May 5, 2002
CONTENTS:
- RE: skateboarders (Bob Ricker)
- Re: £300,000 art theft may be work of hired 'kidnappers' (Steve Keller)
- Art sleuths claim back Hitler's loot
- Artist appeals for return of £5,000 statue stolen from gallery
- From Museum Seized Moskvich Cars Returned
- Archaeologists try to protect China relics
- Torah pieces stolen in `69 found for sale on e-Bay
- The Artnewspaper; this week's top stories
Date sent: Wed, 01 May 2002 10:16:55 -0500
To: securma@xs4all.nl
From: Bob Ricker rricker@artic.edu Subject: RE: skateboarders
Mr. Newloves observations regards anti-skatebarding measures are certainly useful. The difficulty museums, cultural institutions and many corporate facilities face is physical alterations are limited by aesthetic and/ or landmark consideratons.
The gardens of the Art Institute of Chicago are considered "works" to be maintained and preserved. Skateboarders have been using the granite benches, railings and other garden fixtures to perform stunts. This activity has caused damage. I posed the idea of changing the pavement in these gardens several years ago. I found that changing any element in our gardens is not a decission taken lightly. Our Physical Plant department installed approved brackets, thick "L" shapped brass stops approx. 5 x 3 x 2 inches onto the benches. Skateboarders forcibly removeded these brackets causing more damage.
I would suggest security managers involved in the design stages of any garden, park and grounds consider the impact of skateboarding or any other unwanted athletic activity. Retrofit solutions are necessary but not wholly successful. The Art Institute Protection Service's mission re this issue is much like that of a conservator, preservation not alteration.
From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
Date sent: Wed, 1 May 2002 02:00:19 EDT Subject: Re: £300,000 art theft may be work of hired 'kidnappers'
To: securma@xs4all.nl
In a message dated 4/23/02 11:14:43 AM, securma@xs4all.nl writes:
A gang of thieves jumped over a fence before dawn on Saturday and disabled the Bruecke Museum's alarm system by spraying it with liquid foam. A cardboard box was placed over the flashing light.
This is significant. Here in the US, alarm systems that used to be considered to be "supervised" are now considered by UL to be "unprotected" if they formerly met only UL Grade "C" as many did. A teenage hacker with a screwdriver and computer can defeat many if not most US museum alarm systems. The exterior bell, if there is one, is the easy part as indicated here.
Many new museum systems have to be designed with Grade "C" supervision. I do it myself because too often it is too expensive to use Grade "AA" supervision because the nearest central station is so far away. But in these instances a back up system or alternate system can be used.
While it appears that the museum in this report had no phone line, I urge all museums to revisit their line supervision issue to make sure it is as good as it can be. Don't assume that just because you are "supervised" that your system is secure. Technology has changed so drastically that many systems are easy to beat.
Steve Keller
Art sleuths claim back Hitler's loot
After years of anguish, families whose treasures were stolen by German troops in the Second World War are winning back their rightful property - with the help of a team of British experts.
David Rowan
Sunday May 5, 2002
The Observer
For 50 years Bernard Goodman, a London travel agent, scoured Europe for hundreds of artworks the Nazis had looted from his wealthy family. The vast collection - including works by Degas, Renoir and Botticelli - had belonged to his father Friedrich, a German-Jewish banker whose own father founded the Dresdner Bank. After Friedrich was beaten to death in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and his wife was gassed at Auschwitz, Bernard and his sister Lili vowed to rebuild the family's stolen collection, now dispersed among unknown owners. This proved a forlorn hope: when he died in 1994, still tormented by his parents' death, Bernard had regained only a handful of minor works. Then suddenly a few days ago, the Dutch Culture Secretary said he would be returning 233 of the family's artworks that had found their way to his country's museums. He admitted that paintings such as Aelbert Cuyp's Rooster With Hens - its former owner listed as A. Hitler - had belonged to Friedrich. 'This is a satisfying day for our family,' Bernard's son, Nick, said on hearing the news. 'Although nothing can undo the awful events of the war, I now look forward to the day when some of my grandparents' art will hang on my walls.'
