Topics: Jeremy Hobson, Gurlitt Collection, Restitution, Events, Here & Now, World War II, Nicholas O'Donnell, Art Law Report

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.

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

Topics: Cornelius Gurlitt, Nazi-looted art, Gurlitt Collection, Munich, Restitution, Events, World War II, WBUR, Here and Now

The Bavarian prosecutor held a press conference today to discuss the revelation this weekend in Focus that nearly 1,400 paintings had been found in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt two years ago, after he aroused suspicion by bringing a large amount of cash back into Germany from Switzerland in 2010. This continues to shape up as the biggest restitution story in decades, perhaps ever. Among the key updates provided today by Sigfried Köble and Reinhard Nemetz, the customs official and prosecutor in charge, respectively:

Topics: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, unbekannte Meisterwerke, Focus, Hildebrand Gurlitt, Alfred Flechtheim, the Lion Tamer, Cornelius Gurlitt, Reinhard Nemetz, Anne Weber, Gurlitt Collection, Max Beckmann, Bloomberg, Otto Dix, Commission for Looted Art in Europe, Art Market Monitor, Auktionshaus Lempertz, Entartete Kunst, Meike Hoffmann, Marc Chagall, Entdeckung verschollener Kunst, beschlagnahmte Bilder, Kunsthistorikerin, Sigfried Köble, Restitution, Der Spiegel, World War II, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Erben, Raubkunst-Bildern, Löwenbändiger, München, Nazi Raubkunst

Topics: Stephanie Barron, unbekannte Meisterwerke, Focus, Hildebrand Gurlitt, S. Lane Faison, Linz Führermuseum, Max Liebermann, WWII, Monuments Men, Alt Aussee, Gurlitt Collection, Max Beckmann, Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Naz, Albrecht Dürer, Auktionshaus Lempertz, Entartete Kunst, Nazis, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Entdeckung verschollener Kunst, beschlagnahmte Bilder, Restitution, 1939 Galerie Fischer auction, World War II, degenerate art, Los Angeles County Musuem of Art, Erben, Raubkunst-Bildern, Altmann v. Republic of Austria, Portrait of Wally, Löwenbändiger, Franz Marc, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, München, Pablo Picasso, Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservat, Nazi Raubkunst, Henri Matisse, Emil Nolde

Topics: Theodore Grunewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, TomášNadrchal, Filip Saska, Patricia Nicholson, Stephen Michelman, City of New York, Litigation, Museums, Manhattan County Supreme Court, Shirley Werner Kornreich

A recent loan to the National Gallery in London has grabbed headlines discussing the history of the painting, Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl, by Gustav Klimt, surrounding World War II and the persecution of Jews in Austria. Somewhat puzzlingly, the coverage has downplayed the fact that that very painting was already the subjective of an exhaustive proceeding in Austria that denied restitution, a decision reviewed and affirmed by the Austrian Supreme Court (though, apparently, also the subject of more recent requests for reconsideration). Should a claim for restitution or seizure be filed while the painting is outside Austria, in the UK or the US, it could have a troubling effect on respect for final judgments, as well as unintended consequences for restitution claimants who may find their judgments collaterally attacked elsewhere. As difficult as it may seem, the painting cannot be disturbed without putting a great deal more at risk.

Topics: Maria Altmann, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Jonathan Jones, National Gallery London, the Guardian, Vita Künstler, Dr. Erich Führer, Beethoven Frieze, Belvedere, the United Nations Convention on the Recognition a, Jugendstil, Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl, Hermine Müller-Hofmann, Amalie Zuckerkandl, Restitution, Neue Galerie, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna in 1900, Kokoschka, Secession, Secession Museum, Austria, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Fin de siècle, Gustav Klimt, Vienna, Anschluss, UNCITRAL

Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Roberta Smith, Deaccession, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Cornell University, Graham W. J. Beal, Richard Levin, Frank Robinson, Pippa Loengard, the Art Law Report, Events, Selling the Museum's Collection: Is Deaccessioning, Williams College Museum of Art, Nicholas O'Donnell, Rhode Island School of Design, New York Times, Detroit Bankruptcy, Samuel Sachs II, Detroit Institute of Art

Topics: Darius Arya, Leila Amineddoleh, Chasing Aphrodite, Thomas R. Kline, George Clooney, Lynn Nicholas, Richard B. Jackson, The Rape of Europa, Diane Penneys Edelman, Robert Edsel, Lucille Roussin, Lincoln Center, Fordham Law School, Jason Felch, Irina Tarsis, Elizabeth Varner, Salam al-Kuntar, Events, David D’Arcy, Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Program, Holocaust Restitution and Claims Practicum, National Art Museum of Sport, World War II, Monica Dugot, Anne Rothfeld, Portrait of Wally, Marc Masurovsky, Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservat, Corine Wegener, Laurie W. Rush, James McAndrew

Topics: American Alliance of Museums, Ford Bell, Detroit, Bankruptcy, Detroit In, Kevyn Orr, Detroit Free Press, Detroit Bankruptcy