Art Litigation: Jewish Property Declarations: The Law of April 26, 1938

Today is the anniversary of the April 26, 1938 decree by Goering requiring Jews to declare their property.  It is important that any student of the Holocaust read the text of the decree, reproduced in italics below.  There is very little written about this law, which was a critical turning point in the Nazis' adoption of the Final Solution.  First robbery, then murder of the despoiled victims.

Today, the consequences of this law are still being litigated in the United States.  US museums are successfully clinging to artworks stolen pursuant to the April 26, 1938 decree and the subsequent measures.  The Jewish Property Declarations were sealed by Austria from 1945 until 1993.   Now US museums are suing Jewish descendants of Holocaust victims to "quiet title" to the artworks in their collections, in violation of international law and the United States' commitment to return Nazi spoils  to their victims.

DOCUMENT 1406-PS
1938 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART I, PAGE 414
~ Decree for the Reporting of Jewish Owned Property of 26 April
1938
On the basis of the Decree for the Execution of the Four Year Plan of 18 October 1936 (RGBl I, 887) the following is hereby decreed:
Article 1
1. Every Jew (Article 5 of the First Regulation under the Reich Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935 (RGBI I, 1338)) shall report and evaluate in accordance with the following instructions his entire domestic and foreign property and estate on the day when this decree goes into force. Jews of foreign citizenship shall report and evaluate only their domestic property
2. The duty to report holds likewise for the non-Jewish marital partner of a Jew.
3. Every reporting person's property must be given separately.
Article 2
1. Property in the sense of this law includes the total property of the person required to report, irrespective of whether it is exempt from any form of taxation or not.
2. It does not include movable objects used by the individual or house furnishings as far as the latter are not luxury objects.
Article 3
1. Every part of the property shall be valued according to the usual valuation it has on the effective date of this regulation.
2. No report is necessary when the total worth of the property to be reported does not exceed 5000 marks.
Article 4
The report is to be presented on an official form by 20 June 1938, to the administrative official responsible at the place of residence of the reporting individual. When such a report is not possible by this date the responsible official can extend the period. In such case, however, an estimate is to be presented by 30 June 1938, together with a statement of the grounds of delay.
Article 5
1. The reporting individual must report, after this decree goes into force, to the responsible office, every change of said individual's total property as far as it exceeds a proper standard of living or normal business transactions.
2. The reporting requirement applies also to those .Jews who were not required to report on the effective date of this regulation but who have acquired property exceeding 5000 Reichsmarks in value, after this date. Article 1 (1) clause 2, shall apply respectively.
Article 6
1. The administrative offices responsible under this reguhttlon are in Prussia-Highest Administrative Officer [Reierungspraesident] (in Berlin the Police President) ; Bavalria Administrative Officer [Regierungspraesident] ; Saxony---Tivoli District Head [Kreishauptmann]; Wurtemberg-The Minister of the Interior; Baden-The Minister of the Interior; ThueringenReich Governor [Reichsstatthalter]; Hessen-Reich Governor; Hamburg-Reich Governor; Mecklenburg-Ministry of the State, Interior Department; Oldenburg-Minister of Interi01•; Braunschweig- Ministry of Interior; Bremen-Senator for Administration of Interior; Anhalt-Ministry of State Interior Department; Lippe-Reich Governor (Land Government); SchaumburgLippe-Land Government; Saarland-The Reich Commissioner for the Saar.
2. Austria-The Reich Governor has jurisdiction. He may transfer his authority to another board.
Article 7
The Deputy for the Four Year Plan is empowered to take such necessary measures as may be necessary to guarantee the use of the reported property in accord with the necessities of German economy.
Article 8
1. Whoever wilfully or negligently fails to comply with this reporting requirement, either by omitting it, or making it incorrectly, or not within the time specified, or whoever acts contrary to any instruction issued pursuant to Article 7 by the Deputy of the Four Year Plan shall be punishable by imprisonment and by a fine or by both of these penalties, in particularly flagrant cases of wilful violation the offender may be condemned to hard labor up to ten years. The offender is punishable notwithstanding that the action was in a foreign country.
2. Any attempt to commit such actions is punishable.
3. In addition to the imposition of the penalties under (1), the property may be confiscated, insofar as it was involved in the criminal action. In addition to hard labor confiscation may be made. Where no specific individual can be prosecuted or convicted, confiscation may be decreed independently, where the prerequisites for confiscation warrant it.
Berlin, 26 April 1938
The Deputy for the Four Year Plan
Goering
General Field Marshal
The Reich Minister of the Interior
Frick

Adolph Eichmann set up the Zentralstelle in Vienna in August 1938.  He described it as a "conveyor belt".  You put a Jew and his property on one end and the Jew emerged with a passport and no property on the other end.  Eichmann is considered the "father" of spoliation for profit and the creation of the "Vienna model" of despoiling Jews before exporting them or murdering them.   The problem arose that no country wanted to accept Jews that had been completely spoliated.  Murder thus became the next logical step.

Nazi Era Laws - Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression - Translated


More information on Bakalar v Vavra, a recent Second Circuit case interpreting the April 26, 1938 Jewish Property declaration decree here.

More on Austria's violations of the Austrian State Treaty here.

A report on how the Museum of Modern Art in New York is the largest repository in the nation of Nazi looted art coming in through Switzerland here.


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Art Litigation: Holocaust for Dummies - The Murder and Spoliation of Fritz Grunbaum at Dachau

Holocaust for Dummies: Murder and Spoliation of Fritz Grunbaum at Dachau

Austria's Leopold Museum has refused to return artworks stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, a famous Jewish cabaret performer.   Grunbaum was arrested in Vienna by the Gestapo on March 22, 1938.   He died penniless in Dachau never having left Nazi custody on January 14, 1941.   His wife Lily was murdered at Minsk - Maly Trostinec after Fritz's death.

Austria is not alone in denying the Holocaust and the return of stolen artworks.   Oberlin College has Egon Schiele's Girl With Black Hair, which was stolen from Fritz Grunbaum. 

