Austria Returns Stolen and Extorted Altar Panels to Jewish Heir

According to the article linked below, Austria's Provenance Commission has recommended the return of artwork stolen by the Nazis, but then blocked in Austria by a post-War export ban.  After World War II, Austrian museums used the export ban to systematically extort Jews of their property.

Today, American museums that hold property stolen from Jews systematically extort them in one-sided "settlements" wrapped in great confidentiality, and bury the research to conceal the wrongdoing of the museum's former trustees and employees.   History will view this practice of systematic extortion by the members of the American Association of Museums with the same horror that we view the post-War extortion practices of the Austrian museums.

Austria also let the Leopold Museum keep an extorted work on the false pretext that the government of Austria doesn't own the Leopold Museum, so a law covering "federal museums" doesn't cover it.   This is a scandalous lie, since the government of Austria purchased Leopold's collection and will assume complete control of it on the death of Leopold and his wife.

Leopold brought the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally into the United States and is supposed to stand trial this summer on the issue of whether or not he knew it was stolen when he brought it here.

Austria Urges Return of Altar Panels to Jewish Heir (Update1)

Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook from West here

Alfred Flechtheim's Portrait By Rudolph Belling: Image Not Available at MoMA

The MoMA has not made an image of this bronze sculpture of Alfred Flechtheim available on the internet.  The sculpture was a 1950 gift of the Nazi agent Curt Valentin.   Aside from noting that the sculpture was a gift of Curt Valentin, no other provenance is given.

American museums agreed to publish images and provenances in 1998 to help Holocaust victims trace artworks.  Why has MoMA shirked this duty and no one complains?  Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn are on the Board of the MoMA - why have they not insisted on transparency on European works entering the U.S. after 1933 that were created before 1945?   Is there really no political will in this country to follow the Washington Principles?

There is not even an English-language Wikipedia page on Alfred Flechtheim, Germany's most important pre-war dealer in modern art.

Why has Flechtheim's image and history been obliterated?  Why have America's art historians and historians failed to honor Flechtheim's role in 20th Century art?   The artists of his time celebrated him, yet US art historians have not even granted him a footnote in history.

My earlier posts on Alfred Flechtheim here.

Above you see an essay in Italian by Konstantin Akinsha that you can find here called "Alfred Flechtheim's Nose:  Anti-Semitism and images of Nazi propaganda"

Above, from the Akinsha article, you see Alfred Flechtheim pictured with a cigar at the 1937 "Degenerate Art" Exhibition in Nuremberg, surrounded by the modern "degenerate art" that the Nazis hated.

The Nazis knew that Alfred Flechtheim was at the center of everything Jewish, modern and artistic that they hated.

So why has the MoMA and its confreres in the American Association of Museums obliterated Flechtheim's image from MoMA's website and his biography from the history of modern art?  Why do American art historians not discuss and celebrate his life and contributions and discuss the fabulous inventory that he had when his gallery was Aryanized by the Nazi Alexander Voemel in 1933?

Is there not one honest art historian working in an American museum today?  The damage Hitler caused in obliterating Jewish culture and contributions must be fought not by lawyers, but by art lovers and historians of good conscience who come forward and say enough is enough.  Pretending that Alfred Flechtheim did not exist is unacceptable.

Below, a beautiful work by Paul Klee that MoMA acquired in 1945.

Pastorale (Rhythms) (1927)


Paul Klee (German, born Switzerland. 1879-1940)
1927. Tempera on canvas mounted on wood, 27 1/4 x 20 5/8" (69.3 x 52.4 cm). Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund and exchange
Collection work meeting criteria specified in Introduction.

