Tag Archives: Holocaust

What next for London’s embattled Holocaust memorial?

Posted on: November 12, 2022 by Hugh Johnson-Gilbert

In January 2016, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced that a national memorial to the Holocaust would be built in Victoria Tower Gardens (“the Gardens”), next to the Palace of Westminster. Mr Cameron committed to building “a striking national memorial… to show the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust”. The winning […]

Heirs of Jewish Collector win back the family’s Kandinsky

Posted on: October 9, 2022 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

A pioneer of abstract art in the early 20th century, Kandinsky is still making the headlines today because of a link between Holocaust-looted art and claims involving his works. The present case, in this regard, is no different. However, an important point of distinction about the present case that is worthy of note and close […]

Foundation’s arguments thwarted in New York case of Nazi-looted Schiele

Posted on: March 17, 2022 by Stephanie Drawdy

Just a year before the Spanish flu claimed him in 1918, Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele used hues of orange and red to portray his wife as she looked away, hands folded (left). Some 20 years later in Nazi-occupied Vienna, this portrait would be looted. And now, over 80 years after that, the work is the […]

Latest issue of Art Antiquity & Law available now

Posted on: September 8, 2020 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

We are pleased to announce that the latest issue (Vol XXV, 2) of our journal Art Antiquity & Law is available now, please see below for details on subscriptions and access.  Paul Kearns provides the readers with a comprehensive panorama of the international legal regulations on freedom of artistic expression, a fundamental but much overlooked and […]

Appeal for Restitution of Nazi-Plundered Pissarro Centers on Application of Spanish versus U.S. Law

Posted on: December 24, 2019 by Stephanie Drawdy

A buyer who purchases stolen property does not receive good title – depending on the jurisdiction. The Cassirer family has learned this lesson all too well after nearly two decades attempting to reclaim a Nazi-looted painting by Impressionist Master Camille Pissarro. Earlier this year, a U.S. federal court in California awarded the Pissarro to a […]

US Restitution Suit Allowed to Proceed Against the Netherlands and Dutch Museums

Posted on: December 12, 2019 by Stephanie Drawdy

Towards the end of Second World War, Adolph Hitler received a birthday gift that likely made his heart swell with pride – a famous Rembrandt. The impact this gift had on a certain elderly woman interned in one of Hitler’s Dutch concentration camps is far more difficult to describe; the Old Master painting was her […]

New issue of IAL’s Art Antiquity and Law journal just released

Posted on: October 24, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

Marking the beginning of a new academic year, the latest issue of Art Antiquity & Law, IAL’s quarterly journal, is hot off the press and brings a number of articles ranging from topics such as musical instruments and their legal framework to arbitration, art theft, export of cultural goods and the repatriation claims for the […]

New York Appellate Court Upholds Purpose of HEAR Act: Austrian Performer’s Heirs Found to Have Superior Right to Looted Schiele Works

Posted on: August 23, 2019 by Stephanie Drawdy

Fritz Grünbaum was a clear target for the Nazis. He was a Jewish law school graduate and decorated World War I veteran turned pacifist and an outspoken man of the arts with a platform as a Viennese cabaret performer. On the day Hitler invaded Vienna, he entertained nightclub guests as he groped onto a darkened […]

Progress on the Washington Principles: a glass half full after 20 years?

Posted on: December 5, 2018 by Emily Gould

The adoption of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art by 44 nations in 1998 marked a deeply significant moment in the development of cultural policy in the 20th and 21st centuries. Whilst the extent of looting perpetrated by the Nazis during the 1933-45 period was fairly well understood at that stage, few would have […]

Nazi-looted art lecture by Nicholas O’Donnell

Posted on: September 14, 2017 by Alexander Herman

Along with the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, we were happy to host US attorney Nicholas O’Donnell last night for a talk on Nazi-looted art and the ongoing attempts at reclaiming lost works from museums and private collections in the US. Nicholas was in London promoting his new book, […]