Oberlin's Allen Memorial Art Museum has refused to share its research with the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum or to permit on campus discussions of the work's provenance.  This is a shameful violation of Oberlin's academic mission.   If Oberlin has any Jewish alumni who care about undergraduate studies, I recommend teaching a course there on Fritz Grunbaum studies and demanding that anyone working at the Allen Museum or in the art history department be fired for incompetence.    US museums agreed to research their collections and publish the results under the Washington Principles.  Oberlin's failure to do so is a disgrace.

To assist everyone in understanding how the Holocaust worked and how Fritz Grunbaum's artworks were stolen from him, we have prepared the summary attached in the link above, you can also click here.   

More on Fritz Grunbaum at Art Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum.

More on Fritz Grunbaum here.

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Art Litigation: Nazi-Era Art Restitution - Legal Update Jan 24 New York State Bar Association

Nazi-Era Art Restitution Legal Update NYSBA EASL Jan 24 2011



On Monday January 24, 2011 I will be part of a panel organized by the New York State Bar Association' Entertainment Arts and Sports Law Section, flyer above, direct link and program description below.

http://www.nysba.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Event_List&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=45158

1:35-3:30 p.m. NAZI-ERA ART RESTITUTION: RECENT CASE DEVELOPMENTS


This program will address recent cases brought by heirs of Holocaust victims concerning the ownership of
artworks claimed to have been looted or sold under duress during the Nazi era. When the art resurfaced –
often decades later – in the hands of museums, collectors, galleries and auction houses, ownership disputes
have raised complex procedural, substantive, and policy issues. This panel includes lawyers representing
both sides of several high-profile cases, including the eleven-year battle which resulted in a $19 million
settlement with the Leopold Museum in Vienna in the Egon Schiele - Portrait of Wally case and the
seven-year battle with the Republic of Austria, which resulted in the restitution to the family of Holocaust
victims of a number of important works by Gustav Klimt, valued, in the aggregate, in excess of $300
million. The esteemed panelists will also discuss cases involving the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the
Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and descendants of families who are laying claim to works by Picasso,
Pissarro, Schiele, Kokoschka, Klimt, and Lucas Cranach the Elder

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Art Litigation: Second Circuit Sends Art Ownership Dispute Back to the Drawing Board

Egon Schiele's Seated Woman With Bent Left Leg (Torso)

The headless woman who invaded my life five years ago, a well-known fixation of mine known to readers of the Copyright Litigation Blog.  She is pretty much single handedly responsible for me learning a great deal about Nazi art looting and adding that dimension to a blog that started out with other intentions.  People seem to like the mix!

Article from NYLJ on Second Circuit reversal in Bakalar v. Vavra here.

More on the litigation and Bakalar v. Vavra decision here.

More on Nazi art looting here.

More on Fritz Grunbaum and other artworks stolen from him here.

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Art Litigation: Vienna's Leopold Museum Pays $19 Million For Stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally

Some good reporting on Portrait of Wally from Catherine Hickley of Bloomberg:

Vienna's Leopold Museum Pays $19 Million to Keep Schiele Portrait of Lover - Bloomberg

Piece on Portrait of Wally in the Washington Examiner.

My latest news on Austria buying the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally here.

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Art Litigation: Leopold Museum Capitulates in Egon Schiele - Portrait of Wally Case - Pays Full Price and Admits Artwork Stolen

Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally

Chief Judge Loretta Preska approved a settlement in the Portrait of Wally case.  Herrick Feinstein's press release reporting the settlement terms of the Portrait of Wally case here - Portrait of Wally Case Settles

This is good news for heirs of Holocaust victims and a measure of justice.  It also gives a flavor of just how tainted the Leopold Collection is.  Congratulations to all - the courtroom battle started in 1999 has finally ended.

A very nice touch is that Portrait of Wally will be displayed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City.   This is a very nice vindication for Robert Morgenthau's 1999 seizure of Portrait of Wally at the MoMA.

Dead City III, stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, is still hanging in the Leopold Museum.  For more information on Dead City III, go here.   My posts on Egon Schiele here.

If you have an interest in the topic of Nazi art looting, go here.   There is an incredible amount of stolen art remaining in U.S. museums.  Learn about Nazi agent and art dealer Curt Valentin here.

A really huge scandal and breathtaking example of Holocaust denial in the American museum community, the sad story of Alfred Flechtheim here.

I have copied the text of the press release below:

The United States of America, the Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray and the Leopold Museum Settle the Long-Standing Case Involving “Portrait of Wally” by Egon Schiele


New York, NY (July 20, 2010) -- The Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray (the “Estate”) announced today that the United States Government, the Estate and the Leopold Museum Privat-Stiftung (the “Leopold Museum”) have agreed to settle the long-pending case of United States of America v. Portrait of Wally, which was about to go to trial before Chief Judge Loretta Preska in federal court in Manhattan on July 26, 2010.
The case involves Portrait of Wally, a painting by Egon Schiele (the “Painting”), stolen from a Jewish art dealer and collector by a Nazi agent in the late 1930’s in Vienna. The major terms of the settlement agreement, which has been approved by Judge Preska, are as follows:
(a) the Leopold Museum pays the Estate $19 Million;
(b) the Estate releases its claim to the Painting;
(c) the United States Government dismisses the civil forfeiture action it brought against the Leopold Museum and releases the Painting to the Leopold Museum;
(d) the Leopold Museum will permanently display signage next to the Painting at the Leopold Museum, and at all future displays of the Painting of any kind that the Leopold Museum authorizes or allows anywhere in the world, that sets forth the true provenance of the Painting, including Lea Bondi Jaray’s prior ownership of the Painting and its theft from her by a Nazi agent before she fled to London in 1939; and
(e) before it is transported to the Leopold Museum in Vienna, the Painting will be publicly exhibited at the Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in New York, beginning with a ceremony commemorating the legacy of Lea Bondi Jaray and the successful resolution of the lawsuit.

