HEIRS - Observations on Provenance

PRAGUE RETURNS TO MEMORY

Czech News Agency-

The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague has issued the book "Returns of Memory," mapping the history of Jewish items in its depositories that come from the property of Jews deported to concentration camps during WW2, museum director Helena Koenigsmarkova said at the book's presentation today.

The museum has revived its collections in cooperation with other researchers and has identified a part of the Jewish items' original owners. Some of the works are part of the museum's permanent display.

The project was prepared by the Documentation Centre of Property Transfers of Cultural Assets of WWII Victims and the Contemporary History Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

The centre, established in 2001, is trying to clarify historical and economic questions around the "Aryanisation," that is the expropriation of Jewish property on racial grounds in the Nazi era. The centre also studies archive sources and depositories of museums and galleries.

Last year, the government extended the centre's work until the end of 2011.

Pavel Jirasek from the centre said the new book is important as it summarises a comprehensive research of one of the largest museums in the Czech Republic and it focuses on decorative art items the identification of which is more complicated than in the case of works of art that are usually registered more thoroughly.

Helena Krejcova, one of the book's authors, noted that similar research is being carried out in the National Gallery and the National Museum plans it, too.

Jirasek pointed out that the steps by Czech culture institutions and the Contemporary History Institute to redress property wrongs from the past set up trend that other countries have also adopted.

Konigsmarkova, however, recalled that over 60 years after the war there are still a number of "unclear acquisitions" in Czech state museums that may originate from the confiscated Jewish property.

Jirasek said Czech state institutions to date possess a lot of of artifacts that could be theoretically returned to the descendants of the Holocaust victims.

The website, prepared by the Culture Ministry along with the Moravian Land Museum, registers almost 7,000 items  from state collections in the Czech Republic that originate or may come from the property of the Holocaust victims and whose original owners were mostly killed by the Nazis.

The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague collects and preserves for future generations — in both national and international contexts — examples of historical and contemporary crafts, as well as applied arts and design.

Allegorical Figure with a Nautilus cup representing Industrial Arts
Designed by Josef Schulz, executed by J. Škarda

Stained glass window on the landing above the first floor

Book Review: NAZI CRIME REVELATIONS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA MUSEUM

The late collector Heini Thyssen forced himself to forget his family’s Nazi involvement, but so did the countries that vied for his and his father’s pictures in the 1980s. This well documented book gives the details.

By Anna Somers Cocks | Posted 01 March 2007- From The Art Newspaper

(PICTURED AT LEFT - The baron and his fifth wife, Carmen “Tita” Cervera - Photo: Alan Davidson)

Collecting art and then putting it on public display is a very traditional way of polishing up a murky reputation. Think of Henry Clay Frick of the oh-so-refined Frick Collection: a capitalist of the most ruthless kind, a heavy-handed strikebreaker, with 16 workers left dead on one occasion. No one today remembers the origins of that museum, or if they remember, they do not care.

In recent years, however, there has been one crime for which this convenient amnesia does not seem to work and that is any support of the Nazi regime. In 2001, when Friedrich Christian Flick wanted to put his collection of contemporary art on display in Zurich, the locals got together a protest movement because his fortune came from Mercedes, and Mercedes had been deeply involved in armaments production for the Nazis, employing slave labour. Flick is too young to have been involved himself, but the mere fact that his money came from a tainted source and that he chose to collect art rather than compensate –victims was enough for Zurich to turn him down. Berlin then went on to accept the –collection, but not without a huge public row about it.

David Litchfield’s book on the Thyssen family now forces us to be aware of what that family of steel barons was up to during World War II. This had largely been forgotten or fudged but is now clearly revealed.

NAZI LOOTED ART GUIDEBOOK - Art Restitution Worldwide

By Gunnar Schnabel and Monika Tatzkow

The time is ripe for the publication of the first comprehensive guidebook about Nazi looted art. This year the world-wide, continuously ongoing for the past ten years, art restitution hit its peak with the decision to return the Klimt and Kirchner paintings as well as the Goudstikker collection which consists of hundreds of Old Masters.

If one wants to answer the question if art restitution nowadays has any eligibility or to gain an overview about the subject, one have to know what happened with artworks in Nazi Germany after 1933, during the 2nd World War and within the post-war period.

During and after the Nazi dominance in Europe the biggest loss of cultural assets in human history occurred. For the first time not only was artwork confiscated, stolen, disposed, also their collectors were persecuted, blackmailed and murdered. Thousands of fates are unexplained till present day.

This loss of property caused by Nazi persecution had to be undone. For this reason 44 countries have signed the Principles of Washington in December 1998. In the affected countries different laws (partly with terms of expiration by 2006 and 2007), regulations, decrees, guidelines, declarations of self-commitment have been passed. For the first time they are explained in detail at a glance.

The story of the paintings, their provenance and the history of their collectors – the former proprietors – answer many questions within this subject.

This guidebook is an essential and indispensable reference work and encyclopaedia for former proprietors and present owners, buyers, sellers, auction houses and art collectors as well as exhibitors, lenders and art interested people that want to understand why till present day Nazi Looted Art has to be returned.