HEIRS - Observations on Provenance

RUSSIAN SECRETS

The Guardian ran an interesting story today about German cultural losses during World War Two. At the war’s end Russian soldiers, called Trophy Brigades, removed thousands of artistic objects from Germany. They were directed by the highest Soviet military authorities to bring it back to the Soviet Union as well deserved booty.
German cultural institutions have recently itemized their missing treasures in an effort to push their claim forward for restitution.
According to Kate Connolly “The detailed inventory, which one critic said read like a "book of mourning" for lost German artefacts, contains a staggering array of treasures, most of which are believed to have been seized by foreign soldiers in 1945”.

Seemingly obvious is the argument that had the National Socialist German government not started the war in the first place, we would not be having this discussion.

So although not pro claimant in this particular case, I wonder why the Russians do not rise to the occasion of sharing the richness of the art that they brought out of Germany. What a loss to world culture. What a loss of opportunity for the world to behold works of this ilk: “sculptures by Nicola Pisano, a delicate relief by Donatello, late Gothic Madonnas and an exquisite array of Baroque works rendered in stone and wood. Other star pieces include paintings by Botticelli and Van Dyck.”

The secretiveness and denials lead me and others to wonder what else do the Russians hoard in their ‘secret depots in Russia and Poland” besides the newly publicized list of German museum trophy art.

We do know, for example, that the Russians also hold a secret lost library, stolen from the Jewish Synagogue in Rome, first by the Nazis and then, at war’s end, stuffed into the bellies of the Soviet planes waiting to transport the precious books back to the Soviet homeland. See my earlier blog ‘Hunt For Trophy Books’ or click here.

How much more went into those planes than what the Germans are now demanding back? We will never really know but rest assured that the storage depots and repositories all over Germany stored not just the fine art of the German museums being protected from the air raids.

Those repositories were also was the point of no return for the artworks stolen from thousands of Jewish families most of who met a fate unimaginable by us all. These are the artworks that the Russians should acknowledge exist in their depots and these are the objects that should be returned to the rightful owners.

ROMMEL'S TREASURE?

I wrote the following comment to The Daily Mail about the story Peter Allen filed today about "Rommel's Treasure":

I think this article's main point is more misdirected and hidden than Rommel’s so called Treasure. Let's face it, this is NOT Rommel's Treasure, although that sounds so romantic. It's the precious artifacts of those whose homes, livelihoods, and very lives were taken from them during the Holocaust. To me, what Mr. Allen has completely lost in this article is the sordid, horrific story about what happened to the community of Jews in Tunisia. That's the real story. And the French should find the real ‘treasure’ here by discovering ways to change this totally inequitable law by putting the rightful heirs first before the state and those who find these possessions.

Fern Smiley, Toronto

UPDATED SILENT PICTURE CONSPIRACY

Apologies for the premise of my first screen treatment. I had it wrong according to ARTnews' Stefan Koldehoff. (Summer 2007. International News p. 76-80). BUT THIS GETS EVEN BETTER..

Mysterious bank vault of looted found art in Switzerland is still so fraught with drama that it deserves to be a script.  So here is my REVISED pitch. And take a deep breath...

PREMISE LINE: A Swiss- based, 79 yr old, US female searching for her WWII looted Pissarro painting considers but then declines an offer to have it returned from two art professionals knowledgeable about its secret location in Switzerland and instead protests to the authorities who, during the investigation, opens the Swiss bank vault to finds her Pissarro plus two more Impressionist masterpieces likely looted  since the vault turns out to have been a secret depot (controlled by one of the said art professionals) connected to Bruno Lohse, recently deceased but the  Nazi art historian involved in confiscating the art collections of French Jews during the Holocaust.

SCENE ONE
THE SETTING:

Gisela Bermann-Fischer met with art dealer Peter Griebert and US historian Jonathan  Petropoulos on Jan. 25, 2007 in the Zurich Hotel Sankt Gotthard. She lives in Zurich and was educated at Sarah Lawrence in the US. Her family was able to escape Vienna before the Anschluss began but her legacy was lost and the Pissaro that her grandfather, Samuel Fischer, once owned was never recovered.