The Painting was the personal property of Lea Bondi Jaray, a Jewish art dealer in Vienna, who fled in 1939 to London, where she died in 1969. The Painting became the subject of court proceedings in New York City, after it was loaned in late 1997 and early 1998 to the Museum of Modern Art in New York by the Leopold Museum as part of an exhibition of Schieles from the Leopold Museum’s collection. In 1998, Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney, subpeonaed the Painting in connection with his investigation into whether the Painting was stolen property. After the State Court of Appeals ruled in 1999 that such “seizure” of an artwork loaned for exhibition was prohibited under New York State law, the United States Government immediately commenced a civil forfeiture action in New York, alleging that the Painting was stolen from Lea Bondi Jaray during the Nazi era by a Nazi named Friedrich Welz, and was imported into the United States in 1997 by the Leopold Museum in violation of U.S. law. The Customs Service seized the Painting in connection with that action. The Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray asserted a claim to the Painting in the action, and the U.S. agreed that upon forfeiture of the Painting, it would transfer to the Estate all right and title to the Painting.

Based on the evidence presented during the case, Judge Preska ruled last fall that the Painting was the personal property of Lea Bondi Jaray and that it was stolen from her in Vienna in the late 1930's by Friedrich Welz, who was a member and collaborator of the Nazi party. The Court found that the Painting had been seized from Welz by U.S. Forces in Austria after World War II and delivered in 1947 to the Austrian Federal Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments (the “Bundesdenkmalamt”), along with paintings Welz had acquired from Dr. Heinrich Rieger, a Jewish art collector who had perished during the Holocaust. In 1950, the Bundesdenkmalamt delivered artworks to an agent for the Rieger heirs and included the Painting in the delivery. Later that year, the Rieger heirs sold their works to the Austrian National Gallery (the “Belvedere”), and the Painting was included in the delivery of the artworks to the Belvedere. In 1954, the Belvedere traded the Painting to Dr. Rudolf Leopold. In 1994, Dr. Leopold transferred the Painting to the Leopold Museum.

In a statement, representatives of the Estate expressed their appreciation at reaching this historic settlement, which reflects the true value of the Painting, and acknowledges Lea Bondi Jaray’s ownership of the Painting and her and her family’s long quest for justice. In addition, they underscored that the public display of the Painting at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York will mean that visitors will be able to view the Painting in a setting that memorializes the sufferings of so many in the Holocaust and the resilience and resolve of those who escaped and/or survived. They added that the permanent signage reflecting the Painting’s true provenance will ensure that future generations are told the real story of the Painting’s theft from Lea Bondi Jaray during the Nazi era.

In conclusion, the Estate representatives said: “Justice has been served. Finally, after more than 70 years, the wrongs suffered by Lea Bondi Jaray are at last being acknowledged and, to some degree, corrected. We are grateful to the many people who helped Lea and her family during these many years. We especially thank our attorneys at Herrick, Feinstein, and all the members of the Asset Forfeiture Unit team of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Cohen Levin, for their unstinting dedication to the pursuit of justice during the long course of this litigation.”


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Art Litigation: Austrian Panel Recommends Return of Four Leopold Foundation Works Stolen From Jews

No Polizei for the Stolen Property of Vienna's Jews (Photo Wikipedia)

Oskar Reichel, a Jewish doctor in Vienna, was forced to give up his artworks by the Nazis, an Austrian panel found, including one work by Egon Schiele.

Jenny Steiner's Schiele "Houses by the Sea" was confiscated and sold through Vienna's infamous Dorotheum in 1941.

All of the works are at the infamous Leopold Museum in Vienna.   Austria used the fiction of creating a "private foundation" so that it could acquire Rudolph Leopold's vast collection of artworks, many looted from Jews.   More on Leopold here.

Of course the recommendations of the panel are non-binding.  No chance that the Bundespolizei will be called in.

From the Dorotheum's self-serving Wikipedia page:

During the Nazi regime important posts within the Dorotheum hierarchy were assigned to supporters of the regime. The institution's infrastructure was used to auction off aryanised property, although the Dorotheum itself was at no time actively involved in Aryanisation.

Link to AP Story:

Austrian Panel Recommends Return of 4 Works - ABC News

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Art Litigation: Egon Schiele's Prison Converted To A Museum, Image At Center of Stolen Art Controversy

Egon Schiele's "I Love Antitheses" 1912 (Estee Lauder Trust)

Artkabinett has an article Schiele Prison Attracts Collectors on the prison that housed Egon Schiele in Austria when he was imprisoned for scandalizing public morals.   Today the prison is a museum dedicated to Schiele's works.  Above is an image of one of the works that Schiele created while in prison.  According to Schiele expert Jane Kallir, "I Love Antitheses" was part of the collection of Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer who was murdered in the Dachau Concentration Camp.  Jane Kallir testified at trial that "I Love Antitheses" was one of the few works that Schiele himself titled, and that the work is documented as belonging to Fritz Grunbaum by a 1925 Wurthle Catalog and a 1928 Hagenbund - Neue Galerie catalog.  Today it is held in an Estee Lauder trust.

Neue Galerie was the name of Otto Kallir's art gallery in Vienna that organized a 1928 exhibition to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Schiele's death.  Otto Kallir borrowed 22 works from Fritz Grunbaum's collection to include in the 1928 exhibition.  The 1928 correspondence shows that Otto Kallir had full access to Fritz Grunbaum's Schiele collection and selected the works that he wanted to borrow.

Grunbaum's collection was stolen by the Nazis and surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 where some of it was sold off by Eberhard Kornfeld of Galerie Kornfeld to Otto Kallir.  Kallir bought 20 of Fritz Grunbaum's Schieles from Kornfeld, including Dead City III. 

Kornfeld shipped the Grunbaum Schieles to New York and sold them through the Galerie St. Etienne, the gallery today owned by Jane Kallir and named after St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom)  in Vienna.  Otto Kallir knew that the works had belonged to Fritz Grunbaum and was aware that Fritz and his wife had been murdered by the Nazis.   In the period Kallir was selling the stolen artworks from his gallery on 57th Street in New York, the U.S. State Department had issued warnings to art dealers, museums and collectors not to acquire artworks from Europe that did not have a clear provenance.   Schiele was unknown outside Austria prior to World War II and many of Schiele's top collectors were murdered Jews such as Heinrich Reiger,  Oskar Reichel,  Karl Maylander and Fritz Grunbaum.

Galerie St. Etienne's Inspiration  -  Stefansdom - Vienna - Image from Wikipedia

Dead City III was seized as stolen property by D.A. Robert Morgenthau in 1998. After Morgenthau's subpoena was quashed, MoMA gave Dead City III to Rudolph Leopold.

