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CONTENTS:
- SAM to Return Matisse Odalisque to Rosenbergs (official press release by Seattle Art Museum)
- Vandalism in Donaueschingen
- Holocaust Victims Can Recover Art
- French Grotto Discoverer Loses Lawsuit
- British Collector Gives Away Art Worth $40 Million (because he cannot afford to insure the works and is afraid they will be stolen)
- Czech Government to Restore to Jewish Museum 67 Paintings Nationalised by Communists
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Linda Williams, SAM Public Relations
(206) 654-3166; email: LindaW@SeattleArtMuseum.org SAM to Return Matisse Odalisque to Rosenbergs
SEATTLE, June 14, 1999 - The Seattle Art Museum announced today that it will return the painting, Odalisque (1928) by Henri Matisse, to the heirs of Paul Rosenberg. The museum reached its decision at a special meeting of its Board of Trustees today, following a thorough and independent investigation into the painting's past ownership. That process concluded last week with the release of a report on the painting's provenance. The investigation was conducted by the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP), a Washington, D.C.-based independent research organization that provides Holocaust victims with the best possible information on the origins and ownership of valuable works of art that disappeared or changed hands during World War II. As an institution that holds its works in the public trust, the Seattle Art Museum needed to fully research the claim that the Rosenbergs filed in October 1997 before determining a course of action. Today's decision marks the end of a research effort that began in early 1998, when SAM asked HARP to conduct a thorough, scholarly and impartial investigation of the painting's provenance.
"This report confirms the Rosenbergs' claim and we are pleased to return Odalisque to its rightful owners," says Mimi Gardner Gates, Seattle Art Museum's Director. "By our action today, the Seattle Art Museum is drawing a clear ethical line. Since day one, SAM has been committed to doing the right thing."
The Seattle Art Museum received Odalisque in 1991 from donors who purchased the painting in 1954 from the New York gallery Knoedler & Co. With the conclusion of HARP's research, the evidence now indicates that Odalisque was one of the paintings that the Nazis stole from Paul Rosenberg, a prominent Jewish art dealer in Paris at that time, and that it was never returned to him. The museum also will ask U.S. District Court Judge Robert S. Lasnik, who is presiding over a pending lawsuit involving Odalisque, to ratify SAM's decision by ruling that the Rosenbergs have legal title to the painting.
"We are confident that the court will bless our decision and remove any doubts about the legitimacy of the Rosenberg's claim to title," says Gates. Gates noted that SAM will return Odalisque despite the Knoedler Gallery's insistence that the Rosenbergs have no right to the painting.
"At every opportunity, the Knoedler gallery has declined to offer evidence in support of its assertion that the Rosenbergs' claim is invalid," Gates continues. "Given HARP's conclusion, we were not willing to wait any longer to make our decision. This has been a difficult and time-consuming, but necessary process. We regret the time it took to confirm Odalisque's true ownership, but it was essential to conduct the research as thoroughly as possible to do the right thing for all parties involved."
The research indicates that Odalisque was stolen in 1941 from the vault where Rosenberg had stored 162 paintings, and was then moved into storage at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris. The following July, a German art dealer based in Paris apparently acquired Odalisque in exchange for a French Renaissance painting. There was no further proof of its whereabouts until July 1954, when the New York art gallery Knoedler & Co. apparently acquired it from Paris' Galerie Drouant-David. Later that year, the Knoedler gallery sold Odalisque to Seattle-area residents Prentice and Virginia Bloedel, who later bequeathed the painting to Seattle Art Museum.
According to HARP president Ori Soltes, HARP's research was essential to confirm that the painting stolen from Paul Rosenberg was the same painting in SAM's collection and not one of many other Matisse works with similar titles and subjects. In addition, HARP had to confirm that this painting was not among stolen works that Rosenberg or his family recovered before his death in 1959.
"We now believe that the painting belongs to the Rosenberg family and that Paul Rosenberg never recovered or had the opportunity to recover Odalisque," says Soltes of HARP. "The Seattle Art Museum, as a custodian of the public trust, had good reason to promote the research that has led to these conclusions, before determining what to do with the painting."
