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.

NOLDE and SWEDEN

Actually, the last post reminded me of yet another Nolde story. He was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century but the more I read about Emil Nolde, the less I liked. His paintings command master prices now but 60 to 75 years ago, he was collectable and very attractive to avant garde collectors in Europe. So successful that by 1937, his graphics and oils were displayed in every German museum with a modern curatorial focus. Even lesser museums would own many graphic works  if not several oils.

When the Nazis determined that Emil Nolde was not producing paintings in the style keeping with National Socialist ideals, they labeled them degenerate and collected his works (and 15,000 or so other “degenerate” works) from every one of those museums.

What happened to ALL those Noldes?

Some would say that the Nazi’s weren’t stupid. They did not destroy the Noldes in bonfires. They knew they were tradeable for hard currency in the international market.  And the pending war plans required hard specie. So, after the Nazi elite  (like Goerring and Von Ribbentrop whose tastes ignored the Nazi art ideology when it came to their own personal collections) skimmed their choices, and after the art toured the country in an exhibition of derision produced for Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda, the bulk were sent Switzerland for auction on June 30, 1939. International buyers from US, Denmark, and Britain brought international cash: Norwegian kronin, British pounds sterling, French francs and US dollars.

The results of the Fischer auction in Lucerne are included in “Enterte Kunst,” primary documents held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a copy of which I have in my possession.

Noldes were sold off to dealers in bulk sometimes by dozens. The prices paid for graphics were often hardly more than several dollars .

Even then, many hundreds of items went unsold in Switzerland. It was the crest of war.
What became of those items?

They still traded. And this is NEW! Nolde himself was involved this time.

In a 1999 report, Sweden and Jewish Assets, the Commission’s art historians combed archives and found correspondence that implicates Nolde in the distribution of the unsold bounty of the German museums. “In August 1939 a Dane invited the museum to purchase paintings and graphic art by the German Expressionist painter Emil Nolde, one of the foremost artists of the 20th century. The works on offer had been acquired by the German Ministry of Propaganda and the seller, whose sister was married to Emil Nolde, was now offering them for sale to Scandinavian museums.” P.25

Although Goteborg’s Art Museum Director, Axel Romdahl refused to buy, my guess is that every other Swedish Museum was offered the same deal. And most would take the opportunity. Not all directors were as anti-Nazi as Axel Romdahl who turned the Dane down cold. Why shouldn’t the Swede’s buy the Lucerne art auction remnants anyway? One month earlier, German dealer Karl Buccholz was eagerly buying the best of the Lucerne auction on behalf his US clients, who were knowingly fuelling the Nazi war machine with their precious US dollars.

(Noldes painting, Christ Among the Children is  listed on MoMa's provenance  website, indicating it changed hands in Continental Europe during the Nazi era.)

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.