Lawyer’s brush with NGV over Nazi loot
by PETER KOHN
HIGH-PROFILE Sydney human-rights lawyer George Newhouse has joined the campaign to have the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) retu
rn a painting, allegedly looted by the Nazis, to its Jewish owners.
Newhouse, who has been working on the case for some months, has now taken an official briefing from New York law firm Klein & Solomon, which is representing the claimants. He is reasonably certain it is the first claim against an Australian gallery for allegedly possessing Nazi-looted art.
Newhouse, the ALP candidate for the NSW federal seat of Wentworth in this year’s election, mayor of Waverley and a co-founder of the Jewish Labor Forum, has approached Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby and Victorian Jewish leaders about the art dispute.
Chilean Juan Carlos Emden, grandson of German businessman and art collector Dr Max Emden, has asked for a 1913 painting, Lady With A Fan by Dutch painter Gerard ter Borch, to be returned to the Emden family.
(Commentary by Fern Smiley:)
If this is the same Emden listed in RG 239 Box 1 (Roberts Commission: Geographical Card File on Possible Art Looting Subjects, 1943-1946) then the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) may wish to take a pass on this claimant. After emigrating from Germany, reports show that Max Emden dealt in paintings from safety in neutral Switzerland in 1939 in partnership with Paul Graupe ( partner of some notorious dealers). Plus, even his son, Enrique, is listed in correspondence with Knoedlers about paintings in 1944. This could implicate him in dealing in the same misfortunate pool of refugee art from forced sales, or worse, looted and smuggled paintings from deported Jews. Now, his son wants a painting returned from Australia’s NGV?
“Sometimes, in order to survive, victims in one country become victimizers in another.”
T, Buomberger, Swiss Journalist and author of Raubkunst – published in Zurich, 1998