A lawsuit alleging that Fritz Grunbaum's art dealer, Otto Kallir (and for a time monarchist supporting the restoration of the Hapsburgs) laundered the Grunbaum collection through Switzerland is still pending. See New York Observer, Dealer with the Devil.   The heirs of Fritz Grunbaum have been battling to regain the artworks stolen from him.  More information at Art Stolen From Fritz Grunbaum.   Museums and private collectors who purchased the stolen works have not returned them and the issue on appeal now to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is whether the 147 days that the stolen artworks passed through Switzerland was sufficient to apply Swiss law to "launder" the title to these stolen works.  Massachusetts collector David Bakalar sued Fritz Grunbaum's heirs to obtain a declaration of title to one of the stolen artworks.   My firm represents Fritz Grunbaum's heirs in the litigation and I was lead trial counsel in the action in the Southern District of New York, story here.

Along with Dead City III in the September 1956 of artworks from Eberhard Kornfeld was the work "I Love Antitheses" and "Girl With Black Hair" that is now at Oberlin College.   Oberlin's Allen Museum has refused to share its research or to publish a full provenance of "Girl With Black Hair" with Fritz Grunbaum's heirs in violation of the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.   The earliest provenance given of Girl with Black Hair by Oberlin College is Switzerland, 1956.

Artkabinett also has a story Infamous Collector Leopold Dies at 85 on Rudolph Leopold, the art collector who amassed a number of stolen artworks that Austria has never returned to the Jewish families from whom they were stolen.

Related:   Will Austria Return Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally?  and David D'Arcy's Settlement close on Portrait of Wally case

Work stolen from Fritz Grunbaum at Oberlin College here.  More on the battles over Fritz Grunbaum's collection and Oberlin's falsification of the provenance of Girl With Black Hair here.

Watch the Boston College video here.

More information and coverage of the 1928 Hagenbund/Neu Galerie correspondence in the following Powerpoint:

Federal Bar Association ND Ohio IP Crimes Seminar on Nazi Art Looting

View more presentations from Raymond Dowd.

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Art Litigation: Austria to Buy Back Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally?"

Die Presse reports today that the Republic of Austria may be preparing to try to purchase the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally.  German language link:  http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/578029/index.do?_vl_backlink=/home/kultur/577683/index.do&direct=577683

Use Google translate to get an idea of the article.  Background on the story from my past posts here. 

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Art Litigation: Will Austria Return Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally?

Today's New York Times obit of Rudolph Leopold makes passing reference to the fact that he was to stand criminal trial in the United States on July 26 on the issue of whether he knew that "Portrait of Wally" (above) - was stolen.  After the Justice Department seized the work, my understanding is that it's been sitting in a warehouse in Long Island City, unseen by the public for over a decade.   So Austria will now have to decide whether it wishes to continue to fight the US government or to throw in the towel and give Portrait of Wally back to the family of the art dealer from whom it was stolen.

I understand that an Austrian paper reported yesterday that Austria would have a majority of the Board positions on the Leopold Museum, which makes it much tougher for Austria to continue to pretend that the Leopold Museum is a "private" institution, the fiction it has used to avoid returning stolen property up until now.

Readers of Austrian tea leaves predict that the death of Hans Dichand, Austria's most powerful man and long-term Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite, is more significant in determining Austria's approach to the problem.   Leopold was under Dichand's political protection in Austria - he was an extremely powerful media mogul who made and broke politicians daily.  Now that Dichand is dead, there is a much greater likelihood that many of the stolen artworks in the Leopold Museum will be restituted.   Apparently, Dichand had a vast art collection that is not free of controversy.

My previous posts on Rudoph Leopold, the Leopold Museum, and Austria's dithering here.  Perhaps the New York Times will show a renewed interest in the topic of Nazi art looting.   If U.S. papers like the New York Times cover these issues, it has a major impact in Austria.    When U.S. papers ignore the topic, Germany and Austria seem to lose any momentum towards restitution.

Rudolf Leopold, Art Collector, Dies at 85 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

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On the Eve of Criminal Trial in U.S., Rudolph Leopold, Collector of Artworks Stolen from Jews, Dies in Vienna

Egon Schiele's Dead City

Art collector Rudolph Leopold died today in Vienna, Austria.

In 1998, D.A. Robert Morgenthau seized two stolen artworks at the Museum of Modern Art that Leopold had loaned to the MoMA:  Egon Schiele's Dead City and Schiele's Portrait of Wally.

Leopold was scheduled to stand criminal trial this summer before the Hon. Loretta A. Preska in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after Judge Preska determined that Portrait of Wally was stolen.

But MoMA returned the stolen Dead City to the Leopold Museum in Austria.  The Austrian Provenance Commission's head Dr. Christoph Bazil, has repeatedly promised to investigate Dead City's provenance and those of other Schiele's stolen from Fritz Grunbaum that are in the Leopold and Albertina Museums in Vienna, but after 11 years, no report has issued.

Austria purchased Leopold's collection and made Leopold director of the Leopold Museum for life.  It remains to be seen whether Austria will carry through on its promises to investigate and return the stolen works in Leopold's collection.

Article 26 of the 1955 Austrian State Treaty requires Austria to return all property stolen from Nazi persecutees.  Yet Austria has not only failed to return the property, but repeatedly set up enabling legislation designed to frustrate claims and then let the legislation lapse.

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June 15 Cocktails and Dinner - Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City Dinner at the Harmonie Club NYC

 Egon Schiele's Dead City - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum

Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City

Cocktails: 6:30 Dinner and Speaker to Follow

When:  Tuesday June 15, 2010

Where:  Harmonie Club

4 East 60th Street (212) 355-7400

Cost:  $150

NYS Medical Defense Bar Association $125

Payment:  Check to "New York State Medical Defense Bar Association"

RSVP  Andrew M. Neubardt

Rende, Ryan & Downes LLP

(914)  681-0444

aneubardt@rrd-law.com

In 1998 D.A. Robert Morgenthau created worldwide headlines when he entered the Museum of Modern Art and seized two stolen artworks, Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally and Egon Schiele's Dead City. After more than a decade, litigation surrounding both artworks is still raging, with Dead City at the center of an appeal to the first Holocaust-era art trial ever in a U.S. federal court. Ray Dowd of Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, the Jewish cabaret performer and owner of Dead City when he died in the Dachau Concentration Camp. He will take us on a visually-compelling tour of Nazi art looting and discuss its implications for U.S. museums today.

