January, 29, 2001
CONTENTS:
- Historic Chinese town torn between preservation, `progress'
- Terra Museum fight takes to airwaves
- Re: Art world anger at modern museum planning 'snub' (Roger Wulff)
- SERRANO PICS LAND CHRISTIE'S IN HOT WATER
- KHALILI COLLECTION EXHIBITION PULLED FROM BARD
- Art Heist Was a Bust
- Temperature Rising in Old Master Drawings
- Re: Thieves plunder libraries for profit
- Tracing histories
(Chicago worldwide center of the controversies surrounding missing art as
well as the legal and ethical issues over ownership)
- Complex issues arise when art moves in times of crisis
- Berlin returns stolen treasures to Russia
Historic Chinese town torn between preservation, `progress'
Highway threatens traditional ambience
MICHAEL DORGAN KNIGHT RIDDER FOREIGN SERVICE
ZHOUZHUANG, China For more than 900 years, this ancient town of arched bridges and
simple stone houses in southeastern China has relied on gondola-like boats along its rivers and
canals for transportation. Then came the highway.
Stretching like a gray serpent up to the town's border, the road is now the focus of a fight over Zhouzhuang's future. It is an uncharacteristically public battle between preservation and what passes for progress in a country where many historical sites have been bulldozed and paved over in the haste to modernize.
Built by the city of Suzhou, within whose administrative jurisdiction Zhouzhuang lies, the highway was constructed to carry more tourists and trade to Zhouzhuang and two other towns beyond it.
That it would achieve that goal is beyond dispute. Zhouzhuang lies just an hour's drive west of Shanghai, which has 14.6 million residents, many of whom enjoy the financial means and leisure time to travel.
But those eager to preserve Zhouzhuang's courtyard houses, narrow lanes and waterways regard the highway as a grave threat. It would not directly destroy any of the old neighborhoods, but preservationists say it would swamp the river-encircled town with tourists, encourage further development and ruin what is left of its traditional ambience.
So far, the preservationists are winning. In a rare -- perhaps temporary -- victory over rampaging development, they have blocked the construction of a bridge that would span the canal that is Zhouzhuang's eastern border and link the highway to the town.
Ruan Yisan, the leading expert on the centuries-old water towns of southern Jiangsu province as well as a leader in the effort to preserve Zhouzhuang, says the highway will enter the town over his dead body.
Ruan, director of a national center for the study of historical cities at Shanghai's Tongji University, said in an interview that he will lie in the middle of the highway to block traffic if that's what it takes to protect the town.
What has stoked his passion is the recent destruction of so many other towns like Zhouzhuang.
Built during the Sung Dynasty, then remodeled extensively during the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhouzhuang was until a few decades ago one of hundreds of water towns set among the lakes, rivers and canals along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Now it is one of a few that remain. The others, after surviving the wars, social upheavals and natural disasters of nearly a millennium, fell victim to what could be called modernization with Chinese characteristics.
``Beginning in the 1980s, China started to build new cities by destroying the old,'' Ruan said. ``There were lots of wrong ideas. They didn't realize that with good planning, you can build the new while preserving the old.''
That does not mean they have been erased from the map.
Shenta and Luxu, the two towns the highway would link to Zhouzhuang, were fine specimens of ancient water towns until they aggressively set out to build industrial economies, Ruan said.
Their industries have now faltered, and they would like to follow Zhouzhuang's example and build a tourist economy. But Ruan says it's too late. Both towns, in his view, now look like ``plucked chickens.''
The same could be said for much of China.
Leaders here like to boast of China's rich history. But during their watch, much of what is recognizably Chinese has been destroyed. And the relatively few historical sites that have been preserved are at risk of being trampled by ever-growing numbers of tourists in search of something authentic from China's past.
As late as 1985, Zhouzhuang was a three-day journey from Shanghai, and was accessible only by boat. Now the town's 3,000 residents get an average of 7,000 visitors per day, and the number is growing.
Edmond Moukala, a Beijing-based official with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, said in an interview that China is in danger of ``destroying its own identity'' in its rush to modernize and to promote tourism.
UNESCO plays a key role in China's preservation efforts through its designation of World Heritage sites. Places so identified not only receive preservation money but also enjoy increased tourism.
The national State Ministry of Construction, in a letter to its provincial counterpart, noted Zhouzhuang was on China's World Heritage list and added, ``Besides preserving the structure and architecture of the ancient town, it is important to preserve the historical environment of Zhouzhuang as well.''
Work on the road project had halted last August, apparently because of opposition from the ministry and from Zhouzhuang officials.
Preservationists hope the project is dead. But Ruan said he fears that Suzhou officials may replace the officials in Zhouzhuang who oppose the project and resume the construction, because of anticipated economic benefits.
``The road is mostly for the benefit of the two other towns,'' he said. ``Zhouzhuang is the sacrifice.''
Whether his worries are warranted could not be confirmed. None of the officials from Suzhou city or Zhouzhuang who are involved in the matter could be reached for comment.
One Zhouzhuang official, when asked for an interview through an intermediary, told the acquaintance that the matter was ``too sensitive'' to talk about publicly.
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
Terra Museum fight takes to airwaves
January 28, 2001
BY NANCY MOFFETT STAFF REPORTER "The Terra is staying in Chicago. Come see it."
That nine-word plea hit radio last week, a tag line added to an ad by officials at the Terra
Museum of American Art. Because Terra officials are fighting a bitter court battle over charges
of a scheme to leave Chicago, the little ad suggests there could be more to the radio spot than
meets the ear. "I would like to hold them to that," said William Quinlan, attorney for two
Terra Foundation board members who filed suit last September charging mismanagement of the
museum and plotting of a move to Washington, D.C.
The ad is "very interesting. It's directly contrary to the position [foundation officials] have continually espoused in court," Quinlan said.
But the new ad copy isn't really a new pitch, the foundation contends.
"There never was any such plot. And there never was any such plan" to move, said Stephen Carlson, foundation attorney.
In his view, plaintiffs Dean Buntrock and Ron Gidwitz interrupted a "strategic planning process" in September when they sued and won a judge's ban on moving the museum.
The foundation had started to consider several ideas--including partnership with out-of-town museums or possibly with the Art Institute of Chicago or even a new Chicago area location, officials contend.
The suit is an "attempt to harass or muscle the rest of the 11-member board, which they apparently have felt incapable of convincing" through rational argument, Carlson said.
The planning process would have allowed board members to "rationally and carefully decide what the future of the foundation's activities here in Chicago might or might not be," he said.
The radio spot ran earlier this month, but the tag line was added Thursday, said a spokeswoman for WFMT-FM, where it played.
It promotes two current exhibits, one on printmaking techniques and one on studio themes.
Since the lawsuit, hundreds of calls have come in asking, "Are you still open?" a foundation spokesman said.
Indeed, exhibits are booked through the first quarter of 2004, Carlson said.
But attendance in the last three months of 2000 (immediately after the suit was filed) declined over the year before.
