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.''
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
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.
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