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.
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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
The German magazine Focus broke a story over the weekend that could be the biggest restitution news since Portrait of Wally or Altmann v. Republic of Austria: roughly 1,400 paintings were found in a Munich apartment that may have been seized, looted, or sold bought under duress by the Nazis in the 1930s as part of their drive to purge what they called “degenerate”—but extremely lucrative—art (the Focus coverage is extensive and excellent, though fair warning, in German). The paintings, which were apparently recovered not recently, but in 2011 as part of a customs seizure related to a currency declaration of all things, include works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Liebermann and Albrecht Dürer, from collections traced back to Paul Rosenberg and others who had to abandon their property during the war, all long thought lost to the destruction of the war. They are valued in excess of 1 billion euros.
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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
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the judgment against David Bakalar concerning ownership of the drawing Seated Woman with Bent Left Leg (Torso). It is a notable decision first and foremost because it affirms the District Court ruling on the merits of whether the drawing was stolen by the Nazis from the Austrian-Jewish collector Fritz Grünbaum—finding that it was not stolen. Such a ruling is a rarity among wartime restitution cases, the overwhelming majority of which continue to founder on statutes of limitations and jurisdictional defenses. Ironically, even though the court ruled that the work was not stolen and that the current owner could not prove good title, the current owner still prevailed. The details are the key to understanding this case, best described in the District Court decision that the Appeals Court affirmed.
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Topics:
cultural property,
laches,
Second Circuit,
Galerie St. Etienne,
Seated Woman wiht Bent Left Leg (Torso),
Galerie Gutekunst,
Nazis,
Fritz Grünbaum,
Restitution,
Egon Schiele,
World War II,
Mathilde Lukacs,
David Bakalar,
Franz Kieslinger