Numbers dropped 16 percent for October, 40 percent for November and 54 percent for December, according to foundation figures.
Foundation officials also say that because "strategic planning" is on hold, they have not formally responded to an Art Institute partnership proposal.
The Art Institute was invited by the Terra to make suggestions, and Art Institute officials held two meetings with board members, including a trip to Giverny, France, where the foundation has another museum, an Art Institute statement said.
http://www.suntimes.com/
from: Roger Wulff museplan@erols.com
Organization: Museum Services International
Subject: Re: Art world anger at modern museum planning 'snub'
After reading this article, I am not surprised by the anger and frustration of local art
professionals and arts organizations in not being consulted for their input, their support and
their advice on the proposed new art museum. However, I wonder if any of the planning to- date
has been done by a professional museum planner?
All too often, museum planning is done by various professionals - politicians, architects, and
others - who have never participated in the museum planning process before. All too often, the
function of a public museum is not considered in that planning process (function - even before
consideration of the artifacts to go inside or the aesthetics of the building). Without
consideration of a museum's function within the building, one might be faced with public spaces
which will not accomodate large receptions or dinner parties and elevators which will not
accept large exhibit units or large paintings. And don't forget those architectural elements
which break-up the line-of-sight in an exhibit hall or gallery - and force you to hire
additional security officers during open hours.
One way to make certain that the function of a public museum is included in museum
planning is to retain a professional museum planner - before the architect is brought on-
board. When one considers the growing sophistication of the museum as a building type,
not to mention complex non-architectural issues such as an institution's mandate and its
relationship with its changing community, its competition and its potential market - issues
that are vital to the planning process - it is evident that even the most sympathetic architect
cannot be expected to be sufficiently knowledgeable to do museum planning - as well as his or
her own professional work in designing the buidling.
Another way is make certain that the function of a museum is included in the planning of a new
museum is to conduct a one week (40 hour) Cultural Institution Value Methodology Study on the
architectural planning and design of the museum at or about the 35% design phase. In this
manner, one is assured that the function of a public museum, quality, cost reduction, and
life-cycle costs are included in the planning process at a point where it is not cost
prohibitive for the architect to redesign certain elements of the building.
This is not to say that any museum should be planned and designed without a sensitivity to the
collection it will house and exhibit to the public. In 1999, I served on the Value Methodology
Team which conducted a VM Study on the architectural planning of The Maryland Museum of African
American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland. The selected architectural firm had
designed the building in classical "Bauhaus" design - without any regard to the subject matter
of the museum or the artifacts it was to house. In addition to several instances where the
function of a museum were not considered, I also pointed out the need for African and African
American elements/colors on the exterior and interior of the building - in keeping with the
subject matter of the new museum.
Next month, I again serve on The Value Methodology Study Team for the Maryland
Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland - only with new
architects.
Kind Regards
Roger Wulff
Museum Planner
Cultural Institution Value Methodology
Practitioner
http://www.MuseumServicesIntl.org
Museum Services International is a non-profit organization which provides services in all areas
of the planning and development of cultural institutions and museums - especially in the new
area of "Economuseology."
SERRANO PICS LAND CHRISTIE'S IN HOT WATER
Scotland Yard is investigating the upcoming Feb. 9 contemporary art sale at Christie's
London, and for a change the problem is not the seemingly unending price-fixing scandal.
At issue this time are three photographs from artist Andres Serrano's controversial 1996
"History of Sex" series, according to the London Telegraph. The authorities seem
particularly disturbed by The Fisting (est. £4,500-£5,500), which shows a woman
penetrating a man with her fist. "The reason why this particular sex act is regarded as
obscene is because of the violent nature of the act. It is right on the edge -- basically it's
where the line is drawn," huffs inspector Graham Ward, head of Scotland Yard's Obscene
Publications Unit, adding that the unit plans to visit the auction house to judge whether the
exhibition warrants prosecution.
Christie's has withdrawn the images from its website, which still features risqué pictures by
Vanessa Beecroft, Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans. If you want to see what the fuss is all
about, check out Paul H-O's 1997 review
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/FEATURES/ho/ho3-11-97.asp of Serrano's "History of Sex"
exhibition at Paula Cooper. Hint: We feature the images.
KHALILI COLLECTION EXHIBITION PULLED FROM BARD
The exhibition "Empire of the Sultans: Ottoman Art from the Khalili Collection" scheduled to be
shown at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts in April, has been
canceled without official explanation. Bard Center director of external affairs Tim Mulligan
tells Artnet Magazine he believes the Khalili Family Trust called off the loan due to questions
from the Turkish government regarding a Koran in the exhibition, but added that he was not sure
of the details. A spokesperson for Art Services International, which organized and circulates
the show, had no comment, stating only that "Bard no longer wanted to participate and we had to
abide by that decision." The Khalili Family Trust was unavailable for comment by deadline time.
The show is going on as scheduled at the Portland Art Museum, Jan. 27-April 8.
http://www.artnet.com/
Art Heist Was a Bust
Citibank executive has been busted for trying to swipe a 60-pound, $80,000 marble bust of a
Roman aristocrat from an antiques show, police said. Thomas Toolan, 33, of Manhattan, was
charged yesterday with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. Toolan was
nabbed Thursday at the Seventh Regiment Armory, at Park Ave. and 67th St., where he was
attending an art and antiques show. Investigators said he tried to walk out of the building
with the 60-pound, 20-inch-tall bust under his coat. When a security guard stopped him less
than 20 feet from the door, Toolan told him he was "just pulling a prank." Detectives said
Toolan appeared to be intoxicated. His lawyer, Michelle Gelernt, didn't disagree. "He had a lot
to drink. He never intended to steal the statue," said Gelernt. "It is obviously an object of
some weight and heft." Toolan works as a managing director for a division of Citibank, Gelernt
said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/
Temperature Rising in Old Master Drawings
Souren Melikian International Herald Tribune
Saturday, January 27, 2001
NEW YORK As supplies keep shrinking to the point where even the staunchest optimists are no longer able to deny the obvious: The temperature rises ever higher in the art market.
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At Sotheby's sale of Old Master drawings on Tuesday and at Christie's on Wednesday, unheard of prices were paid at the very moment when the new U.S. administration kept reiterating the fears of a possible recession, proving that the rules that govern the economy as a whole are not necessarily relevant here.
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Some dizzying world records in both sales sum up the inevitability of soaring prices over the long term.
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The first record was set for the Flemish master Hans Bol as Henry Wyndham, chairman of Sotheby's Europe, was dispersing the drawings acquired mostly in the 1920s and 1930s by one of the great collectors of the 20th century. So remarkable was Franz Koenigs, born into a wealthy Cologne banking family, that Frits Lugt, the founder of the Dutch Institute in Paris - who was not given to sycophantic excesses - once wrote: "His eye, his flair and his rapid decision-making astonished all who came into contact with him."