The museum will continue litigation against Knoedler, contending that the gallery in its 1954 transaction with the Bloedels breached warranties of title, did not have clear title to Odalisque and fraudulently or negligently misrepresented the painting's provenance. SAM is asking Knoedler for compensation of Odalisque's full, present market value, which has not yet been determined.
"Now that the museum has confirmed the Rosenbergs' claim to title, we will continue to pursue our claims against Knoedler vigorously," says Gates. "The museum has a duty to our public, including museum donors, to hold Knoedler fully accountable for the loss to our permanent collection resulting from Knoedler's improper sale to the Bloedels."
From: Klaus Graf graf@uni-koblenz.de
Organization: Universitaet Freiburg
Subject: donaueschingen Vandalism in Donaueschingen
Without the general public even being aware of what is happening, there has recently been a scandalous incident of the loss of cultural inheritance. Since early June almost the entire collection (ca. 90%) of the Princely Fuerstenberg Court Library in Donaueschingen [Fuerstlich Fuerstenbergische Hofbibliothek zu Donaueschingen] (ca. 130,000 volumes) has been shipped off abroad. An Anglo-American consortium (i.e. Heritage and allied bookdealers) has bought it up. Thus "one of the greatest and most beautiful castle libraries," according to P. Masek, and a cultural monument of the highest order has been destroyed in such an irreparable fashion. Undocumented, the destruction of the collection through sale of the individual items also includes the library (ca. 11,000 published items) of the important Germanist Joseph von Lassberg (1770-1855), a brother-in-law of the poetess Annette von Droste-Huelshoff.
The Land of Baden-Wuerttemberg declined to purchase the highly significant collection, as the Dept. of the Treasury refused to offer more than indefensible arguments, despite the library's role as a protected cultural monument.
More informations (in German):
http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~graf/index.html#kulturgut
graf@uni-koblenz.de
Holocaust Victims Can Recover Art
By FRIEDER REIMOLD Associated Press Writer BERLIN (AP) - A German foundation cleared the way Friday for Holocaust survivors to recover millions of dollars worth of art that were lost during the Nazi era and then locked up for decades behind the Iron Curtain. The board of the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Collections, which oversees several museums in and around Berlin, voted to give its new president the authority to negotiate returns directly with prewar owners or their heirs. The goal is to avoid lengthy court cases and get around expired claim limits. ``The expiration of legally set deadlines can't be a reason that injustices are not set right,'' the president, Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, said. The board's action initially allows Lehmann to settle a claim made by a British woman for Vincent van Gogh's ``L'Olivette,'' a drawing in Berlin's National Gallery that is estimated to be worth millions.
Greta Silberberg, 85, is the daughter-in-law of the drawing's original owner, Max Silberberg, who was forced by the Nazis to sell his collection at a fraction of its value in 1935. He later died in a concentration camp. Museum officials say her claim is clear-cut and the drawing could be returned ``within weeks,'' unless she decides to sell it. In a statement issued by her lawyers in Britain, Mrs. Silberberg said she was pleased with the foundation's move but had not decided what to do with the drawing. More cases are expected to follow, and the foundation's action could set a precedent for museums outside its control, officials said. Michael Naumann, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's minister for cultural affairs and a foundation board member, noted that the government asked all German museums last year to search their facilities for artwork that may have come from persecuted Jewish families. ``The foundation did the decent thing,'' he said. ``This touches also on national responsibility.'' During the 1950s, museums in West Germany returned - under U.S. pressure - most artwork looted or otherwise unjustly acquired by the Nazis. East Germany's communist officials blocked efforts to trace ownership or file claims. Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, experts at the Jewish Claims Conference office in Frankfurt - which handles Holocaust-related restitution cases - say they have identified about 1,000 paintings and other artwork formerly owned by Jews that ended up in museums in what was East Germany. About half are in Berlin. Others are likely to be found in museums across the former East European bloc. After World War II, the Soviet Red Army transported many works from the National Gallery in eastern Berlin back to the Soviet Union - including a Cezanne drawing from the Silberberg collection. Anja Heuss, an art historian with the Jewish Claims Conference, said the drawing has been traced to a museum in St. Petersburg, but Russia has refused to recognize any claim for restitution.