157.1945


Rudolf Probst (Galerie Neue Kunst Fides; Das Kunsthaus), Dresden/Mannheim. Until 1928


Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin and Düsseldorf, then in London. 1928 – at least 1930 [likely until Flechthem’s death, in March 1937]

(J. B. Neumann (Jsrael Ber Neumann), New York. 1930. Agent for Flechtheim)

(Alex Vömel, Dusseldorf. Former Flechtheim Gallery, became Alex Vömel Gallery from March 1933. [Likely on consignement from Flechtheim, 1933 – 1934])

James Mayor Gallery, London. [Brought to London by Flechtheim when he started to work for the Mayor Gallery, c. 1934.] 1934 – 1935

For sale during Paul Klee exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel, 1935

(Paul Klee, Bern. Returned to him from above exhibition, unsold, 1935)

[Likely returned by Klee to Flechtheim in London]

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paris. [Likely acquired/on consignment from Flechtheim] by 1937 - by 1939

Mrs. Stanley B. Resor, New York. By 1941

Nierendorf Gallery (Karl Nierendorf), New York (New York gallery opened in 1937). Acquired from Stanley B. Resor, by 1945

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired from Nierendorf through Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund and exchange, 1945

Audio Debate: Should the US State Dept Form A Commission To Restitute Stolen Art Now In US Museums?

El Lissitzky's Proun 2 (1920) - Stolen from Germany (Provenance below)

An amazing debate that I was fortunate enough to attend earlier this year is now available in audio.  I hope that the Ethics Committee of the American Association of Museums, the American Association of Museum Directors and the College Art Association gives this a listen.   The link is here, courtesy of the American Society of International Law (you need to scroll down to the Friday program).

Tragically, the American museum community has played deaf dumb and blind when it comes to researching the stolen artworks in their collection:  artworks of European origin that entered the US after 1933 but were created before 1945.   After stuffing their collections with stolen artworks, they are hoping that the remaining Holocaust survivors will die before they are forced to reveal what is in their collections and return it to the rightful owners.   Hitler's actions were illegal for the winners of World War II: except to US museums who maintain that stripping Germany of its Jewish culture was perfectly legal.  Three generations of "art historians" have been produced in this nation's universities: almost no one has spoken out.  Is the issue cowardice or ignorance?

If US museums don't give back stolen artworks, the rest of Europe never will either.

Cultural Heritage and the Arts Interest Group: Wrestling the Dead Hand of History: Perspectives on a Proposed State Department Commission on Nazi Looted Art


Moderator: Jennifer Anglim Kreder Panelists: Stuart Eizenstat, Charles Goldstein, J. Christian Kennedy, Lucille Roussin