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To connoisseurs, the fraction of the collector's once huge possessions that came up for sale 60 years after his death appeared as a miniaturized time capsule. From lot one, a fiery desire seemed to possess bidders. A charming "Virgin and Child" by Murillo, graced with his signature in full, zoomed to $92,500, almost twice the high estimate quoted by Sotheby's. Three lots down, a stunning "Holy Family" by the great Jan Gossaert, alias Mabuse (1478-1536), which Koenigs had bought in Amsterdam in 1921, went up to $203,500. The bidder was Katrin Bellinger of London on behalf, insiders believe, of the Metropolitan Museum.
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The scene was set for the day's sensation, 12 circular drawings illustrating the months of the year by Bol. Four were signed and dated 1580, and two others signed and dated 1581. The room went berserk in a curiously calculated, professional way. The battle was won by Robert Noortman, the Maastricht dealer, who sent the lot flying to $1.765 million, quadrupling the highest expectations.
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If the chances of getting a Mabuse drawing of the caliber bought by Bellinger for the Met are slim, those of finding another set comparable to Bol's "Months of the Year" are nil.
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On Wednesday at Christie's the eagerness not to miss out perceptibly intensified. Two more astounding record prices were paid.
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A study of trees by the admirable Baccio della Porta, known as Fra Bartolommeo, had that unreal lightness that characterizes the art of the first Western artist known to have sketched outdoors. No big deal was made of the fact when the drawing came up at Sotheby's, London, in 1957. It then brought £1,150, less than $2,500, paid by a connoisseur of the old school, Baron Paul Hatvany. When the Fra Bartolommeo next came up for sale, at Christie's in 1980, the price jumped to £14,000. This week, the bill rose to $996,000 (about £677,000), paid by Bellinger, on behalf, one heard, of a U.S. museum.
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The acceleration in the price rise from 1957 to 1980, when it went up 12 times, to the next two decades, when it was multiplied 48 times, says all about the soaring anxiety not to pass on works seen as major and unique.
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Yet, even the Fra Bartolommeo record price was dwarfed in the course of an extraordinary battle triggered by a panoramic view done by Aelbert Cuyp, one of the towering figures of Dutch landscape painting. It so happens that the picture for which the preparatory sketch was made was cut in two some time after 1759. Today, the two halves are split between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Leipzig Fine Art Museum. The study, made for the central area of the view, precipitated all the connoisseurs of Dutch painting into a frenzy of desire - there won't be another one for sale.
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Seconds before the auction, George Abrams of Boston, the dean of U.S. collectors of Dutch drawings, came up to me looking uncharacteristically tense, predicting that the room would witness a grand battle between Noortman and Bob Haboldt of New York. It did, but no one expected the outcome.
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Noel Annesley, deputy chairman of Christie's, had opened the bidding at $200,000. As he called out Noortman's last bid, $2.5 million, Haboldt, who sat at the back of the room, looked down sullenly, admitting defeat, and Noortman allowed himself half a smile. Too soon. At that point, Luca Baroni, the director of Colnaghi's, London, made a motion. Even Noortman declined to challenge Baroni's $2.6 million bid, which brought the total price to a stunning $2.86 million.
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AS WE left the room, I asked Baroni whether he had bought the Cuyp for stock, expecting some ambiguous answer. He had indeed, he replied, bursting with glee. Only a few years ago, the idea that another buyer might turn up soon, willing to top up such an astronomical figure by even a small percentage would have been unthinkable. No professional would have considered such a gamble. Today it takes guts, but it makes sense. A major institution or a private collector wanting a major drawing by this major master will have no alternative but to go to Baroni.
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This sums up the great domino game that has just started on the art market. As one major category shrinks and eventually vanishes, the next one on the list, financially, goes up. Of late, some Old Master paintings have been climbing faster than Impressionists, and some Old Master drawings have been catching up with Old Master paintings at an accelerating pace.
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Last November, in Paris, a sketch done by Bronzino in black chalk around 1529 was sold at Drouot by the Piasa group for 11.74 million francs ($1.5 million), which is probably as much as a picture by the 16th-century painter might cost. This week, the 12 drawings by Bol and the view by Cuyp cost pretty much the same as fine quality paintings by the same masters might, if offered at auction.
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Paradoxically, all along, masterpieces and rarities continue to fall between the chinks. Whenever the significance of a work cannot be easily conveyed in a few glib sentences, results can be erratic. Sotheby's sale included one of the most marvelous sketches by Corot seen in years. A woman walks in a landscape handled as a succession of pools of toned gray wash. Strangely underestimated ($3,500 to $5,000), it brought $31,800 - not a crazy price for one of the French artist's great works on paper, anticipating 20th-century abstraction.
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Minutes later, a circular drawing catalogued as "Brussels circa 1520" sold at the low estimate for $32,950. The cognoscenti say that the tondo, which may be by Jan Swart van Groningen, is on its way to a great Dutch museum.
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At Christie's, the portrait of a young woman, done around the middle of the 18th century with startling vigor by the usually soppy, lachrymose Jean-Baptiste Greuze, cost a mere $44,650. Uncharacteristic, it went unnoticed by many, although not by the Paris connoisseur dealer Hubert Proute, who found himself in the melancholy position of being the underbidder.
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Even as it begins its slow winding-down process, the market remains as exciting as ever for those who look at the art, not at the catalogue descriptions.
http://www.iht.com/
From: Adrienne DeAngelis acd@GUPPY.POND.NET
Subject: Re: Thieves plunder libraries for profit
Hello--
I worked for years in both libraries and bookstores, both new and used, and I can say that this
is a very old story. Aside from antiquarian bookstores, whose alertness to stolen books is
perhaps less a sign of their honesty than it is of their realization that a stolen Twain first
edition has a much higher profile in the community than does a basketful of Barbara Cartland
romances filched from the reading room at the local library, most "used" bookstores willingly
buy and sell stolen books. Of course, this happens because an amazing number of supposedly
good people steal books from their local college or public library, and then trot over to the
local used bookstore to sell them. I saw a complaint in a Eugene paper that our public library
lacks many books listed in the catalog, and that these have not been replaced. Most people,
thieves or not, do not realize that such libraries often have no book replacement budget.
Popular new books, classics, and reference books are the main targets. A portion of the
problem is caused by some of the libraries themselves, who do not demand or make note of the
patron's identification before issuing a card, under a demented theory that it is
discrimination to require someone to produce a driver's license, work id. or something like
that. Finally, I've seen a number of articles such as this one, over many years. Theft from
libraries is a continual problem also because books have the highest resale value, related to
their worth, of almost any object.
Adrienne DeAngelis
acd@pond.net
From: Albert Sperath albert.sperath@MURRAYSTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Thieves plunder libraries for profit
A similar event happens to the holdings of libraries, not involving the loss of a book for
profit but only some of its contents for censorship. I was attempting to do research on
obscenity and related topics only to find that the few pages related to the topic had been cut
or torn from the magazines and journals I was using. Has anyone else found this in their
libraries?