But why, after decades of denial and obstruction, did the Dutch relent? Much of the credit must go to half a dozen investigators, art historians and translators who work from an elegant eighteenth-century town house in central London. For the past three years, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe has worked with families of Hitler's victims to locate, identify and recover their stolen artworks. Through detective work, negotiation and moral pressure the investigators have been winning settlements from governments, galleries and collectors from Austria to Argentina. Now, after years of pressure, they have persuaded the Dutch government to return its stolen Goodman artworks. Surrounded by thick files carrying the last hopes of the Lustig, Glanville and other families, the commission's chair, Anne Webber, fields calls in her Gloucester Place office from elderly people seeking to retrieve family heirlooms - often a final gift from a murdered parent. 'In almost every case, the personal stories are very disturbing,' said Webber, whose team is working on about 100 cases, ranging from a lone sculpture to a library of 3,500 manuscripts. 'Eighteen months ago, a man in his eighties called from London in a German accent asking if we knew of a painting showing fields of red poppies. Aged 13, he had gone with his father to buy it from the local artist. I asked him how they'd lost it, and it transpired that every member of his family had been killed in the camps. We did a lot of research - we've managed to find three images of this artist's poppy- field paintings.'
In another case, a 'delightful' man in his seventies gave Webber a detailed list of missing paintings. The man, who has lived in England since the Forties, is one of two survivors of an Austrian family of 11. 'He was very upset talking,' she recalled. 'He later returned and said there was only one picture he would really like to see again - a three-quarter-length portrait of a woman in blue. I guessed it was his murdered mother. But a couple of weeks later he rang up saying he'd been having sleepless nights, and that we shouldn't do any further research - he found it just too painful.' The commission, a non-profit body funded by donations, is regularly obstructed by auction houses refusing to name current owners. Even when it finds a painting, it can take years to reach a settlement. The team is in discussion with Polish, Swiss, German, Austrian, Dutch and American collectors. It has also negotiated with 12 governments to create a vast online registry of looted objects, due to go live next month. There will be no shortage of entries. Art theft was a serious business for Hitler: even before occupying Holland, he sent an advance team to identify the most desirable collections. Some works were distributed among Nazi functionaries or sold at auction but many were stored: in 1945 the Allies found more than 2,000 repositories in Germany and Austria. They returned the works to the countries they were taken from and each was charged with setting up a commission for restitution. But not all works went back to their rightful owners. In France, just 45,000 out of 60,000 were returned; the government invited museums to take a further 2,000 and the rest were sold. For years, governments told claimants that their works must be behind the Iron Curtain. Only in the 1990s did it emerge that this was not the case.
In Holland, the authorities kept 4,000 looted artworks, including Bernard Goodman's family collection, known as the Gutmann collection, after his father's original surname. When war broke out, Bernard was studying at Cambridge, while his parents were living in Holland. No matter that they had sent many of their paintings - including a valuable Degas pastel, Landscape with Smokestacks - to France for safekeeping: when the Nazis arrived, the artworks disappeared.
After the war, Bernard devoted himself to finding them, studying auction catalogues and exhibition notes. 'He never gave up, and was still writing letters to his dying day,' his son Nick, 56, recalled. 'I remember as a little kid, Dad was constantly on the move, going through a passport a year as he chased stuff all over Europe. He'd hear of a painting in Switzerland, and would spend three weeks trying to track it down. Sometimes he'd arrange a settlement, and we'd be flush for a few months - then that money would whittle away.' To help finance their two sons' education at the French Lycée in South Kensington, Mrs Goodman worked as a beautician at Elizabeth Arden on Bond Street. The couple later divorced, and died within months of each other. Nick, a film production designer now in Los Angeles, recalled: 'Dad had grown up in the lap of luxury, in a beautiful house, was well-educated, went to Cambridge, thought he was going into the family banking business - then suddenly everything was gone. He could never talk about it - all his emotions had been cauterised. If the Holocaust came on television, he would have to leave the room.' Only after Bernard's death did his sons learn just how much effort he and his sister Lili, now 82, had put into their search for justice. They vowed to continue the fight, and went in pursuit of the lost Degas masterpiece Landscape with Smokestacks . After months in libraries, in 1996 Nick's brother, Simon, found a photograph of the Degas and the name of its current owner, a retired pharmaceutical executive named Daniel Searle. It had reached the US in 1951 via Switzerland. Searle had bought the Degas in 1987 for $850,000, and was shocked to receive a letter from the Goodmans saying that it was stolen. Anne Webber followed the ensuing legal dispute in a documentary, Making A Killing; Searle later said that the film persuaded him to settle with the Gutmann heirs. They split the ownership, with the Art Institute of Chicago buying the family's share. Webber was asked to attend an international conference in Washington on looted art. The European Council for Jewish Communities then asked her to help set up the commission as an independent centre of expertise. It takes on three or four new cases a week, some involving families based in England. It recently arranged the return of a sculpture from Austria, and expects to recover two paintings from Vienna for a British family, after discovering them on sale at an Austrian auction house. The paintings, by Norbert Grund, had been looted from Holland in 1941. Curiously, they turned up together in an auction last March, having been brought there by a German dealer. The law varies by country: in the US victims never lose the right to recover stolen goods, but in the UK if you buy something in good faith you obtain 'good title' after six years.