Praise for Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City

The program was outstanding and participants offered many positive comments on their evaluations, including the following: “Better than excellent; Hauntingly brilliant in every way! Extraordinary research and amazing cadence in relating it; Subtly spellbinding, no speaker more thorough!; Nice guy; Wonderful!; Fascinating; Very knowledgeable—impressive; Very interesting; Very well done, detailed explanation of subject.”


Mindy Blechman, Continuing Legal Education Director, Gratz College

The thoroughness with which you presented the diabolically methodical process that the Third Reich used to despoil Jews of their property kept the class riveted during your lecture. The horror of the Nazi art looting came to life for the audience as you presented the evidentiary issues and the legal problems associated with restitution litigation for holocaust victims and families. Since your presentation, many of the attendees have contacted me and commented on how astonished they were after your lecture. It is chilling to realize how methodical and relentless the Third Reich was in their pillaging operations.

Filippa Marullo Anzalone
Assoc. Dean, Boston College Law School

Ray's presentation was dynamic and deeply moving. He is an entertaining speaker, and supremely knowledgeable about Holocaust art recovery and the legal and ethical issues associated with this complex topic. He presented before a Bar Association audience of judges and lawyers in Cincinnati, and gave a second presentation at the Cincinnati Museum Center. His talk was compelling and very well received.

Michael Newman
Federal Bar Association, Vice President for the Sixth Circuit


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Traffickers in Stolen Schieles: U.S. Museum Directors Warned Not To Act As Receivers of Stolen Goods

Egon Schiele Self-Portrait - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum when he was deported to Dachau, now at the Morgan Library (Bequest of Fred Ebb)

The Morgan Library claims that the Berne gallery Gutekunst & Klipstein purchased this artwork directly from the estate of Egon Schiele.  Source: From Berlin to Broadway:  The Ebb Bequest of Modern German and Austrian Drawings (2007).

Gutekunst & Klipstein (now owned by Eberhard Kornfeld) claims that the work belonged to Fritz Grunbaum and that it bought the work in 1956 through Grunbaum's sister in law.

Why would the Morgan Library tell a different story?

The late Francis Henry Taylor, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, warned U.S. museums not to act as receivers of stolen goods in 1943...


We know that the Nazis have carried off virtually all of the movable works of art in private possession.

                                                           ***
The methods by which these properties are acquired have an ingenious quality of wickedness bordering on the naïve. The Nazis resort to the strictest legal fictions to justify their operations. …The laws regarding ownership of property by Jews have been invoked at every turn…. They were easy victims.


                                                            ***

… their personal possessions --- particularly works of art --- were sold at public auction where German officials directly, or indirectly through local Quislings, bought in the objects with the worthless paper currency … . Then in turn the money realized by the original owner was taxed 100 percent and passed directly to the Nazi treasury.


                                                     ***
Not since the time of Napoleon Bonaparte has there been the wholesale looting and destruction of art property that is going on today in the occupied countries. The Nazis have either confiscated or acquired by fictitious purchase the most important masterpieces of both public and private collections.

                                                  ***

…after a fugitive existence [the artworks] will inevitably find their way to the free markets of neutral countries. In Buenos Aires and Madrid, in Stockholm, Berne and Lisbon, in Istanbul and Cairo we will see come out of hiding in the years immediately following the war objects of great intrinsic worth, held for the most part under fictitious names, and representing the real assets of the Nazi officials who are lucky enough to escape. These works will be offered primarily in the Western Hemisphere. How can we prevent this from happening and becoming ourselves party to the looting of Europe?

                                                          ***


Private individuals might continue to operate in a “black market” of antiquities in which no questions would be asked, but public institutions disposing of trust funds could not very well connive in the liquidation of the artistic patrimony of Europe and act as public receivers of stolen goods.


Taylor, Francis Henry, Europe’s Looted Art: Can It Be Recovered? New York Times, September 19, 1943

Why is it that only today's American museum directors seem to believe that Jews voluntarily sold artworks under the Nazi reign of terror?   And that they have a fiduciary duty to conceal stolen property? 

Francis Henry Taylor knew that people in Berne would be selling artworks using fake names and he warned the art market.  In 1943.

Request for Information on Egon Schiele's SEMI-NUDE BLOND GIRL WITH BLUE SHIRT AND BLUE HEADBAND

We are trying to ascertain the following about the provenance given below, any information given would be helpful:

1.   According to Jane Kallir's catalogue raisonne Egon Schiele:  The Complete Works (Abrams 1998), this work was in an Antiquariat Steinbach sales catalogue in Vienna in 1960.   We have not been able to ascertain who put this work up for sale, whether it was sold, and if so, who bought it.

2.  We have not been able to ascertain the first name or the address of "Glowacki", the reported consignor of the artwork to Klipstein & Kornfeld for the 1963 auction.

3.  We have contacted Sotheby's and have been informed by Sotheby's counsel John Cahill that they are actively researching these questions.

Any information that can be provided on the pre-1963 provenance of this artwork would be greatly appreciated.

An excerpt from the Sotheby's catalog found here.
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale


New York
5 May 2010, 7:00 PM
N08633

LOT 6 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

EGON SCHIELE  1890 – 1918

BLONDER MÄDCHENHALBAKT MIT BLAUEM HEMD UND BLAUEM HAARBAND (SEMI-NUDE BLOND GIRL WITH BLUE SHIRT AND BLUE HEADBAND)

Signed Egon Schiele and dated 1913 (lower right)
Gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper

18 7/8 by 12 5/8 in.
48 by 32 cm
Executed in 1913.

