with a castle, on the water front," by Karl Blechen, the work was then taken off the sale and returned to the family's heirs.
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