Albert Sperath
From: Richard Durschlag rdurschlag@HOTMAIL.COM
Subject: Re: Thieves plunder libraries for profit
In my days as a grad student in history at a major Midwestern university, I was told a story by
a number of my professors (one of whom was closely involved in the incident) of a history grad
student from another university who once visited to do research and managed to steal a large
number of books and documents collections relating to his research from the library (I also
worked at the library as a student and heard the story there as well). Apparently he did not
want anyone to be able to check his research. According to the story the only way he was caught
is he had put the books out to be collected as trash and his grandmother decided it was a shame
to throw them out and sent them to the local library instead and they were traced down from
there. His advisor at the other university was very big in his field and apparently prevented
anything from really being done to him. He got his PH.D. and he is now employed at a
university, though not a major one, and has published several books on history. He came back to
the library once to do more research and was only allowed to look at books that were brought to
him in an empty room with an armed security guard watching him. He was also checked thoroughly
when he left the room and library. Makes you wonder doesn't it.
Richard Durschlag, Director
Museum of the Waxhaws and Andrew Jackson Memorial
Waxhaw, NC
----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding--- -------------
Tracing histories
By Ron Grossman
Earlier this month, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the U.S.
issued a report charging that art and other valuables stolen by the Nazis during World War II
were not returned to survivors or their families because the U.S. make crucial mistakes while
pursuing other priorities after the war. Chicago has been a worldwide center of the
controversies surrounding missing art as well as the legal and ethical issues over ownership.
HEEMSTEDE, The Netherlands -- On the eve of World War II, Fritz Gutmann, a banker and
connoisseur of the arts who lived here with his wife on a palatial estate in a mansion worthy
of "The Great Gatsby," sent four works from his collection to a Paris dealer in art and
antiques. Among them was "Landscape with Smokestacks," a small piece, 11 7/8 by 15 3/4 inches,
by Edgar Degas. A minor work by an Impressionist master, it has since become the unlikely
subject of bitter legal battles, numerous newspaper articles, and television documentaries that
made it a true, if troublesome, cause celebre in the art world.
Now it is in the Art Institute of Chicago. But in a sense, it is also a real, if not physical
presence, in every museum in the country, for this otherwise modest piece brought to public
consciousness in highly dramatic fashion the troubling question of whether artworks taken from
Holocaust victims might have found their way into American collections. Fritz Gutmann and his
wife, Louise, died in Nazi concentration camps.
Yet while its impact is unmistakable - it is to be seen wherever museum curators pore over
their collections, hoping not to find works that shouldn't be there - the Degas' own story is
infinitely tougher to reconstruct. To have a go at the puzzle, a Tribune reporter and
photographer spent two weeks retracing the route of "Landscape with Smokestacks," which passed
from France to Switzerland before coming to the United States.
They came here to a countryside village just outside Amsterdam, where the Degas once
hung in the Gutmanns' sitting room. Its ceilings soar skyward and must have made the
piece seem even more delicate than it is. The windows look out over an immense
greensward, punctuated with ponds and walkways and framed by a dense wood that still
lends the estate the look of a place set apart from the rest of the world.
They went to Florence, where the Gutmanns' daughter Lili anxiously waited at the train
station for her parents who hoped to find sanctuary in Italy in 1943. She didn't know that, en
route, they had been arrested by the Nazis.
The Tribune traveled also to Paris, to the graceful boulevards that marked the epicenter of the
art world before World War II. After arriving there, the Degas somehow came into the possession
of Hans Wendland, a flamboyant character on the international art scene. Fingered by American
and British intelligence agents as among a group of dealers collaborating with the Nazi effort
to loot the artistic heritage of Europe, Wendland was afterward cleared of the those charges by
a French tribunal — deepening the enigma of his role in the Degas' fate.
The team also followed "Landscape with Smokestacks" to Switzerland, the center of an
illicit market in looted art during the war. At the Fischer Gallery in Lucerne, through which
that trade ran, according to wartime intelligence reports, they found a chapter the present
generation would like to forget.
"It is something we cannot talk about," said a gallery official ushering the Tribune team out
the door. "It is an old, old story."
The story of "Landscape with Smokestacks" begins sometime around 1890, when Degas
created it as a monotype, a one-of-a- kind print, that he then colored with pastels. After the
artist's death, it was sold by his estate, passing into the hands of a German, then a French
collector, before being bought by Gutmann in 1932. After the war, it was bought by a New York
collector, who sold it to Daniel Searle, a pharmaceutical magnate and trustee of the Art
Institute of Chicago, in 1987 for $850,000.
In 1996, the Gutmanns' heirs sued Searle, claiming the Degas had been looted during the
war and that he was the possessor of stolen goods that should be returned to them. The
bitter and highly publicized courtroom struggle that followed turned "Landscape with
Smokestacks" into a symbol of America's share of an issue left over from World War II.
Switzerland was being pressed on the question of what happened to bank accounts left
there by Holocaust victims, and former slave laborers were asking compensation from
German industry.
The case of the Degas monotype posed a parallel question: Had paintings and sculptures
stolen during the Holocaust found their way into the American art market?
In 1998, during the height of the court battle over the Degas, the Association of Art Museum
Directors called upon its members to re-examine their holdings to determine if art taken by
Nazi looters might be hanging on their walls.
Since then, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Seattle Art
Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the National Gallery in Washington, Princeton
University and the Denver Art Museum have either returned works of art or made financial
settlements to families that lost them. Other museums are evaluating similar claims. European
officials, who have to deal with the issue as well, say it could take years of painstaking,
archival research to answer the question of how many paintings and sculptures looted during the
Nazi era have entered the American art market.
A daunting task
"I think it will be a long story," said Francoise Cachin, director of France's art museums,
advising her American colleagues that they confront a daunting task. Her country, which right
after the war began tackling the problem of Nazi looting, is still grappling with the issue: In
the past three years, French museums have returned 15 works to the heirs of pre- war Jewish art
collectors.Cachin's prediction is reflected in the story of "Landscape with Smokestacks," which
reads like a mystery novel. There are tantalizing clues to what happened to the Degas between
the time it left the Gutmann mansion and when it arrived at Searle's North Shore residence. Yet
at critical junctures, important pieces of evidence are not available, themselves the victims
of the chaos of war, if they ever existed at all.
Two and a half years ago, Searle and the Gutmanns' heirs made an out-of-court settlement
recognizing the Degas as belonging to both parties, whereupon Searle donated his interest to
the Art Institute, which in turn compensated the Gutmann family for its share.
Then late last year, Searle's attorney, Howard J. Trienens, published a book, "Landscape
with Smokestacks: the Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas." The book's title reflects
Trienens' conviction that his client would have been vindicated in court, and his feeling that
Searle didn't get a fair shake in the court of public opinion. Trienens argues, and not without
reason, that the media uncritically took the Gutmanns' side, portraying the dispute as a
morality play starring an insensitive big businessman and the ghosts of Holocaust victims.
"I wrote out of frustration with the media," Trienens said at a symposium and reception for the
book hosted by Northwestern University, his publisher. "The Holocaust is logically irrelevant
to this case."