She was shown photos of her late grandfather’s Pissarro (similar to the one at right) and entertained an offer that included a typical 18% finders fee but felt threatened and had her lawyer, Norbert Kuckelmann file a complaint with Munich prosecutors after the meeting. Extortion was claimed and Griebert investigated. Petropoulos was not charged and has consulted with lawyers who assured him that he was following accepted practices.

 
THE CHARACTERS:

  Peter Griebert: Munich art dealer. Seems that he has a lot of explaining to do. Since 1988, documents suggest that he was likely the "front" for Bruno Lohse's tainted stash of WWII leftovers, looted paintings that would be put on  the market from time to time from the vault that Lohse operated in the Swiss Bank. Griebert was in and out of the vault 20 times since 2003!  Documents were found that itemize the paintings that were removed over the twenty years that the vault has been controlled. Heads will roll as the story is fully investigated and galleries who sold the paintings on the market become publicized. Likely, he likely duped Petropoulos, who, states that he  genuinely did not know that his colleague was connected to these ugly activities or even to Lohse.

MORE ON MoMA

Embedded in David D’arcy’s recent review (//daily.greencine.com/archives/004048.html) of Austrian documentary by Elisabeth Scharang, My Dear Republic, is his take on the problem of big powers controlling the version of history that will be remembered instead of the truth. The tag line of the film about Fritz Zawrel’s lifelong mission to expose the Nazi atrocities he witnessed as a child at Am Spiegelgrund, is that the truth cannot be denied. But in the process, those powers that be try to resist and lie to serve their own needs. (Am Spiegelgrund was the "children's clinic" in Vienna where young Zawrel sadly became a ward. Although called a clinic, it, in fact, was a centre for the euthanasia of children.)

However, I bristle when D’arcy chides a Jewish city like New York for not forcing the issue at the MoMA.

D’Arcy writes:

Consider the behavior of the Museum of Modern Art when it was found in late 1997 to have borrowed a painting by Egon Schiele from an Austrian foundation and it was later shown that the picture was looted (aryanized) from a Jewish art dealer in Vienna in 1939. (For years, Austria contended that everything looted from Austria Jews under the Nazis was returned, provided there were living heirs to whom the art could be returned. That's proven to be as true as the myth of Austrian victim-hood under the Nazis.)

First MoMA just tried to send the painting out of the country, and almost succeeded. Then the museum skirted the near-certainty that this painting, Portrait of Wally by Schiele, was looted by the Nazis, and argued that it had to comply with its loan contract, or else the international network of art loans that draw crowds to museums would be endangered. The entire museum community in the US agreed (even the Jewish Museum in New York), and still does. Now, in a lawsuit against the US government, MoMA (along with a foundation funded by the Austrian government) is arguing, among other things, that its officials did not know that the painting was stolen, and that the real tragedy here is that the painting hasn't been seen for almost ten years because of all these annoying legal problems created by a Jewish family that MoMA says was never entitled legally to the painting.

The real victims are not the victims of the Nazis, but museum-goers and well-meaning institutions like MoMA that just want to show them art borrowed in good faith from Austria. (MoMA was never prevented from showing Portrait of Wally. To the contrary - the painting was in storage at MoMA during most of the current lawsuit.) There's a point here. If not showing the painting was a loss to world culture, what about the loss of the truth (still not acknowledged by MoMA) about how and why the painting was looted, and why it has never been returned. Remember the work of art as that fusion of beauty and truth? The Austrians have resisted telling that story, as they resisted telling the story of Fritz Zawrel. (Google D'Arcy MoMA NPR Schiele for more on the Schiele case, which could come trial in federal court next year.)

