New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law a new requirement requiring museums to indicate publicly any object in their collection that was displaced by the Nazis as part of what Congress has rightly called the largest organized theft of art in human history. The significance of this new rule is clear: New York is the center of the art world, and its museums hold a unique place of prominence. As readers of this blog or of my book A Tragic Fate-Law and Ethics in the Battle Over Nazi-Looted Art know, my view has long been that American museums vary widely in their candor and proactive approach to the issue of Nazi-looted art in their collections. Many have shown admirable initiative in probing their collections, while others have shown a regrettable passivity in waiting to receive and then deflect claims. Whether this bill will move the needle on that balance is the question. Transparency and disclosure have been the defining goals of the modern restitution era. This new law serves many of those ideals, but some unintended consequences may follow.
Read More
Topics:
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
American Alliance of Museums,
Nazi-looted art,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
Supreme Court,
Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art,
AAM,
Museum of Modern Art,
Nuremberg race laws,
Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Stolen Ar,
Association of Art Museum Directors,
Washington Department of Labor and Industries,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
Museum of Fine Arts Boston,
AAMD,
Military Government Law 59,
State Department,
Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act,
HEAR Act,
A Tragic Fate,
Law and Ethics in the Battle Over Nazi-Looted Art,
Governor Kathy Hochul,
Reich Citizenship Law,
Animal House,
Kevin Bacon
Late Tuesday evening—the day after Memorial Day no less—the United States Office of the Solicitor General filed a brief amicus curiae in our clients’ pending case against the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz for restitution of the Guelph Treasure (in German, the Welfenschatz). This brief was in response to the Supreme Court’s invitation in January that the SG file a brief expressing the views of the United States. In an unprecedented abdication of 80 years of leadership redressing Nazi-looted art, the Solicitor General argued that there is no circumstance in which a Nazi-forced sale victimizing a German Jew in the 1930s could constitute a violation of international law such the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act would confer jurisdiction over either Germany or the SPK. The U.S. government has taken the position that only property claims against non-Germans suffice—even though, of course, the U.S. government has acknowledged in every relevant context since the early 1940s that Jews ceased to be full members of German society on the day Hitler assumed power: January 30, 1933. This is an historic disgrace. Germany has rightly been shamed for minimizing in court over the last five years the genocidal character of its persecution against Jews, but for the United States to do so the day after we rightly honored the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died to defeat Nazi Germany is appalling.
Read More
Topics:
Monuments Men,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
Supreme Court,
Holocaust Victims Redress Act,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Hermann Goering,
FSIA,
Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Program,
Washington Principles,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Welfenschatz,
Military Government Law 59,
Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act,
HEAR Act,
Wannsee Conference,
D.C. Circuit,
Military Government Law No. 59,
london declaration
A recent report by the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) has made strong criticisms of American museums with respect to their handling of Nazi-looted art claims. In particular, the report criticizes the assertion of timeliness defenses such as statutes of limitations. The report focuses in particular on cases involving the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum at the University of Oklahoma. There is no state control over the vast proportion of art in America the way there is in most European countries, and thus, no possibility of singular, nationalized approaches. In response to the report, some of the museums mentioned have defended their strategies, though in some cases the players are talking past each other. What is undeniable is that whether as a function of the nature of U.S. museums (largely private, rather than public), it is hard to say there is a coordinated approach to the issue, good or bad. The report is lengthy and detailed, and well worth a read in depth that space here does not permit. In some ways, the question it poses boils down to this: is determining the historical truth the obligation of everyone involved or is there some room to prevail without addressing the larger issues?
Read More
Topics:
Toledo Museum of Art,
Street Scene in Tahiti,
Léone Meyer’s,
American Association of Museums,
Two Nudes,
La bérgère,
AAMD Task Force on the Spoliation of Art during th,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection,
Rue St. Honoré après-midi êffet de pluie,
University of Oklahoma,
Cassirer,
Nazi-looted art,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
Fred Jones Jr. Museum,
Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art,
World Jewish Restitution Organization,
WJRO,
Association of Art Museum Directors,
Restitution,
American Alliance of Museums AAM,
World War II,
Paul Gaugin,
Camille Pissarro,
Oskar Kokoschka,
Museums,
Museum of Fine Arts Boston,
AAMD,
Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena
After the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets and the eponymous Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Stolen Art that came out of it, it is hardly surprising that a recurring theme has been to assess the progress of those nations that participated and signed on. Equally unsurprisingly, those assessments are usually more anecdotal than empirical, and usually arise out of a particular case or cases in the context of that country’s response.
Read More
Topics:
Graham Bowley,
Macedonia,
Netherlands,
Terezin Declaration,
Mussolini,
Latvia,
Dr. Wesley A. Fisher,
Hungary,
ICOM,
Bulgaria,
Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spol,
Germany,
Bavarian Minister of Culture,
Nazi-looted art,
Die Welt,
Belarus,
Lex Gurlitt,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
France,
Dr. Ruth Weinberger,
Romania,
Baron Mor Lipot Herzog,
Winfried Bausbeck,
Belgium,
Slovakia,
Vichy,
World Jewish Restitution Organization,
Bundesrat,
Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Stolen Ar,
Gurlitt,
WJRO,
NS Raubkunst,
Restitution,
International Council of Museums,
Norway,
United States,
Luxembourg,
Looted Art,
World War II,
St. Petersburg,
Poland,
beschlagnahmte Kunst,
Ukraine,
Austria,
Serbia,
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germa,
Italy,
Bosnia,
New York Times,
Monika Grütters,
Slovenia,
Estonia,
Museum and Politics Conference,
National Gallery,
Museum of Fine Arts,
entzogogene Kunst,
Czech Republic