Subsequently, Trienens explained that view with a chronological argument. "Whatever
happened to the Degas took place before the Nazis grabbed the parents, took them to
concentration camps, and killed them," he said in an interview.
Thaddeus Stauber, the Art Institute's lawyer, also spoke at the symposium, reporting that
currently he is dealing with three claims against museums brought by families alleging they
lost works of art during the Holocaust.
"This book demonstrates," he said, "that you need to slow down and take a good second
look when a family presents a claim."
Lili Gutmann, Fritz and Louise's daughter, isn't happy with this reopening of the dispute,
which she sees as a further insult to the memory of her parents. "For his glory as a famous
lawyer, Mr. Trienens couldn't say anything else, I suppose," Lili Gutmann said. "But he doesn't
have the evidence now and he didn't have it then. Otherwise, why didn't he jump at the chance
of proving his case in court?"
Of course, the same question could be asked of her and two nephews who joined her in the
suit.
"It was costing us a fortune in legal fees," Lili Gutmann said. "And having told my parents'
sad story so many times, I wasn't looking forward to repeating it on the witness stand."
Gutmann lives in Florence, Italy, where she moved when she married an Italian in 1938. Her
small apartment contains a few signs of the style in which she was raised. She keeps childhood
portraits of herself and her late brother, Bernard, on a bookshelf, much as other people do.
But hers are by Man Ray, one of the great names in photography.
"We had seven servants in the house," she said. "There were also four gardeners, two
chauffeurs."
The Gutmanns inhabited a special world, peculiar to Europe before World War II, where
great wealth and cultivated tastes intersected. They were bankers, originally in Germany.
Jewish by origin, they had converted to Christianity in a previous generation. Lili's father
worked at a branch of the family enterprise in England, then did the same in the Netherlands.
His true passion was art.
"Wherever business took him, my father would send me a picture postcard from a
museum," Lili said, looking through a stack of cards. Fritz Gutmann had covered each,
front and back, with minuscule handwriting, sharing his reactions to the artwork it depicted.
"In our family," Lili recalled, "everybody collected something."
Lili's grandfather built a famed collection of gold and silver miniatures from the German
Renaissance. Her father bought a number of Old Masters — a Botticelli, a Holbein, a Fra
Bartolommeo, and others. He also acquired a few modern pieces: "Landscape with Smokestacks,"
another Degas and a Renoir, works he sent to Paris in 1939. With war on the horizon, Lili
believes, her father wanted to put some assets out of reach of the Germans, who had failed to
capture the French capital in World War I. Searle's partisans contend that Fritz Gutmann sent
the works to be sold because the Depression had squeezed him financially.
Fair game for looting
Several months later, when the Netherlands was invaded by Germany, Fritz and Louise
Gutmann became curious prisoners in their own home. To the Nazis, conversion didn't
count; they were still Jews. But because they belonged to a prominent family, Heinrich
Himmler, head of the dreaded SS, was persuaded to exempt them from the Nazis' anti-
Jewish regulations. "Until now, nothing has been undertaken against the Jew . Gutmann,"
Himler notified the Italian ambassador, who intervened on their behalf in 1942.
A local German officer, though, wanted the Gutmanns out of their house so it could be
stripped of its artistic wealth, Lili Gutmann recalled. With the owners gone, it would fall
under Nazi regulations for abandoned property, thus being fair game for looting. The officer
pressured Lili's parents, saying they would be safer with her in Italy. While preparing to
leave, Fritz Gutmann sent Lili a brief note about artworks he had sent to Paris, including
"Landscape with Smokestacks," as well as others he had shipped to a dealer in New York.
"Why would my father do that, except that he thought the art was still there and wanted me to
know that?" Lili said.
Fritz and Louise Gutmann never made it to Florence. When their train reached Berlin in
1943, they were taken off by the Nazis. Louise died in Auschwitz; Fritz perished in the
Theresienstadt concentration camp.
The route of "Landscape with Smokestacks" can't be plotted with equal detail.
Contemporary records collected by the parties during the lawsuit show that it was sent in 1939
in care of Paul Graupe, a Paris dealer, and wound up in a storage facility he used in an
apartment building on the fashionable Boulevard Raspail. At some point in 1942 or 1943, that
facility was raided by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, or ERR, a special unit of German
forces dedicated to the systematic pillaging of art in Nazi-occupied Europe. The contents were
carried off to the Jeu de Paume, an annex of the Louvre museum the Nazis were using to sort out
their loot.
Frustratingly, there are no living witnesses to the Nazi raid and the surviving documentary
evidence doesn't make it clear whether or not "Landscape with Smokestacks" made that trip from
the Boulevard Raspail to the Jeu de Paume, which further deepens the mystery.
Trienens notes that the Degas doesn't appear in the records of the ERR and, arguing that
the Nazis were impeccable record keepers, says that must mean that the work wasn't
looted but sold before the raid. The Gutmanns' heirs cite documents from the Nazi war-
crimes trials witnessing that the staff at the Jeu de Paume, overwhelmed by the volume of loot,
couldn't inventory everything. They point to a post-war investigation by French authorities who
concluded that "Landscape with Smokestacks" was seized by the ERR.
Provenance gives clues
Both sides to the dispute, though, agree on where the Degas' trail next can be picked up. When
Searle purchased the work in 1987, he received a provenance, a list of its previous owners. One
entry read: "Hans Wendland, Paris."
To the Gutmann heirs, that sealed their case. "Wendland was a notorious Nazi
collaborator," said Thomas Kline, Gutmann's attorney. "He was a key operative in disposing of
looted art."
In his book, Trienens, Searle's attorney, derided that as "this vilification of Wendland."
When the case was heading for trial, both sides hired expert witnesses. The Gutmanns'
was Lynn Nicholas, whose 1995 book "The Rape of Europa" detailed the Nazis' looting.
She speculated that some Nazi official gave the Degas to Wendland "as part of the many
unofficial transactions and kickbacks in which these men were involved."
Searle's expert witness was Hermine Chivian- Cobb, an art appraiser. She thought that "in all
likelihood the Degas landscape was transferred from Graupe who was authorized to do so to
Wendland."
In essence, both sides' cases rest on a mental picture of Wendland: Was he the type likely to
have honestly purchased "Landscape with Smokestacks?" Or, is it more likely that he got his
hands on it by less honorable means?
Fortunately, the German-born Wendland left a much richer paper trail than did "Landscape
with Smokestacks."
"He was a scholar, an appraiser whose judgment was sought by leading galleries," said
Thomas Buomberger, author of "Raubkunst-Kunstraub," a study of the illicit art market in
Switzerland during the war. "Wendland had made lots of money, then gone bankrupt. When
he arrived in Switzerland, he took the smallest room in Lucerne's fashionable National
Hotel. After a while, he was living in the best quarters."