ESTIMATE 700,000 - 1,000,000 USD
PROVENANCE

Glowacki (sold: Klipstein &Kornfeld, Bern, May 11, 1963, lot 995)
Rudolf Leopold, Vienna
Serge Sabarsky, New York
Saidenberg Gallery, New York
Gift of the above to the present owner

EXHIBITION
Vienna, Antiquariat Steinbach, circa 1960, no. 4
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Egon Schiele: Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings, 1964, no. 64

LITERATURE
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele, The Complete Works, New York, 1998, no. 1286, illustrated p. 498

Watch and Listen! Powerpoint and Audio of Schiele's Dead City: Nazi Art Looting at Sotheby's Institute/New York State Bar Association

Egon Schiele's Dead City - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum

You can WATCH and LISTEN to my Powerpoint presentation with audio is now available here  from the presentation I gave at Sotheby's Institute on March 24, 2010 in a program sponsored by the New York State Bar Association's Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section, chaired by Prof. Judith Prowda.

More material on artworks stolen from Fritz Grunbaum while he was in the Dachau Concentration Camp can be found at  http://artstolenfromfritzgrunbaum.wordpress.com/.

Egon Schiele's Girl With Black Hair - Experts Agree Stolen From Fritz Grunbaum

Falsified Provenance Published by Oberlin College's Allen Memorial Art Museum

Watch and listen to my Sotheby's Institute presentation and learn about why Oberlin College's provenance of Girl With Black Hair, found here, is false.

A summary of the evidence that Oberlin College has concealed below:

Below:  the cover of the 1956 Gutekunst & Klipstein (aka Galerie Kornfeld) - Eberhard Kornfeld testified that all of the artworks in this catalog belonged to Fritz Grunbaum.  Dead City was the only artwork pictured that listed Fritz Grunbaum as the prior owner.

Oberlin has never put Fritz Grunbaum's ownership of Girl With Black Hair in the provenance even though evidence of experts concluding that Fritz Grunbaum owned Girl With Black Hair was reported by Steven Litt of The Plain Dealer

Prewar catalogs show that Fritz Grunbaum owned Girl With Black Hair - Oberlin refuses to list these catalogs in its provenance of Girl With Black Hair

G.   Girl With Black Hair, according to Eberhard Kornfeld, spent 147 days in Switzerland before being sold to Otto Kallir on September 18, 1956.

Otto Kallir was Fritz Grunbaum's art dealer in Vienna.  Kallir had catalogued Dead City as being in Fritz Grunbaum's collection in 1930 when he wrote a catalogue raisonne of Schiele's oils.   As Otto Kallir's grand-daughter, Jane Kallir, testified at trial:  Fritz Grunbaum owned Girl With Black Hair.

So why does Oberlin's President Marvin Krislov refuse to admit Fritz Grunbaum's ownership?

April 16 2010 Art Litigation - Nazi Art Looting - Following the Trail To Egon Schiele's Dead City

Egon Schiele's Dead City III (1911)

April 16, 2010 lecture at Gratz College - more information:  www.gratzcollege.edu/cle

Full brochure here

Program description:

Following the Trail to Dead City

Raymond J. Dowd, Esquire
1:00 pm – 4:30 pm

This course presents the intriguing story of Egon Schiele’s painting, Dead City, after it was stolen by the Nazis and legal efforts to bring it back into the Grunbaum family.

Mr. Dowd will discuss how Fritz Grunbaum’s art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed
circumstances and was later found in the Leopold and Albertina museums in Austria. In 1998, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Dead City (along with Portrait of Wally) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and unleashed an international debate over what countries should be doing to return art to Jewish heirs. Mr. Dowd will underscore the role of the Swiss in laundering Nazi looted art; the response of the Austrian government, which has been somewhat less than cooperative; and the new commission the U.S. may establish to assist Holocaust victims and their heirs. Mr. Dowd has spoken on this topic at the Jewish Museum in Berlin and at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. A terrific companion to last year’s popular course on “Reclaiming Nazi Looted Art.”

Three (3) substantive credits: $100

Nazi Art Looting: Egon Schiele's Dead City Tomorrow Night 3/24 At Sotheby's Institute NYC

Egon Schiele - Dead City III 1911

LAST CHANCE THE EVENT IS SELLING OUT

NYSBASections


Entertainment, Arts & Sports and Law EASL Section
Events
Section Publications
http://www.nysba.org/

Egon Schiele's Dead City: Current Issues In Nazi Art Looting and Recovery

March 24, 2010
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Sotheby's Institute of Art
570 Lexington Ave., NYC

1.5 MCLE credits in Professional Practice
Register online > www.nysba.org/deadcity

SEATING IS LIMITED PLEASE REGISTER EARLY

Speaker:
Raymond Dowd, Esq.
Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP
Sponsored by the Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Section's Committee on Fine Arts

Program Description:

In 1998, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Egon Schiele's Dead City and Portrait of Wally at the Museum of Modern Art, creating a scandal that changed the legal landscape of Europe and the United States for victims of Nazi persecution and their survivors. Ray Dowd represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer murdered in the Dachau Concentration Camp. Fritz's wife Lily died in the Minsk Death Camp. Grunbaum's art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed circumstances, and in the first Holocaust-era art recovery trial in U.S. history, Bakalar v. Vavra, the District Court found that passing the artwork through Switzerland gave it clean title. The case is now on appeal to the Second Circuit. This presentation will cover the legal and evidentiary obstacles to litigating Holocaust-era expropriation and provide legal practitioners with basic tools to assemble evidence and prove Nazi property looting.

Pricing:

$25.00 for Members

$35.00 for non-members

$15.00 for students

For more information contact: Carolyn Clayton at 518-487-5596 or cclayton@nysba.org

Register online > www.nysba.org/deadcity

Following the Trail to "Dead City" at Gratz College in Philadelphia - April 16

Egon Schiele's Dead City III - Now at the Leopold Museum

On April 16, Gratz College in Philadelphia is hosting a continuing legal education program called "Following the Trail to "Dead City" that will discuss the Egon Schiele oil Dead City III stolen from Fritz Grunbaum while he was in the Dachau Concentration Camp.   Austria recently appointed a commission to investigate the provenance of Dead City and is expected to issue a report in the next few months.   The decision will have repercussions on institutions such as Oberlin College, the Morgan Library, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute, Harvard's Fogg Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, all of which have artworks that followed the same provenance path as Dead City - through an art gallery in Switzerland called Gutekunst & Klipstein that is today Galerie Kornfeld run by Eberhard Kornfeld through Galerie St. Etienne in New York City.


