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Merkel Hints at Putting Gurlitt Lists Online, Calls for Special Tribunal Are Made

Posted by Nicholas O'Donnell on November 6, 2013 at 4:49 AM

Catherine Hickley reports from Berlin that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is looking into ways to put lists and/or photographs online concerning the Cornelius Gurlitt seizure of roughly 1,400 paintings with connections to Nazi looting. This followed heavy complaints in the first days of the revelation, that the government had failed to identify what has been found. The biggest question remains why this remained a secret for roughly two years since the discovery. Merkel’s government claimed yesterday it learned of the find only in the last few months.

Yesterday, the researchers at the Holocaust Art Project posted a five-page inventory list of works at the Wiesbaden Collecting Point run by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program at the end of World War II. The list, from the National Archives, identifies the works as having come from “Collection Gurlitt: Hamburg.” HARP reports further that:

“In January 1947, the French restitution specialist assigned to the Munich Central Collecting Point, Capt. Doubinsky, noted that Dr. Hildebrand Gurlitt was the subject of an on-going investigation. Gurlitt told the Allies that he was in Paris during the war but avoided the Jeu de Paume like the plague, went to a number of German Embassy parties and met Dr. Lohse only once. . . .

“According to Gurlitt, he acquired 200 paintings in occupied France from 1941 to 1943 or so "for German museums," dealt extensively with Theo Hermsen, specialist in evading French export procedures to ship works of art to Germany, and also dealt indirectly with Wuster of the German Embassy, which might explain how he might have acquired looted French Impressionists.”

HARP also unearthed a note from the Roberts Commission that identies Hildebrand Gurlitt as an “Art Historian + Art Dealer” and an official buyer of works of art in France in 1944. When one stops to consider the state of the art market, occupation, and the impending Allied invasion, there are few places more presumptively suspicious for art sales than 1944 France.

Over at the Association for Research Into Crimes Against Art (ARCA), Judge Arthur Tompkins (who chaired the panel that I was on at ARCA’s annual conference in Italy in June) calls for an international tribunal to sort out the Gurlitt affair. Judge Tompkins notes:

“What is needed is, in short, an ad-hoc International Art Crime Tribunal. Such a Tribunal would be assisted by art historians, provenance researchers, advocates to assist the commission and, crucially, claimant advocates and advisers who will work with claimants so that they can properly and effectively present their claims. By this means the Tribunal could create the kind of neutral ground necessary for the lasting resolution of the disputes that will inevitably arise concerning the art.”

ARCA has also started an online petition to release the full list of paintings found.

Topics: Stephanie Barron, Jeu de Paume, unbekannte Meisterwerke, Focus, Hildebrand Gurlitt, Theo Hermsen, S. Lane Faison, Linz Führermuseum, Munich Central Collecting Point, Wiesbaden Collecting Point, HARP, Max Liebermann, WWII, Monuments Men, Alt Aussee, Gurlitt Collection, Max Beckmann, Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, Monuments, Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Naz, Albrecht Dürer, Auktionshaus Lempertz, Entartete Kunst, Fine Arts and Archives Program, Nazis, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Entdeckung verschollener Kunst, beschlagnahmte Bilder, Holocaust Art Project, Judge Arthur Tompkins, Roberts Commission, Angela Merkel, Restitution, 1939 Galerie Fischer auction, World War II, degenerate art, Capt. Doubinsky, Los Angeles County Musuem of Art, Erben, Raubkunst-Bildern, Altmann v. Republic of Austria, Portrait of Wally, Löwenbändiger, Marc Masurovsky, Franz Marc, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, München, Pablo Picasso, ARCA, Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservat, Nazi Raubkunst, Henri Matisse, Emil Nolde

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About the Blog


The Art Law Report provides timely updates and commentary on legal issues in the museum and visual arts communities. It is authored by Nicholas M. O'Donnell, partner in our Art & Museum Law Practice.

The material on this site is for general information only and is not legal advice. No liability is accepted for any loss or damage which may result from reliance on it. Always consult a qualified lawyer about a specific legal problem.

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