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004 News Gurlitt 18/02/2014 21:53 Page 2 4 THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 255, March 2014 NEWS Restitution In brief Painting acquired by Gurlitt German museums to be searched for looted art… Germany is establishing an independent agency to scour the nation’s museums for art turns up in Chicago home looted during the Holocaust. The move comes amid criticism of the country’s secre- Work bought from persecuted Jews by dealer privileged by the Nazis is now with Jewish couple tive handling of restitution cases, such as the recent revelations that Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of an art dealer with connections to Hildebrand Gurlitt at the Kunstverein Hitler, hid Nazi-stolen art worth $100m in UNITED STATES Düsseldorf in 1954 two troves in Munich and Salzburg. Monika Grütters, Germany’s culture minister, says Chicago. A painting that was acquired so-called “degenerate” works that were that she supports doubling the country’s cur- from victimised Jews by Hildebrand removed from museum collections but rent €2m budget for provenance research to Gurlitt, the Hamburg-based dealer priv- are not eligible for restitution. Last assist the new organisation, which she aims ileged by the Nazis, and which was re- month, Cornelius set up a website to to establish as soon as this autumn. R.C. turned to Gurlitt after the Second World present his side of the story. War by German authorities who suc- …while Canadian Patchy provenance ceeded the Monuments Men, has been institutions check works found in America. It is now in the L’Atelier du Peintre Grossman is now in Chicago home of Jewish benefactors the collection of Joel and Carol Honig- Six Canadian museums are taking steps to of the United States Holocaust Memorial berg, in Highland Park, Chicago. They investigate their collections in search of art Museum in Washington, DC. bought it in Paris in around 1980 looted by the Nazis during the Second World The work, Jules Pascin’s L’Atelier du from the art dealer Abel Rambert, who War. The two-year pilot project, run by the Peintre Grossman, 1909, depicts a painter is listed as one of the four authors of Canadian Art Museum Directors with two subjects: one partially clothed, Pascin’s catalogue raisonné, Joel says. Organization, is funded by a C$191,000 another nude but for a pair of stock- He remembers paying around $40,000 ($174,000) government grant. The museums ings. Its subject—a Jewish artist—and for the work. “We have it in our bedroom taking part are the Art Gallery of Windsor, the work’s nudity and Expressionist right now,” Carol says. The couple say the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, the style meant that it qualified as entartete they had no knowledge of the picture’s Winnipeg Art Gallery, the McMaster Museum Kunst (degenerate art), which was con- involvement with the Nazis. of Art in Hamilton and Toronto’s Art Gallery demned by the Nazis. Ditto the fact It is not clear when the work left of Ontario and Royal Ontario Museum. In that Pascin (1885-1930), born in Bulgaria Gurlitt’s possession and entered the 2007, the organisation surveyed 12 museum as Julius Mordecai Pincas, was Jewish. art market. It was offered at Christie’s collections and found around 400 works in 1972 as part of “A Collection of Mod- with provenance gaps. P.P. Suicide—and a forced sale? ern Paintings and Drawings Formed By The work was the property of Julius Dr Robert Ducroquet”, and was bought On our website Ferdinand Wollf, the former editor-in- by the Parisian dealer Hervé Odermatt chief of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten for $39,060. The auction catalogue lists newspaper and a Jew who was ousted a Matthias Fels of Paris as the work’s A British brand of hero from his job in 1933. In 1942, when only former owner, and says that its Wollf and his wife were due to be de- exhibition history began with the Haus While George Clooney’s film “The ported to a concentration camp, Nazis der Kunst, Munich, in 1969. But German Monuments Men” offers a Hollywood view authorities “permitted” the couple and exhibition records reveal that Julius of the Allied officers who helped to save Wollf’s brother to commit suicide. Wollf lent the work to a museum in Europe’s art, Noah Charney tells the story of In 1945, when a crate containing the 1929, providing independent documen- the overlooked British scholar-soldiers who picture was opened in Aschbach Castle, tation that Wollf was the owner. fought to protect cultural heritage during the a Nazi storage space, Gurlitt told a A claim for the work could be pos- Second World War. Archaeologists including lawyer under the command of the US sible: in 2008, heirs of the Wollf family Mortimer Wheeler, John Ward-Perkins and Third Army that he had bought the pic- “We have the work Central Collecting Point in 1950. sued and won the restitution of two Leonard Woolley worked to preserve art and ture from Wollf for 600 Reichsmarks in Around 1,400 Modern works of art porcelain objects that were found in monuments in Italy and Libya, something 1935. Although Wollf’s persecution sug- in our bedroom [in were recently seized from a Munich the collection of the Zwinger museum that has proved more difficult in recent wars, gested a forced sale, the painting was apartment belonging to Gurlitt’s son, in Dresden. including Iraq and Afghanistan. H.S. Chicago] right now” • For more, visit www.theartnewspaper.com returned to Gurlitt by the Wiesbaden Cornelius. The hoard contained many David D’Arcy DUSSELDORF KUNSTVEREIN © GURLITT: LOWELL LIBSON LTD British Art +44 (0)20 7734 8686 EXHIBITING AT TEFAF STAND 370 [email protected] www.lowell-libson.com Lowell Libson Ltd is sponsoring JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY 1734-1797 Joseph Wright of Derby – Bath and Beyond Mount Vesuvius at the Holburne Museum, Bath, Pencil and black chalk 12½ x 16½ inches; 308 x 420 mm 3 clifford street · london w1s 2lf 25 January – 5 May 2014 Signed, inscribed and dated 1775.