Wendland's abrupt change of circumstances, Buomberger thinks, came about because his
expertise nicely meshed with the Nazis' needs. Wherever their armies went, the ERR
seized enormous quantities of art from museums and Jewish collectors. Part of that loot
was shipped to German museums; some was earmarked for a museum Hitler was building
in Linz Austria, his hometown. Hermann Goering, the No. 2 Nazi and himself a
connoisseur, also took a lot of the loot to adorn his enormous villa near Berlin. But even
after routing trainloads of paintings and sculptures to those destinations, the Nazis found
themselves with an artistic surplus on their hands.
"Hitler detested modern art, which he called 'unfinished' and 'decadent,'" Buomberger said.
"Already before the war, he ordered Impressionist works removed from German museums and sent to
Swiss galleries to be auctioned off."
With the war, Buomberger noted, the Nazis needed help in triaging their loot: unscrupulous
dealers who would take those detested modern works off their hands in return for helping them
acquire Old Masters. Those collaborator-dealers sometimes routed their newly acquired stocks of
art through neutral countries — Switzerland, Spain and Portugal — to Latin America
and the United States. Wendland was a pioneer in establishing that illicit trade route,
according to U.S. security agencies who closely monitored his wartime activities and whose
reports are stored at the National Archives just outside Washington, D.C.
Among those documents are summaries of correspondence between Wendland and
Graupe, the dealer to whom Fritz Gutmann sent his Degas landscape. Wendland and
Graupe had a professional relationship dating to the 1930s. When war came, Graupe, who
was Jewish, had to flee France, re-establishing an art business in America tailored to the
circumstances of the day, if apparently not entirely above board. Writing that he had found
American dealers and collectors eager for material from Europe, Graupe said he was looking for
valuable paintings "which must not be known on the market."
One federal agent noted Wendland's proposal for filling Graupe's wish list, reporting that a
"letter from Wendland to Graupe in New York, April 1, 1941, suggests scheme for buying out of
Louvre, shipping to Switzerland where (Georges) Wildenstein (a dealer with galleries in Europe
and the U.S.) can repurchase — then ship by Swiss boat to America."
An FBI report on Wendland and Graupe's schemes identified an alternate way of fulfilling
them: "Evidence one picture smuggled into U.S. via Diplomatic Pouch."
"We need not be surprised that a Jewish dealer, like Graupe, would help dispose of
artworks taken from Jewish collectors," Buomberger said. "In order to survive, the victim on
one continent became the victimizer on another."
Buomberger thinks Wendland's reference to being able to buy works from the Louvre may
refer to the Jeu de Paume, the museum annex where the Nazis sorted looted art. A
document found in the Louvre's archives suggests why Wendland might have enjoyed such
an extraordinary privilege.
It was uncovered by Lionel Salem, a French professor and one of the heirs of Frederico
Gentili di Giuseppe, a Jewish collector who died during World War II. The collaborationist
French government disposed of his sizable collection at an auction in 1941. But noting that the
works had been bought at a ridiculously low price and by a friend of the auctioneer, the French
courts ruled the auction illegal in 1999. Armed with that decision, Gentili di Giuseppe's heirs
have been recovering works from his collection, including a Mochi sculpture for which the Art
Institute compensated his family last year. On the trail of a Tieoplo painting, Salem found a
document in the French archives reporting that, after the auction, Hans Wendland had acquired
the work on behalf of Hermann Goering.
"Wendland operated on a buy-low, sell-high basis," Salem said. "He sold the painting to
Goering for 40 times what he paid the auctioneer's friend."
Friends in high places
The FBI similarly found that Wendland had friends in high places during the Nazi era. One
report identified him as "a financial agent and representative of both Hitler and Goering."
"Wendland is considered to be extremely dangerous," the FBI agent wrote, "and appears to
exercise other important functions on behalf of the German Reich."
In another report by U.S. authorities, Wendland was named as middle man in an illicit deal that
brought a Degas painting, "Madame Camus at the Piano," from Paris, where it had been looted
from the famed Alphonse Kann collection, to the Fischer Gallery in Lucerne, Switzerland, a
conduit for Nazi-looted art.
"After the war, the Kann family sued and recovered the work," said Francis Warin, Kann's
heir, who is currently pressing claims for other works formerly in Kann's collection with the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Menil Collection
in Houston.
Anne Webber, co-chairman of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, thinks it not
surprising that a Degas sent to Graupe would wind up in Wendland's hands, given their
mutual, wartime enterprises.
"When Graupe fled, he could have told Wendland to help himself to anything in his
storeroom," said Webber, who made a documentary on the struggle over "Landscape with
Smokestacks." "I uncovered that, when he came to Paris, Wendland stayed in the
apartment building where Graupe's material was stored."
Of course, "could have" is not the same as "did," a distinction Searle's side underscores.
Surer is the next step the Degas took after — and by whatever means Wendland
acquired it. On the provenance Searle received, the entry after Wendland reads: "Hans
Fankhauser, Basel."
In his book, Trienens, Searle's attorney, suggests Wendland sold the Degas to
Fankhauser, just as it was sold to him by Graupe, though conceding that "there is no bill of
sale or other document." Jonathan Petropoulous, an American scholar and consultant to the
Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the U.S., suggests another difficulty
with the theory that the Degas passed by honest means from one wartime owner to the next.
"Fritz Gutmann was a famous collector, whose name on a provenance would be a sales
asset," said Petropoulous, author of "The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi
Germany." "But it doesn't appear on the Degas' provenance. If Wendland bought the work,
why didn't he list Gutmann on the provenance when he sold it?"
Another theory
Buomberger, the Swiss scholar, thinks the Degas went to Fankhauser as something other
than a strictly business deal. At the end of the war, Swiss authorities, under pressure from
the U.S. and Britain, were belatedly clamping down on collaborator dealers. "Wendland feared
that he was going to be raided by the police," said Buomberger, "and transferred a lot of works
to Fankhauser, who was his former brother-in-law. In 1950, when Wendland was again in trouble,
this time with French authorities, Fankhauser put up a lot of money for his successful
defense."
By that point, "Landscape with Smokestacks" was making its way to the U.S., where it
was bought by the New York collector who would sell it to Searle.
From the story of the work's peregrinations, each side to the dispute draws a different
moral.
"Was 'Landscape with Smokestacks' sent to Paris for safekeeping and stolen by the
Nazis? Or was it sent to Paris on consignment and sold? Draw your own conclusions,"
Trienens advises readers. He says he has no doubts how a judge or jury should have
answered those questions, had they been posed in a courtroom.
"You go to a lawsuit and there are holes in both sides," Trienens said in a interview, "and
plaintiffs with holes in their case don't win."
Kline, the Gutmanns' lawyer, counters that this would make it impossible to ever determine if
looted art has found its way into American collections.
"In cases like this, the evidence isn't going to be air tight," Kline said. "Families lost
documents as well as artworks during the Holocaust. Does that mean their heirs shouldn't have a
chance to right some of the terrible wrongs done to them?"
Even "Landscape with Smokestacks" bears witness to how essentially irresolvable those
two arguments are. When it is on public display at the Art Institute, its accompanying label
bears an enigmatic explanation of how it got there:
"Purchased from the collection of Fritz and Louise Gutmann and a gift of Daniel C. Searle."