'Museums generally get "good title" to their works,' Webber explained, 'but they face moral reasons not to keep them.' The pressure is growing on British galleries and museums to return artworks known to be looted: last year the Government agreed to pay £125,000 compensation to three elderly Londoners whose mother sold a work by Jan Griffier the Elder when she fled the Nazis. The painting was later acquired by the Tate Gallery. According to the National Museum Directors' Conference, at least 600 artworks on display in this country - by Picasso, Monet and Cézanne, among others - may have been looted.
As further evidence emerges, the commission's workload grows. 'Last week's settlement would have been a lot harder to achieve without the commission,' said Nick Goodman. 'They've been doing a wonderful job.' Of the 233 items, nine are paintings by artists including Cuyp and Elsner, and the rest 'household items' such as gilt cabinets. The family plans to meet in Holland to decide how to proceed. Another 50 families are seeking the return of looted artworks from Holland. 'It isn't over yet,' Nick Goodman said. 'Our family knows of another Degas still missing, plus a couple of Guardis and a Van de Velde. They might be hanging over someone's fireplace in Argentina or Japan - but we'll keep looking.'
Artist appeals for return of £5,000 statue stolen from gallery
A LEADING artist is appealing for the return of a £5,000 modern sculpture which has been stolen from an Edinburgh galley. The brick-like creation, entitled Sewage Outlet on the Mouth of the River Tiber was part of a mini-retrospective of the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, at the Ingleby Gallery, in Carlton Terrace. The owner of the gallery was shocked when he walked in to the gallery’s exhibition room on Monday morning to discover the work of art had vanished.
Richard Ingleby, the curator and owner of the gallery, said it was the first time it had been targeted in its five years of existence: “This has never happened to us before – it is sad, unusual and very regretful.” The piece, made from cream coloured stone, is described as a depiction of “a wall with outlet and water scene”. It was inspired by the Tiber, the historic Italian river which runs through Umbria and Rome before opening to the sea at the ancient port of Ostia. The Edinburgh arts impresario Richard Demarco, who knows Mr Finlay well, was philosophical about the theft. He said: “It is a dreadful crime and a most unusual theft, but in a funny kind of way, this gives me hope for the human condition – that someone would desire such a wonderful example of contemporary art they would risk going to prison for it.”
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/
From Museum Seized Moskvich Cars Returned
By Alla Startseva
Staff Writer
Yevgeny Stetsko / Vedomosti Bankrupt Moscow carmaker Moskvich has managed to preserve its only remaining treasure -- the priceless collection of historical cars seized from its museum Wednesday by court marshals. The confiscated vehicles were returned to Moskvich on Monday at the order of Moscow's chief marshal Vladimir Zhmyachkin, the Justice Ministry's press office said. The museum was broken into Wednesday evening by court marshal Dmitry Pospelov and 30 assistants, who seized 23 exhibits including a Ford-A, a Ford-AA and a Kim-10, a pre-World War II car of which only 450 were ever produced. Also among the cars seized was a Pontiac Grand Prix presented to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. "Such automobiles could cost up to $3 million each in Europe," Interfax quoted museum director Viktor Voronov as saying Saturday. Voronov said that during the confiscation, exhibits were also stolen from four display cases. "No confiscation reports were compiled on these objects," he said. The court marshal valued each car at 10,000 rubles ($320). Moskvich employees wrote to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov on Friday asking him "to handle these outrageous acts of vandalism" and to help return the exhibits. Deputy Mayor Valery Shantsev was angered by the court marshals' actions, carried out to satisfy claims by Mosenergo. "They are absolutely crazy. They could soon come to the Tretyakov Gallery or the Hermitage and confiscate paintings, statues and other objects of art belonging to all Russians and world art culture," Shantsev