Posted on: October 1, 2014 by Alexander Herman
A fascinating story on the work of the Max Stern Restitution Project has appeared in the latest issue of The Walrus and is thankfully available online. The Stern Project, run out of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada has the task of reconstituting the art collection of the famed Düsseldorf dealer, Max Stern. Stern, who was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany in 1937 […]
Posted on: September 16, 2014 by Alexander Herman
Recent reports have come out involving a 1902 portrait of Gertrud Loew by Gustav Klimt that had allegedly been taken by the Nazis in Austria from the painting’s subject and owner. Loew had left Austria for the United States in 1939 following the Anschluss of the previous year. It is unclear exactly what happened to the […]
Posted on: June 27, 2014 by Alexander Herman
It has recently been reported that an 18th Century tapestry belonging to Comte Bernard de la Rochefoucauld and looted from the Château de Versainville during the Nazi occupation of France has been voluntarily returned by the University of Sheffield in the UK. The tapestry, which had been taken from the Comte’s residence, was later bought by the […]
Posted on: June 16, 2014 by Alexander Herman
Inspired by ‘international law’ and the 1998 Washington Principles, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne recently announced that it will be restituting a portrait to the heirs of its original owner, Jewish industrialist Richard Semmel. The portrait, originally thought to be a Van Gogh original, had been part of Semmel’s collection which was dispersed and sold under duress by […]
Posted on: May 3, 2014 by Hélène Deslauriers
For decades, the Vienna Philharmonic, a 172-year-old institution, held in its storage facility a painting by French artist Paul Signac paintend in 1883. The painting, taken by a German official in 1940 from a French Resistance fighter, was given as a gift to the Viennese orchestra for performances given to German soldiers in France in […]
Posted on: April 10, 2014 by Alexander Herman
The well-known US news show, CBS’s 60 Minutes, has just this week broadcast a lengthy report on the Cornelius Gurlitt affair, complete with interviews of a distant Gurlitt cousin, his (former) legal team and some provenance and legal experts. The report can be watched online here. More recently, there have been reports that the Augsburg prosecutor, […]
Posted on: April 7, 2014 by Alexander Herman
In recent news regarding the Munich art trove, the Bavarian authorities and the German culture minister have released a statement demonstrating that Cornelius Gurlitt is committed to voluntarily returning any looted art that had been found in his apartment in 2012 to the heirs of the despoiled owners. This forms part of the gradual acceptance […]
Posted on: March 14, 2014 by Alexander Herman
A ceremony took place last Monday to commemorate the most recent restitution of three looted paintings by the French State. The speech accompanying the return by French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti demonstrated a change in approach by the French State regarding looted paintings still held by French Museums. It appears Museums will be required to undertake […]
Posted on: March 12, 2014 by Alexander Herman
The first claim has been filed in relation to the artworks seized from the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt. The plaintiff is David Toren, a descendent of David Friedmann, the wealthy art collector from Breslau (now Wroclaw), who was persecuted as a Jew in Nazi Germany and died in 1942. The claim, dated 5th March 2014, […]
Posted on: February 6, 2014 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
The Victoria and Albert Museum has published online two volumes which record what the Nazi regime did with confiscated ‘degenerate art’. Hitler believed post-impressionist modern art, including Expressionists such as Kandinsky and Otto Dix, to be “evidence of a deranged mind”. He ordered more than 16,000 artworks, including works by Van Gogh and Man Ray, […]