Date: Friday

$9.99
 
***Provenance for Proun 2 (Construction) at Philadelphia Museum of Art

1920
El Lissitzky (Eleazar Lissitzky), Russian, 1890 - 1941




Städtisches Museum Halle, Germany, purchased 1929 [1]; Hanover Provinzialmuseum/Landesmuseum, Germany, on loan from Städtisches Museum Halle, 1929(?)-1937 [2]; confiscated by the National Socialist authorities, 1937, EK register number 14283 [3]; with Karl Buchholz, Berlin; with Curt Valentin, Buchholz Gallery, New York, 1939 [4]; sold to A. E. Gallatin, New York, 1939 [5]; bequest to PMA, 1952. 1. See Andreas Hüneke, Die faschistische Aktion "Entartete Kunst" 1937 in Halle (Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle, 1987), p. 38, no. 42; and Peter Nisbet, ed., El Lissitzky 1890-1941, exh. cat., 1987, Proun inventory no. 14, p. 160. The acquisition is also noted and illustrated in Museum der Gegenwart 1 (1930/1931), p. 13. The painting was one in a total of 46 oil paintings, drawings, and watercolors by Lissitzky purchased by the Halle museum in that year (see Im Kampf um die moderne Kunst: Das Schicksal einer Sammlung in der 1.Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat., Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, [1985], p. 48 and p. 52). 2. Alexander Dorner, the director of the Hanover Provinzialmuseum until his forced resignation by the Nazis in 1936, recollected that Mondrian's "Composition in Blue" (1952-61-87) and Lissitzky's "Proun 2C," both later purchased by Gallatin, hung in the famous Abstract Gallery (Abstraktes Kabinett) of the Hanover museum designed 1927-28 by Lissitzky (Cauman, The Living Museum, 1958, p. 55, repr. p. 62 and p. 63, respectively, both horizontally). The information that the painting was on loan to, rather than owned by, the Hanover museum is supplied by a 1958 Art News article in which the author, Ella Winter, quotes a letter from Dorner's widow stating that 'the Lissitzkys you refer to hung in the Abstract Gallery; it [the gallery] was destroyed by the Nazis while my husband was opening the first Munich exhibition in London. When he returned he found that unique and beautiful room dismantled and himself accused of promoting "degenerate" art. The Lissitzky on loan was sold . . . and is now in the Philadelphia Museum' [ellipsis is the author's] (see "Lissitzky: A Revolutionary Out of Favor," April 1958, p. 63). In addition, this painting is not listed in the 1930 catalog of works owned by the Hanover Provinzialmuseum (Katalog der Kunstsammlungen im Provinzialmuseum zu Hannover, Bd. 1, 1930). 3. The "EK" (Entartete Kunst) or confiscation register number 14283 is stamped on a sticker on the back of the painting (the original confiscation register is housed at the Zentrales Staatsarchiv Potsdam; see Barron, ed., "Degenerate Art", exh. cat., 1991, p. 132, n. 15). It is clear from the letter quoted in the Art News article cited above that the Nazis confiscated the painting from the Hanover museum. It is not certain where the painting was stored after confiscation; Mondrian's "Composition with Blue" (PMA 1952-61-87), also confiscated from Hanover, was stored at the Schloss Niederschönhausen, the Nazi sales repository for "Entartete Kunst" confiscated from museums. 4. Four prominent German dealers were appointed to market the inventory of confiscated works, including Karl Buchholz. According to the EK register, this painting was assigned to Buchholz, owner of the Buchholz Gallery in Berlin. He was the mentor and pre-war partner of Curt Valentin (1902-1954) who named the New York gallery he opened in 1937 in Buchholz' honor. Between 1934 and 1937 Valentin ran his own gallery in Buchholz' dealership in Berlin (Nicholas, Rape of Europa, p. 3, 24; Yeide, AAM Guide to Provenance Research, p. 239, 290). Valentin, a German citizen, left Germany in 1937 to go into exile. However, he maintained contact with Buchholz, frequently travelling to Germany, where he acquired works from the Schloss Niederschönhausen and the Lucerne 1939 auction. According to Nicholas he "was able to obtain from this source [Germany] much of the inventory which established him as a major New York dealer" (Nicholas, p. 24). Hüneke, underscoring the connection between Buchholz and Valentin, refers to the latter's New York gallery as "a ready-made platform from which Buchholz could sell to America" (see "Missing Masterpieces," in Degenerate Art, p. 129). 5. Receipt from the Buchholz Gallery/Curt Valentin to Gallatin dated August 24, 1939, for purchase of both the Lissitzky and Mondrian's "Composition with Blue" (stamped "Paid" August 31, 1939).

Cleveland Jewish News: Alfred Flechtheim Work At Center of Cleveland Museum of Art Nazi Art Looting Controversy

Fernand Léger (French, 1881 - 1955)

The Aviator Foreign title: L'aviateur
Medium: oil on canvas
Measurements: Framed: 90.48cm x 117.16cm x 7cm, Unframed: 65cm x 92cm
Date: 1920
1981.16
Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund

Provenance D. H. Kahnweiler, Paris; Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin; Kofler-Herni coll.; (Galerie Beyeler, Basel); (Perls Galleries, New York)

Link to article on an upcoming May 11, 2010 panel on Nazi-art looting to take place at the Maltz Museum  in Cleveland Jewish News

Experts to discuss reclaiming Nazi-looted artworks

Cleveland Jewish News News Local

Many works from Alfred Flechtheim's 1933 inventory are at the MoMA in New York City.  MoMA won't disclose the provenance documents to show where the works came from.  Flechtheim was the most important contemporary art dealer in the Weimar Republic.  American art historians have entirely ignored him and the provenance folks related to the American Association of Museums have been criminally negligent in failing to document his role in the history of 20th Century art.

Otto Dix - Portrait of the Art Dealer Alfred Flechtheim (1926)

Jules Pascin - Alfred Flechtheim as Toreador

Hans Bolz - Alfred Flechtheim - 1910

My earlier posts on Alfred Flechtheim here and here.