was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Last year, Moskvich produced 800 cars and reported losses of 1 billion rubles. Moskvich's debts total about $500 million. The plant has not paid taxes since 1996 and its debt to the city budget has reached $145 million. It owes Mosenergo more than $14 million. The power company cut off the electricity in March, and this month, the heat. Both Mosenergo and the tax inspectorate have filed suits against Moskvich. "Court marshals decide themselves what to confiscate. But Moskvich in reality doesn't have anything else," said Mosenergo spokesman Mikhail Korotkov. Zhmyachkin said the decision on confiscating the exhibits from the plant's museum was not cleared with him, Interfax reported. "The exhibits are, of course, the state's heritage," he said. A Justice Ministry spokesman, who refused to be named, said the court marshals involved "are in trouble for not informing the chief court marshal ... they exceeded their authority." Zhmyachkin, however, said considering the value of the museum cars, they should belong not to Moskvich, but to the city of Moscow. The federal government holds a 60.6 percent stake in Moskvich. Although then-President Boris Yeltsin decreed that the stake should go to the city of Moscow after Luzhkov demanded the shares following the automaker's bankruptcy in 1996, the stake's ownership remains unchanged.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/
Archaeologists try to protect China relics
By Julie Chao, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 5, 2002
ANYANG, China -- Buried deep beneath the wheat fields and factories of this fading industrial city are untold numbers of ancient relics -- royal tombs, decorative bronze vessels, jade ornaments and human sacrificial pits. More than three millennia ago, it was known as Yinxu, the last capital of the Shang Dynasty. While much has already been discovered since archaeological work began here 74 years ago, including evidence of the first Chinese writing, much about the Shang remains a mystery. Vast tracts have not been surveyed, research is stagnated by a lack of resources and archaeological treasures are threatened by rampant construction projects. Chinese leaders are fond of telling foreign visitors that their country has a glorious 5,000-year history. Yet archaeologists have barely been able to establish its existence much further back than 4,000 years. Countless archaeological wonders are being neglected and, at worst, are at risk of being damaged or lost forever. Less than 5 percent of Yinxu (pronounced "EEN-shoo") has been excavated, and many sites have been damaged by developers who ignore laws on protection of relics, said Tang Jigen, director of archaeological work at Yinxu. The area in China under most immediate threat is Three Gorges, where a controversial dam on the Yangtze River will submerge more than 1,200 archaeological sites when it is completed in less than 10 years. The identified sites include more than 100 dating from the Stone Age and nearly 500 dating back more than a millennia and are believed to hold Buddhist carvings, temples, stone tools and other relics.
Many more relics are expected to be uncovered as China carves up the land during work on several major projects, including a 2,500 mile-gas pipeline from Xinjiang to Shanghai and a 680 mile-railway into Tibet. Even the state-run China Daily has voiced concern. It quoted experts last year urging the government to invest more money in rescuing relics and protecting them from developers and lawbreakers. But at least one expert acknowledged that it will be difficult if not impossible to enforce protection laws on these projects. "Operators failing to abide by the law may pose a threat to relics, especially at county level, where government supervision is relatively loose," the paper quoted Han Wei, head of the Shaanxi province Archaeological Research Institute, as saying. In 1999, scientists in Guizhou province in southwestern China found fossils of 14 dinosaurs, but had enough funding to dig up only 10 of them. When they returned last year, the site, which was supposed to have been under the supervision of the local relic protection bureau, had been ruined by a construction company and the remaining bones were lost. Relic bureaus -- from the national to municipal level -- are among the least powerful and most cash-strapped of government agencies.