French Grotto Discoverer Loses Lawsuit
12:15 a.m. Jun 20, 1999 Eastern
LYON, France (Reuters) - A French court Friday rejected a multimillion franc claim by the man who discovered a cave in southern France containing some of the world's oldest prehistoric paintings. Jean-Marie Chauvet, who stumbled on the cave in the Ardeche region northwest of Avignon five years ago, had demanded 430 million francs ($68 million) in rights on the distribution of pictures of the paintings.
The Culture Ministry refused to pay, arguing that Chauvet was a ministry employee in charge of watching other caves in the region, and was on duty when he made his discovery. Chauvet argued that he was off-duty and practicing potholing when he found the cave -- which was named after him. The court in Lyon found two ministry officials guilty of falsifying a document by pre-dating a letter listing Chauvet's duties. They were fined 5,000 francs ($800) each.
But it cleared the head of the ministry department in charge of national heritage, Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent, of charges of using the falsified document. The verdict in effect rejected Chauvet's claims to the cave which was found last month to contain what are believed to be the world's oldest Homo Sapiens Sapiens footprints. The footprints, left by a child who skidded in the mud of the cave, are believed to be up to 30,000 years old.
The Culture Ministry said discoveries made in the cave last month took to 447 the number of animal paintings there, representing 14 different kinds of beasts, including mammoths, bison, reindeer, rhinoceros, panther, owls, hyena, bears and lions . The cave will never be opened to the public to prevent damage to its prehistoric paintings which experts say are at least as good as those in the world-famous caves of Altamira in Spain and Lascaux. The grotto, prickly with stalactites, was abandoned during the upper Palaeolithic era -- which lasted from 40,000 BC to 10,000 BC.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
British Collector Gives Away Art Worth $40 Million
12:20 a.m. Jun 20, 1999 Eastern
LONDON (Reuters) - One of Britain's leading art collectors is giving away a private collection worth $40 million to major galleries because he cannot afford to insure the works and is afraid they will be stolen.
Art historian Sir Denis Mahon, 89, said Friday he was donating more than 70 of his 17th-century masterpieces to galleries in Britain, Ireland and Italy.
``I didn't insure them at all. I would have been bankrupted,'' he told Reuters, saying burglars had visited him twice in the past but had been unable to make off with any of the large framed canvases. He said some 27 paintings worth an estimated $27 million had been donated to London's National Gallery, while others would go to museums in Oxford and Cambridge as well as to Bologna's Pinacoteca Nazionale. Mahon said he had managed to collect the paintings for just a fraction of what they were really worth.
``When I started to collect in the 1930s they were very heavily despised, they were filthy dirty. No one could be bothered to restore them,'' he said.
``I spent just a few thousand (pounds) a year for 30 years or so until prices went up outside my possibilities,'' he said. The works include pieces by masters including Luca Giordano and Gian Francesco Barbieri Guercino.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
Czech Government to Restore to Jewish Museum 67 Paintings Nationalised by Communists
By Itamar Levin
The Czech government is about to restore to the Jewish Museum in Prague 67 paintings nationalised by the communist authorities in 1955. This is the first time objects not classified as Judaica are being restored to the museum.
The paintings were donated to the museum in the `thirties from the estate of a local Jewish citizen. The museum was nationalised in the `fifties. It contained more than 35,000 Judaica items from Czechoslovak territories, assembled during the Holocaust. The authorities also seized 90,000 books and 174 paintings.
Some of the paintings are now owned by the Prague National Gallery. Sixty seven of them, whose origin can be definitely proved, will evidently be restored to the ownership of the Museum and displayed there. The Museum's director-general is conducting the negotiations on the restoration of the paintings.
Published by Israel's Business Arena June 16, 1999
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