Displaying items by tag: jewish

Germany’s Staatsgalerie Stuttgart museum returned a 15^th century Renaissance painting stolen by Nazis during World War II to the estate of a Jewish art dealer. The museum acquired Virgin and Child, which is attributed to the Master of Flémalle (1375-1444) who is identified by historians as Robert Campin, in 1948.

The painting once belonged to Max Stern (1904-1987) who lost over 400 paintings to the Nazi regime during a forced sale in 1937. After Jews were banned from selling art in Nazi-occupied Europe, Stern shuttered his Dusseldorf gallery and escaped to London in December of the same year. Before settling in Montreal, Stern sold even more paintings, including Virgin and Child, in order to buy a German exit visa for his mother. Stern went on to purchase the Dominion Gallery of Fine Arts and established himself as one of Canada’s most important art dealers and collectors.

Upon his death in 1987, Stern donated a portion of his estate to Concordia and McGill Universities in Montreal as well as the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. For the past ten years Concordia has been working to recover the hundreds of paintings Stern lost at the hands of the Nazis. The initiative, known as the Max Stern Art Restitution Project, has facilitated the return of 9 works originally belonging to Stern; Virgin and Child is the 10^th and the only work to be returned from a German museum thus far.

A ceremony was held on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin to celebrate the painting’s return.  

The heirs of Alfred Flechtheim, a prominent Jewish art dealer who fled Nazi Germany during World War II, are urging the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia to return artworks belonging to their relative. The paintings in question, which are by Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Juan Gris (1887-1927), are currently part of the Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen’s collection in Dusseldorf.

Before the perils of World War II took hold, Flechtheim was an established art dealer in Europe, representing a variety of well-known artists including Klee, Max Beckmann (1884-1950), and a number of French Cubists. Flechtheim ran galleries in Dusseldorf and Berlin, organized many exhibitions, and founded an art magazine. However, Flechtheim’s high standing in the art world made him an easy target for the Nazis. He fled Germany in 1933 shortly after a stream of hateful articles ran in the Nazi press. Flechtheim escaped to Zurich, then Paris before settling in London. After his getaway, Flechtheim’s Dusseldorf gallery was seized and turned over to his former employee Alex Voemel, a Nazi. Flechtheim’s gallery in Berlin was liquidated and his collection, which included works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Fernand Leger (1881-1955), Georges Braque (1882-1963), and Henri Matisse (1869-1954), was sold.    

Mike Hulton, Flechtheim’s great-nephew, claims that Klee’s Feather Plant (1919) and Gris’ Still Life (Violin and Inkwell) (1913) were part of Flechtheim’s private collection and sold under duress for well below their value when he fled Germany. The Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen does not believe there is enough evidence to support Hulton’s claim. In addition, owners of archives that could help in the case are refusing to let provenance researchers access their information, bringing the dispute to a standstill. Officials from the Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen assert that if it was proven that Flechtheim was forced to sell the works by Gris and Klee or that he received little to no money for them, that they would part with the paintings, but the current evidence is inconsequential.

Flechtheim’s heirs are currently pursuing restitution for over 100 paintings in museums in the United States, France, Germany, and other European countries.

On January 23, 2013, a three-judge federal appellate court in California heard arguments from the heirs and relatives of a prominent Hungarian art collector. The lead plaintiff, David de Csepel, is the great-grandson of Jewish banker Baron Mór Lipót Herzog whose legendary art collection once included works by El Greco (1541-1614), Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), and Claude Monet (1840-1926).

The case, which could be the last major art restitution case relating to the Holocaust, involves 40 artworks valued at $100 million that were seized by Nazis during World War II. Csepel argued that Hungarian courts acted unjustly as they have never returned the stolen paintings nor paid restitution to Herzog’s relatives. In fact, a number of paintings once belonging to Herzog remain in the collections of Hungarian museums.

The lawsuit is attempting to use U.S. courts to press charges against the Hungarian government, three of the country’s museums, and a university. However, the Hungarian government’s lawyers argue that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction on foreign soil, pushing to have the case played out in Hungarian courts or the International Court of Justice. The plantiff’s attorney, Michael Shuster, claims that the case is relevant for U.S. courts because most of the living heirs involved in the case are U.S. citizens and that Hungarian courts can be problematic.