Although China has its own system for designating national landmarks, often it is not until a site gets the nod from UNESCO that the much-coveted foreign tourist dollars start pouring in. China has 27 sites on the World Heritage list, including the Terracotta Warriors in Xian, the Great Wall and the Buddhist grottoes at Dunhuang. The Chinese archaeologists also lack the money for genetic testing to prove a key point: that the inhabitants of Yinxu were indeed the ancestors of today's Chinese people. Tang said some Western scientists have used DNA testing to conclude the population at Yinxu had European blood. "Judging from all the evidence we have so far, such as physical measurement, writing system, material culture and ritual practice, the Shang people are exactly the direct ancestor of modern Chinese," Tang said, but he cannot prove his theory. The Shang were eventually brought down by corruption and drinking, according to Jiao Zhiqin, an archaeologist with the Anyang Museum.
juliec@coxnews.com
http://www.gopbi.com/
Torah pieces stolen in `69 found for sale on e-Bay
BY MARTIN MBUGUA
New York Daily News
NEW YORK - KRT NEWSFEATURES
(KRT) - Two religious ornaments stolen from a Brooklyn yeshiva in 1969 were recovered by cops through an Internet auction site, police said. The sterling silver rimmonim - ornaments attached to the top of the Torah scroll - were offered for sale on eBay for $660, police said. The ornaments are engraved with the name of Yeshiva Talmud Thora of Crown Heights. An anonymous caller informed school officials, who called police, said yeshiva executive director Naomi Benezra. The ornaments are believed to have been stolen along with two Torah scrolls when 25 classrooms were burglarized in the fall of 1969, said Benezra, who became head of the school that year. "We are very grateful about it," she said. "Can't get over it."
Detective Anthony Reyes from the NYPD's computer investigation and technology unit went online, successfully bid for the rimmonim and traced the seller to East Longmeadow, Mass. "The spiritual value of the items being returned to the congregation is immeasurable compared to the monetary value," said Reyes, who is involved in the continuing investigation. Reyes said Friday the rimmonim will be returned to the yeshiva this week. The seller, who bought the items at an auction in upstate New York, is not considered a suspect in the burglary, said Sgt. Jim Doyle of the computer crime squad. The auction house that sold the ornaments to the online seller has refunded his money, cops said.
Benezra said she is considering selling the ornaments herself. "Because finances are always a problem, we may decide to see if we can sell them to raise some much-needed funds," she said. "We have a lot of children on scholarship."
http://www.nydailynews.com
The Art Newspaper.com
This week's top stories:
BRITISH MUSEUM TO HELP IRAQ
LONDON. Iraq is to launch a campaign to “revive” the Ashurbanipal Library, the earliest systematically collected and catalogued library in the ancient world. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9399 ITALIAN CULTURAL OFFICIALS FAIL TO SPEND 65% OF BUDGET
ROME. Cultural officials the world over complain incessantly of under-funding. In Italy the problem is another. A combination of incompetence and red tape have led to the absurd paradox that more money than ever is available for the arts, but 65% of the funds allocated to the cultural sphere is not being spent. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9396
A VERY MAJESTIC COLLECTION, WORTH TENS OF MILLIONS
LONDON. Following The Queen Mother’s death, her art treasures are expected to pass to the Royal Collection. This would transform the collection, adding masterpieces by Monet, Sisley, Sickert and Nash. The Queen Mother’s will is not expected to be published for months and royal officials have nothing to say, but The Art Newspaper’s examination of the tax situation gives a strong indication of the likely outcome. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9395 TIGRIS DAM DAMNS ASSUR
LONDON. The Iraqi government is building a dam which will destroy the ancient city of Assur, the former capital which gave its name to Assyria. Although it has received no publicity outside Iraq, the dam across the Tigris is likely to result in one of the greatest archaeological losses of modern times. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9394 THE TRIFLES AND HIDDEN LIVES OF ARTISTS
LONDON. The Tate Research Centre opened on 1 May, bringing together the library and archive in new purpose-built facilities. Funded with £2.2 million from the Kreitman Foundation, the centre designed by John Miller & Partners is on the lower floor of Tate Britain, near the new Manton Entrance. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9393 BRITISH ANTIQUES TRADE: SLACKENING OFF
LONDON. By common consent, last year was not easy for the British antiques trade. So it is rather a surprise to find, reading the British Antique Trade Association’s (BADA) annual survey, that overall turnover among its 380+ members did actually increase by 10% in 2000- 2001. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9392 IRANIAN SCHOLARS ON THE MOVE
OXFORD. It is nearly 65 years since Arthur Upham Pope’s majesterial Survey of Persian art was published by Oxford University Press. Inspired by the great exhibition of Persian art held at Burlington House in 1931, its three large volumes of text and three equally large volumes of black and white plates made it the first and only survey of the architecture and arts of Iran from earliest times to the Qajar period ever attempted in the 20th century and provided a landmark in the study of Iran’s cultural history. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9391
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