Law Prof: American Museums Have Violated Washington Principles on Nazi-Looted Art

Two Nudes (Lovers)

1913

Kokoschka, Oskar, Austrian, 1886–1980

163.2 x 97.5 cm (64 1/4 x 38 3/8 in.)

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Professor Jennifer Anglim Kreder compiled a chart of Holocaust-era art cases decided in U.S. federal courts since 2004.  The results are bleak, and show that American museums have systematically violated the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.

I wrote about the excellent panel Prof. Kreder organized in Washington DC on a US Commission on Nazi-Looted Art here.

Art Litigation: American Association of Museums Should Be Prosecuted For Concealing Stolen Property

MoMA's Glenn Lowry - Asserting Statutes of Limitations Against Heirs of Nazi Persecutees and Getting Richly Compensated For It

On Friday, I attended a panel on the U.S. State Department's proposal to set up a U.S. Commission to deal with the problem of Nazi-looted art in U.S. museum collections.   More on the panel, Wrestling the Dead Hand of History organized by Prof. Jennifer Kreder here.

Amb. Stuart Eizenstat - Expressing Outrage

The atmosphere was one of unanimous outrage over the misbehavior of U.S. museums and their lack of adherence to the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.  U.S. museums have taken to suing heirs of victims of Nazi persecution to avoid discovery and litigation "on the merits".   U.S. museums assert laches and statute of limitations defenses, knowing that it will damage international efforts to obtain recoveries of artworks from museum collections around the world.  If the U.S. is not going to support Jewish heirs, then who will?

The Jewish Claims Conference and Ronald Lauder's Commission for Art Recovery have asked U.S. museums to renounce the use of "technical" legal defenses such as laches and statutes of limitations as being unethical.   According to Lauder's lawyer Charles Goldstein, who signed the letter, the AAM and AAMD have not even bothered to respond to the request.   This is not the usual museum practice in dealing with a billionaire's lawyer.

In the postwar era, U.S. museums acquired tens of thousands of potentially-looted artworks. They've given virtually none of it back, have not properly researched their collections, and sit back hoping that the heirs of an exterminated population will never figure it out.   According to the museums, it is the job of the people who were murdered to finance and assert claims, after which, museums will decide whether or not to give the work back.

Museums claim that no one had any idea about the Holocaust when they acquired these artworks from the 1940's until today, often as donations, almost always without paperwork.   Since the severe Nazi persecution of Jews and the spoliation of their property was on the front page of every newspaper in the world starting in March 1933, the museums are engaging in a particularly pernicious form of Holocaust denial.

The custom and practice in the art world has always been to get documentation of the artwork's prior ownership and authenticity.  If you didn't get the paperwork, you were taking a risk that the property was stolen.   This practice has not changed, yet museums falsely claim that this is a recent development.  Wealthy Americans who bought European art at bargain prices without paperwork in the '40's, '50's and 60's knew darned well that they were probably buying stolen art.  Museum people always knew of the problem and were specifically and repeatedly warned in writing by the U.S. State Department in the 1940's and 1950's against acquiring artworks lacking paperwork.  Receiving stolen property has alway been a crime.


18 U.S.C. § 662 : US Code - Section 662: Receiving stolen property within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction

Whoever, within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, buys, receives, or conceals any money, goods, bank notes, or other thing which may be the subject of larceny, which has been feloniously taken, stolen, or embezzled, from any other person, knowing the same to have been so taken, stolen, or embezzled, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; but if the amount or value of thing so taken, stolen or embezzled does not exceed $1,000, he shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

(Italics supplied).

U.S. museums that refuse to disclose the documents necessary to trace the true owners of artworks in their collections should be prosecuted and their directors jailed.

Alfred Flechtheim - U.S. Museums Will Not Reveal Provenance Documents Relating To His 1933 Inventory

Image Jacob Hilsdorf 1910 courtesy Wikipedia

U.S. museums have it backwards and should be trying to figure out whose stolen property they are holding.  It was heartwarming to hear Goldstein affirm that museums do not have a fiduciary duty to litigate all claims and defenses relating to the stolen art in their collections.

When will the AAM and AAMD respond?   And without Robert Morgenthau on the scene, who will keep the museums honest?