----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding--- -------------
Complex issues arise when art moves in times of crisis
By Alan G. Artner
When Martha Woolf learned that one of the paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, Jan
Gossaert's circa 1520 "Madonna and Child," was selected to be reproduced on last year's
traditional Christmas stamp, she was "very excited."
But for Woolf, an institute curator of European painting, the excitement was to be short-
lived. As she researched the painting's early history for a catalogue of holdings at the
museum, she became aware of gaps in later ownership history, or provenance, from the
period of World War II, when thousands of artworks were stolen by the Nazis.
Records indicated the painting had belonged to Dr. Max Wassermann in Paris in 1921. The
institute bought it in 1957 from a dealer with galleries in New York and Paris. Woolf wanted to
know how it got from Wassermann to the dealer, who admitted buying the painting in 1954 but did
not reveal the seller.
Woolf had to know because, spurred by a claim in Chicago six years ago (see adjoining
story), the institute systematically had embarked on research into Holocaust-era
provenance concurrent with her cataloguing. Un til the museum determined a chain of
rightful owners of the Gossaert from 1933, the year the Nazis assumed power, to 1945, the end
of World War II, the painting might be subject to a claim from heirs of Holocaust-era victims.
Because of Woolf's redirect ed effort, the painting's use was forestalled by postal
authorities, who chose a mother and child by Bartolomeo Vivarini, from the National Gallery of
Art.
While museums long have researched the provenance of pieces in their collections, such
work has taken on increased public significance in the wake of international efforts to
determine the ownership of art that changed hands during the Holocaust era. Even as a
U.S. Government committee on Holocaust reparations ended its mission in December, th e
museum community continues to research pieces with gaps in provenance during the
crucial 12-year period and post findings on their Web sites.
This procedure — as complicated as the issue of restitution — not only has given
museums a comm on focus but also may shape the future of art sales, museum acquisitions and
loans, even the art audience.
Each work of art has, of course, its own story. Ethical and legal issues now force museums to
learn more about previous ownership, where they might prefer to direct the extraordinary amount
of time, money and effort toward other kinds of inquiry. But the responsibility of being a
public institution demands confirmation of works the museums already own, and the way they
determine provenance i s everywhere pretty much the same. So to understand how Woolf cleared
the Gossaert is to grasp something of the extent of the effort that proceeds at most American
museums. "I kept looking for Dr. Max Wassermann," Woolf says. "Many lists are circulatin g of
people who have problems and claims outstanding. Every time I saw a list, I'd look up
Wassermann and didn't see him. Finally, I found him. The Einsatzstaub Reichsleiter Rosenberg
ERR had taken his things. The list I had been given had Wassermann's name and 'ERR Goering.'"
Artworks consolidated
The ERR, founded to confiscate libraries and archives from Freemasons, Jews and political
opponents, was the most powerful Nazi organization seizing artworks in occupied countries. It
consolidated works of art at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, which then satisfied demands
from high-level Nazi collectors, including Reichsmarschal Hermann Goering.
The Gossaert, Woolf learned, went from Paris to Goering's huge country house near Berlin. But
close to the end of the war, the painting moved again, to a bunker in Berchtesgaden in Bavaria,
where Americans in charge of art recovery at the Munich collecting point found it.
"A colleague at the National Gallery in Washington helped me by getting information from
the chaotically organized National Archives," Woolf says, "We determined that on the back of
the picture was a number, 6188, which as it turned out, corresponded to one on a card as
entered in Munich. You can hardl y read it, but it says Berchtesgaden. It also says, 'List of
the art objects given for the collection of Reichsmarschal Hermann Goering.' The painting is
identified as 'Gossaert Virgin in a Blue Robe with Red Mantle and Child Wassermann.'"
This was good news. It substantiated the rightful owner of the painting as well as its history
during World War II.
"But it wasn't enough for me," Woolf says. "I needed to know that the object got back to
the heirs of Max Wasserman n. I had a good reason for hoping that was the case: The work
had been published, and art historian Max Friedlander published it again in 1956, in the
second edition of his From Van Eyck to Bruegel, with a little footnote saying, 'with the he irs
of Max Wassermann.'
"But that still wasn't enough for me. So I wrote again to the dealer from whom the institute
bought the painting. We eventually got a one-sentence answer saying, yes, it did come from the
family of Max Wassermann. We also wrote to the French Government and got an answer from them
saying, yes, it was returned to the familyafter the war.
The museum had filled gaps in provenance incidentally clearing the Gossaert for future use by
postal authorities by proceeding in various directions. A key piece of information, the
collecting point number, was on the work itself.That kind of data was not always available. If
labels, stamps and other marks on the backs of paintings did not yield impor tant clues, the
burden for continuing provenance research rested more heavily on archival and library work.
These investigations into unpublished and published sources proceeded in tandem, with archive
and library staffs prompted by interns from the Un iversity of Chicago under the direction of
curators such as Woolf.
The luck factor
Of course, dealing with gaps on an intern's "preliminary problematic provenance
worksheet," as a template created at the institute is called, required not only industry but
luck.
Chicago collector Charles Deering died in 1928. Employees kept a meticulous record of all
artworks inherited by his daughters, who like him, gave pieces to the museum. A 17th Century
Italian relief came to the institute from them. But they were not collectors themselves, and
the relief was not listed among Deering's purchases or in his estate. Could the daughters have
bought the work in wartime, after his death?
"We were baffled, and as a last resort, I went to a publication," says institute archivist Bart
Ryckbosch. "Charles Deering's brother was James Deering, who built an enormous estate, Vizcaya,
in Miami. I remembered once seeing photographs of the estate in the July 1917 issue of
Architectural Review. We looked there and found a photo of the relief hanging on the wall. It
was part of the interior of the building, so it was never inventoried as art. To clear
the piece was a big coup for us. A lucky catch."
Publications of the sort Ryckbosch used are in the institu te's Ryerson and Burnham
Libraries. But the interns, all art historians, had no background in library science. So
reference librarian Lauren Lessing entered the project.
Lessing saw her role as providing a gateway to published material, often leadin g
researchers to resources outside the museum in Chicago, the United States and
Europe.
"To generalize, I would say the interns were trying to create a paper trail of publications,"
Lessing says. "Artworks are funny. They can exist in a private collection for 15, 20, 30 years
and never be published. That's one of the things that makes this research difficult.
"You're looking for exhibition catalogs, books, periodicals that maybe discuss the work.
You're looking for auction cata logs, gallery catalogs, catalogs of any kind from where the
work might have been sold. And you're looking for biographical information about, in
particular, the last known holder. Was the person Jewish? Did they flee Europe? Were they
members of a group that might have been targeted for looting? Were other works from that
person looted?"
As an intern in the museum's department of European painting, Margaret Laster asked
such questions and more. Her practice was to research a number of works at the same
time, like a chess master playing several games concurrently. Three to five paintings proved
the most realistic. While focusing on one, she had to keep in mind the needs of the others.