I fear his point here is that he expects some kind of Judaic moral sway should take hold there. D’Arcy asks, “Why has MoMA made common cause with them [The Austrians who (sic) have resisted telling that story], over this picture stolen by the Nazis, in a city like New York where Nazi crimes are deplored as the worst crimes of human history? 

I think D’arcy’s coverage of the 1997 Schiele episode at the MoMA resulted in his termination from NPR. Granted, most articles I have seen read this way. And, as he admits, the truth of THAT story won’t be heard until next year in court. But he also knows that the city of Jerusalem will not force the Israel museum to return stolen art and Judaica. And he is aware that the American Association of Jewish Museum passed a resolution that, in effect, relieves their obligation to identify stolen objects in their collections. This is startling considering the the push from the Washington Principles, The Claims Conference and the American Association of Museums for ALL museums to identify and assist in the return of artwork to eligible heirs. It is all about self interest.

NICELY DONE, NUREMBERG

© Stadtarchiv Nuernberg

A Gesture Worth Noting… This is BIG because it may be just the catalyst for other German institutions to reach out and involve the Heirs and Holocaust Survivor community in the process of provenance checking. Hopefully, the next step will be to publicize all their “provenance poor” objects in a viewable database so people can search on their own and make their own claims.

The City of Nuremberg has sent a request for information about the provenance of art works that came into their possession under dubious circumstances in the 1930-1940 period. They are seeking information about paintings, graphics, furniture and ceremonial objects that Jews were forced to hand over and were acquired through art dealers by the city. The aim is return of objects to rightful heirs.

Their research is based on documents in the City Archives, the Bavarian State Archives and the German National Museum. The documentation has big gaps and at the moment it is not possible to determine the former owners.

The Director, Dr. Dominik Radlmaier, asks for photos, details of flats(apartments) and personal records relating to stolen cultural assets to be sent to him.
Nuremberg City Archive site
Postanschrift Stadt Nuernberg stadtsarchiv 90317
Nurnberg 412

I like the comments that Jon Benjamin, of the London based Board of Deputies brings to the following story in the Jewish Chronicle. While the main story occurs in Nuremberg, the fallout of Holocaust plunder of cultural objects now reaches every country in the world. With respect to Great Britain- Benjamin is clear- the story of looted art in Britain still being displayed in galleries and museums is not over and will not go away without the assistance of government in helping the legitimate heirs recover their possessions. Jewish Chronicle

FORCED SALE

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) return 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

THE CASE FOR RESTITUTION

If the idea of following the trail of a Restitution Case in minute detail interests you, this is a fascinating website supporting a historical and legal opinion re: the Restitution of a Kirschner painting last year in Germany:
                                                                Expert Opinion

The Experts who wrote those opinions have also authored a book on cases of a similar vein - See my Post in the HEIRS Books Category. But this story is special because the Berlin Gallery Director recognized injustice, did the right thing, and then suffered the wrath of many in the German cultural community. The community who felt the Museum had the right to hold onto the magnificent Berlin Street Scene Kirshner painted in 1913.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who helped form The Bruecke (Bridge) Group of modern German artists in Dresden in 1905, was considered a "degenerate" artist by the Nazis. They confiscated more than 600 of his paintings from museums, galleries, and collections. They mounted a Degenerate Art Tour in 1937; mocking the works of Kirchner and others.

Kirchner committed suicide a year later.

I own a copy of Entarte Kunste, the database documenting the sales records of 15,000 paintings and drawings taken from the museums in Germany in 1937 and auctioned in Switzerland in June 1939. Kirchner shows up in almost every museum list and his paintings were purchased for tiny amounts by the Art Dealers who later sold them to the world's museums.

But why now? Did Anita Halpin feel guilty about her successful claim and want to present the case as a legal one? I think the vitriolic arguments heated this case way up and the cooling off effect of the legal opinion may have actually helped. And wouldn't it be a dream if the proceeds from Anita's 30 Million Euros windfall sale at Christie's November 8th could be used towards Holocaust Education? But this is only my dream.