If you would like to make a full day of it, the morning session features IBM and the Holocaust: Legal and Ethical Implications by Edwin Black (I included the information below).

The link is here.

Raymond J. Dowd, Esquire

April 16, 2010

Event Categories: Continuing Legal Education at Gratz College

This course presents the intriguing story of Egon Schiele’s painting, Dead City, after it was stolen by the Nazis and legal efforts to bring it back into the Grunbaum family.

Mr. Dowd will discuss how Fritz Grunbaum’s art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed circumstances and was later found in the Leopold and Albertina museums in Austria. In 1998, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Dead City (along with Portrait of Wally) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and unleashed an international debate over what countries should be doing to return art to Jewish heirs. Mr. Dowd will underscore the role of the Swiss in laundering Nazi-looted art; the response of the Austrian government, which has been somewhat less than cooperative; and the new commission the U.S. may establish to assist Holocaust victims and their heirs. Mr. Dowd has spoken on this topic at the Jewish Museum in Berlin and at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. A terrific companion to last year’s popular course on “Reclaiming Nazi Looted Art.”

1:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Three (3) substantive credits: $100

Discount for full day: $185. Contact Mindy Blechman for discount: mblechman@gratz.edu; 215-635-7300 x 154

Lunch included for participants who attend both classes.

Cost: $100.00

MORNING PROGRAM

CLE: IBM and the Holocaust: Legal and Ethical Implications


Mr. Edwin Black

April 16, 2010


Event Categories: Continuing Legal Education at Gratz College
As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s, all for the sake of profit. Mr. Black will review the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters, and Geneva intermediaries. This was undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction.

Mr. Black will then broaden his discussion on corporate complicity in the Holocaust to the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Carnegie and Rockefeller.

One (1) ethics and two (2) substantive credits: $100

Breakfast included; dietary laws observed.

Doors open at 8:30 am; course starts promptly at 9:00 am.

Speaker’s publications available for purchase and signing.





Cost: $100.00

Lovely Strudel from Demel: Austria's Continuing Extortion of Jews Dispossed of Artworks

Austrian Cultural Forum (thin gray building third from the left) image here.

On March 4-5 the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City held a forum on "Art Restitution in Austria".  I previously wrote about stolen Schieles in Austria's Leopold and Albertina collections here.   You can listen to my presentation at Yad Vashem on the problems of proving the Holocaust in a U.S. court of law and view the corresponding Powerpoint here.

The ACF event was clearly envisioned as a propaganda exercise by the Austrian government.   Here is the press release from the Austrian Embassy in Washington.   For no apparent reason, Austria used an image of Klimt's The Kiss to illustrate its press release.  Morton Maneker's Art Market Monitor covers the event here.

I attended and distributed a document titled "Fritz Grunbaum's Schieles:  Stolen Artworks in the Albertina and Leopold Museums."   You can find the document (a Powerpoint) here.   I asked why the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum had not received a response to their claims in 11 years, despite having been told by the Austrian Commission that a report would be issued - we were told to be patient.   We were also told that there is no legal recourse when decisions don't issue, no judicial oversight of the process, and no right of appeal.

We were served lovely coffee and dainty treats from Demel, for which we were all thankful.

When moderator Marc Masurovsky asked Christoph Bazil whether there was any right of appeal to Austria's decisions not to return stolen art, Bazil had a choking fit.  The choking fit recurred anytime the Leopold Foundation was discussed.

Bazil was utterly confused when Prof. Ed Gaffney suggested that Austria pass a law giving compensation to Jews who'd lost property and had it withheld for decades. Gaffney also suggested passing a law providing for attorneys fees for successful claimants.

A highlight:

Christoph Bazil "No one owns the Leopold Collection"

Andreas Stadler  "Austria purchased the Leopold Collection"

I explained that District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Fritz Grunbaum's Dead City as stolen in 1998 and asked why the Austrians didn't just send in a prosecutor and the police to grab the stolen works and give them back.

I got no understandable answer.   If an Austrian's car is stolen, the police get it back.  If a Jew's painting is stolen, there are no police.

It is clear that Austria continues to do everything in its power to frustrate the rights of Jews to property stolen from them during the Holocaust.  Instead of sending the police into the museums to investigate allegations of stolen property and take sworn statements, Austria has set up a Kafkaesque system of provenance researchers who are counting every artwork in every museum and creating lots of files.   This response is akin to someone saying that every grain of sand on the beach must be counted before returning a stolen diamond ring that was found on the beach.   Fritz Grunbaum's stolen Schieles should have been returned long ago.

Austria's position is that if there is property stolen from Jews in private hands, there is no legal remedy.  A Dorotheum representative explained that when the Dorotheum finds stolen property coming up for auction, the Dorotheum explains to the Jews who have been looted that since they have no rights, they must come to a "just and fair solution".   She explained that this makes no one happy, but everyone must reach a compromise.   Imagine the unhappiness of the poor ex-Nazis and their children learning that they can't keep their stolen loot!

Making someone give up their property rights by telling them that if they don't accept they will have no legal recourse is simple extortion.

Privatizing the Dorotheum and institutionalizing this form of coercion just means that Austria has privatized its continuing extortion of Jews, rather than honoring Article 26 of the Austrian State Treaty which requires Austria to give back all such stolen property.   U.S. museums and private collectors routinely extort Jews in similar ways (relying on statutes of limitations and laches defenses), which has led the U.S. State Department to support the creation of a U.S. Art Restitution Commission.

Minister Claudia Schmid should take immediate and serious measures to return all stolen artworks and to promulgate laws permitting Jews to recover stolen artworks now in private hands.

Owners of stolen art will not be content with apfelstrudel from Demel and a pat on the head.

The program below:

Art Restitution in Austria


(Restitutions from the Federal Collections)

Conference

(March 4-5, 2010, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York)

DAY 1, THURSDAY, MARCH 4: 10.00 A.M. – 5.00 P.M. – SPECIAL EVENT FOR EXPERTS IN THE FIELD OF ART RESTITUTION

9.30 a.m. Welcome Table

9.45 a.m. Introduction by Andreas Stadler, Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum, New York

10.00 a.m. – 10.45 a.m.