"I became very attached to the first work I cleared," Laste r says, "Vincent van Gogh's
'Fishing in Spring.' It took a long time, a couple of weeks. One of our collectors was
involved, so I was able to research the donor who gave it to the museum and find various
exhibitions the painting was in throug hout the century. Then we were able to ask some
outside sources and come up with a clean line of provenance. I really learned a lot because I
had to encounter a lot of different types of sources. So 'Fishing in Spring' helped me
tremendously with the w orks I later worked on."
A little tenacity helps
Two qualities beyond education were a help: tenacity and resignation. Tenacity because
researchers must look at every little bit of information even while suspecting it won't fill a
gap in the c hain. Resignation because at any time a scarcity of data may force researchers to
stop, not knowing if more information ever will come to light.
"What's interesting to me is how all of this is changing our profession," says Ian
Wardropper, institut e curator of European decorative arts and sculpture, and decorative
arts. In many ways it's good. We're being forced to be much more accountable for
provenance. But it's nonetheless true that the vast majority of objects out there have
skimpy records o f ownership. If we restrict ourselves to pieces that have complete,
compelling histories of ownership back past 1933, then the nature of objects that we buy for
the museum will change considerably. I don't know where it's going, but all of this may have a
profound effect on the profession."
Suzanne McCullagh, institute curator of earlier prints and drawings, says she already has
walked away from drawings for which dealers could not provide adequate provenance. Beyond
issues of privacy and time-hon ored reticence, dealers cannot relate information that owners
typically don't remember, record and keep.
Douglas Druick, institute curator of European painting and prints and drawings, cites having
been offered a watercolor by Jean-Francois Millet f or which the museum could not find an
exhibition record. He had little reason to think anything was wrong with provenance, but
because he couldn't marshal evidence to prove it, Druick did not go ahead with the purchase.
A claim made in New York in 19 98 for two paintings by Egon Schiele also presented a new
area of concern. The pictures were on loan to the Museum of Modern Art from an Austrian
foundation. The Manhattan district attorney's office seized them pending resolution of the
claim. At this writing, their fate is still uncertain.
"Because of that case, I think we may see people less willing to lend things overseas,"
says Stephanie D'Alessandro, a curatorial fellow in the institute's department of modern and
contemporary art. " So the present climate can change not only museums, but also art audiences.
"Imagine a retrospective exhibition where you can only have pieces from the United States, and
you have a computer kiosk where you see the things that are not there. I'm not saying it will
come to that. But between the need to have provenance and lenders becoming more concerned about
lending, exhibitions will change. And that will affect audiences' experience in museums."
How many claims could affect museum collections i s open to dispute. Israel Singer,
secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, said last March, "50 percent of America's total
art is looted Jewish art." Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
said last April, "the five largest museums in the country... together own some 10,000
paintings in total ."
What's a casual observer to think?
"Let's remember that a large number of works in institutions were certainly collected before
1945," says institute legal counsel Thaddeus Stauber. "There's no question as to those pieces.
Also, many of the pieces are contemporary, by living artists. I take solace in the fact that in
the five years I've been involved in this, there hasn't been anything more than five to 10
claims nationwide, and we've had a lot of focus on the issue."
Last April the institute was among the first American museums to post online paintings and
sculptures with gaps in provenance during the Holocaust era. They numbered nearly 550. Some
have come off the list; others have gone on. Launch date for a similar list of drawings is
January 2002.
No new claims
Where critics of museum practices once said few claimants could come forward because
they lacked basic informat ion, the amount now provided by the institute has not resulted in
any new claims.
Still, many believe the situation would have been different if museums had acted decades
ago.
"Why weren't we all thinking about this earlier?" asks institute direc tor James Wood. "One
reason may have been the really quite exemplary role that the United States and many museum
people before me played in the restitution process immediately after WW II. It's a very proud
record. I think it understandably le ft us feeling nationally that we had done our part, we had
taken a good shot at it, we had really tried to make this better."
There were, of course, articles and books that treated the restitution effort. But, by and
large, early texts did not give prescriptions for the future. They usually documented major
collections that already had been returned.
"The Allies had done their best to save the culture at large," says Anne Rorimer, daughter of
art historian and U.S. Monuments officer James Rori mer plus a curator in her own right. "We
now are seeing specific instances of private ownership coming to attention, given time. If you
have surgery, first you stop the bleeding. Then, long after, there are ramifications. You have
a scar."
Awareness of a scar in the art world doubtless was affected by American reactions to what had
caused it. And as historian Peter Novick documented in "The Holocaust in American Life" (1999),
more than 20 years elapsed before the plight of European Jews in Wor ld War II even received a
name in public discourse.
"'The Holocaust,' as we speak of it today, was largely a retrospective construction," Novick
has written, "something that would not have been recognizable to most people at the time. To
speak of 'th e Holocaust' as a distinct entity, which Americans responded to (or failed to
respond to) in various ways, is to introduce an anachronism that stands in the way of
contemporary responses."
What was the climate after the war regarding the recovery effort?
"Nobody was interested," says S. Lane Faison Jr., who retook art Nazis had stored in
Austrian salt mines and later was in charge of the Munich collecting point. "I have a
December 1946 letter from Jim Plaut, my superior at the mines. It has to do with two
articles he wrote about our work. He thought the Reader's Digest would be fascinated; the
articles would be just right to make their summary. And the answer was no. He quoted them:
'There is no public interest in this now.' So there was your climate."
Faison says he was not even asked by colleagues at Williams College to speak publicly
about the effort until unresolved issues began to resurface in the late 1980s.
Did the lack of interest in his work strike him as odd?
"I'm funny that way. I don't know, when it's over, it's over."
It will be some time before museum officials can adopt that attitude.
http://chicagotribune.com/
Berlin returns stolen treasures to Russia
By Toby Helm in Berlin
IN a sombre ceremony in Moscow, boxes full of edicts from Russian Tsars, medals and
books that were stolen from a St Petersburg archive and later surfaced in Berlin were
officially handed back to the Russians yesterday.
Welcome return: documents and books stolen from a St Petersburg archive are dsiplayed
before their return to Russia The documents, including decrees signed by Peter the Great
and Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II, were laid out in an adjacent hall. Dating from 1723 to
1914, the 248 documents, 176 books and other goods are estimated to be worth millions of
pounds. Eberhard Diepgen, mayor of Berlin, returned the items at a meeting in Russia's Foreign
Ministry attended by Igor Ivanov, the foreign minister, Mikhail Shvydkoi, culture minister, and
Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow. The items were found in 1995 when a Berlin antiques dealer
alerted city police and the St Petersburg state archive after they were delivered one day for
auction. Two people were jailed and fined for the theft in a trial in St Petersburg in 1998.
The Russians welcomed the handover but said it did not affect separate disputes between the two
countries over art treasures looted during and after the Second World War. The Russians refuse
to give back treasures seized by the Red Army, which they say serve as part compensation for
those plundered and destroyed by Hitler's troops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/