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.