Looting of art during the Nazi era in Austria (1938-1945) - Historical and political outline

Presentation by Michael John, Historian and Political Scientist, University of Linz

Followed by Discussion and Q&A (Moderator: Marc Masurovsky, Historian)

11.15 a.m. – 12.00 a.m.

The Austrian Art Restitution Law (”Kunstrückgabegesetz 1998”) as the legal basis of art restitution from the Federal Collections against the background of private and international law. The origins of this bill as well as its amendment in 2009

Presentation by Georg Graf, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies

Followed by a Discussion and Q&A (Moderator: Marc Masurovsky, Historian)

Lunchbreak

2.00 p.m. – 2.45 p.m.

The Commission for Provenance Research – its activities since 1998: from its origin to an established research facility

Presentation by Leonhard Weidinger, Historian, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (MAK)

2.45 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.

The Art Restitution Advisory Board – outline of its functions and decisions

Presentation by Christoph Bazil, Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK)

Coffee Break

4.00 p.m.

Panel Discussion

“Austrian Art Restitution”; Marc Masurovsky in conversation with Michael John, Georg Graf, Leonhard Weidinger, Christoph Bazil, Steven Beller.

Christoph Bazil studied law in Vienna and has worked for the Austrian Federal Ministry for Culture since 1994. He was Deputy Head of the Department for Cultural Heritage, before becoming Head of the Department of Restitution in 2008. He is also administrative Co-Chair of the Commission for Provenance Research. Steven Beller was born in London and educated in Cambridge, England. He currently works in Washington DC as an independent scholar. He has written on various topics of modern Central European and modern Jewish history, including books on “Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History” (1989); “Herzl” (1991); and “Francis Joseph” (1996). He also edited and introduced “Rethinking Vienna 1900” (2001). His book “A Concise History of Austria” was published by Cambridge University Press, followed by his book “Antisemitism” in 2007. Georg Graf has been Professor for Private Law at the University of Salzburg since 2001; he is Head of the Department for Private Law. From 1999 to 2003, he was a member of the Austrian Historical Commission with the mandate to investigate and report on the whole complex of expropriations in Austria during the Nazi era and on restitution and/or compensation (including other financial or social benefits) after 1945 by the Republic of Austria. Since 2009, he has been the chairman of the board of directors of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. Michael John studied History and Political Science at the University of Vienna. He worked as a historian in Vienna, and is since 2001 Professor of Social and Economic History at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. His research interests include: migration and ethnicity in Austria, biographical research, oral/video history, history of minorities, and Jewish history. He has served as director of the projects “Jews in Upper Austria” and „Aryanization and Restitution in Upper Austria, Salzburg and Burgenland” as part of the Historical Commission of the Republic of Austria (2000-2004) and was the head of the Commission for Provenance Research of Art Objects of the Regional Government of Upper Austria (2000 – 2007). He is the author of six books, five editions, and numerous contributions to scientific journals, anthologies, books, including several articles on “looted art”. He was guest professor at the University of Salzburg, and lecturer at the Central European University, Budapest, the University of Nova Gorica and the Academy of Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Marc Masurovsky has investigated and studied since 1980 the thefts and outflows of assets looted during the Holocaust and World War II. In September 1997, he co-founded the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) and served as its Director of Research. In 1999 and 2000, he spent 15 months as Director of Research for Monetary Gold at the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. Masurovsky produced an unpublished final report on the wartime and post-war fate of gold bars and coins looted by the Nazis. From 2001 to 2004, he worked on a pilot project to create a database focused on the spoliated Jewish community of Vienna, Austria, based in part on the records of the Bundesdenkmalamt in Vienna. From 2004 to 2006, he oversaw the design, construction, and execution of a looted art database for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). Its exclusive focus centered on the estimated 20,000 highly-prized works and objets d'art removed by the Nazis from leading Jewish and non-Jewish families and businesses in France and Belgium. In the fall of 2006, he co-authored in French a book on the economic plunder of France during the Vichy years. Masurovsky is currently finishing a book in French with Fabrizio Calvi on the Holocaust, the mechanics of the art market, and the destruction of Europe's Jewish artists, scheduled for publication in 2011. Leonhard Weidinger is a historian and multimedia producer. Since 2005 he has been a member of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research and oversees the collection of the Austrian Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna (MAK). He was Co-Producer of a video documentary about the concentration camp Steyr-Muenichholz, Co-Editor of the volume "… wesentlich mehr Faelle als angenommen”, which presents the first ten years of the work of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research, and author of the upcoming book “Schneidern und Sammeln”, a study of the Viennese Rothberger family.

DAY 2, FRIDAY, MARCH 5: 10.00 A.M. – 1.00 P.M. – PUBLIC EVENT “AUSTRIAN ART RESTITUTION”

Presenters: Christoph Bazil, Leonhard Weidinger

The meeting aims to inform about the Republic of Austria’s actions and measures. After an overview about looting of art during the Nazi era in Austria (1938-1945) and the art restitution since 1945 there will be a focus on the art restitution law of 1998, on its origins as well as on its amendment in 2009. The experts will inform about the work of the Commission for Provenance Research whose members inspect systematically and consistently the Austrian federal museums and collections and about the Art Restitution Advisory Board and its functions and decisions. The practice of art restitution in Austria will be shown with recent examples. Christoph Bazil studied law in Vienna and has worked for the Austrian Federal Ministry for Culture since 1994. He was Deputy Head of the Department for Cultural Heritage, before becoming Head of the Department of Restitution in 2008. He is also administrative Co-Chair of the Commission for Provenance Research. Leonhard Weidinger is a historian and multimedia producer. Since 2005 he has been a member of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research and oversees the collection of the Austrian Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna (MAK). He was Co-Producer of a video documentary about the concentration camp Steyr-Muenichholz, Co-Editor of the volume "… wesentlich mehr Faelle als angenommen”, which presents the first ten years of the work of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research, and author of the upcoming book “Schneidern und Sammeln”, a study of the Viennese Rothberger family.

Coffeebreak

Followed by a Discussion and Q&A

RSVP please to Alexander Bogner for reservations: alexander.bogner@bmeia.gv.at – limited seats available!