From: "thomas flynn" drtomflynn@hotmail.com
Jan 27, 1999
Subject:

Re: London Holocaust Conference

What follows is an abridged version of the report on the London Holocaust Art Conference published in the forthcoming February edition of The Art Newspaper.
Recovery of Stolen and Looted Works of Art - A Seminar at the ISVA, December 1998
Art objects, including antiquities, should be thought of as guilty until proved innocent.˛ This provocative proposition, from Peter Watson of the MacDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, provided a polemical opening note to a seminar on the Recovery of Stolen and Looted Works of Art organised by the Institute of Art and Law in London in early December. Such a notion was bound to ruffle feathers at a time when trade activities are increasingly becoming subject to the rigours of due diligence and when many art world professionals are beginning to think the unthinkable - that the open dealing in antiquities might ultimately have to cease altogether due to the onerous task of establishing good title. Hence Mr. Watson1s phrase offered a prickly point of departure for a seminar which aimed to address three issues: the scope of the problem; the reponse of the law; and practical solutions. The point of this London seminar was to keep lawyers, barristers, art professionals and other interested parties abreast of current wisdom on the Byzantine legal implications of the movement and appropriation of cultural property. A comprehensive panel of speakers ensured that the legal fraternity, the art trade, private collectors, the law enforcement authorities and the museum and insurance communities were all represented. Such a rich mix of interests inevitably gave rise to a certain amount of courteous cut and thrust as those present attempted to reconcile historically vested interests with the growing imperatives to combat a burgeoning illicit trade. Peter Watson1s illustrated account of his recent trip to the ancient temples of Guatemala, which included chilling images of the aftermath of a murder committed by bandits at the site he was visiting, brought home the grim realities behind the antiquities trade. Conference Chair, Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, set out to draw a distinction between looted antiquities and stolen works of art, the nuances of which required reiterating at intervals throughout the day as delegates grappled with the specific legal instruments applying to each category. There followed an eye-opening first-hand account of the now celebrated case history of the Icklingham bronzes - antiquities looted from the Scheduled Ancient Monument Site owned by Icklingham (UK) landowner John Browning. Mr Browning urged increased vigilance on goods with unchecked provenance and finally called for the UK adoption of the Unidroit Convention. Ruth Redmond-Cooper, Director of the Institute of Art and Law, offered a cogent summary of the nemo dat quod non habet jurisdiction applying in England and the US (in which a person who does not himself possess good title to a chattel cannot give good title to a person to whom he purports to sell). Ms Redmond-Cooper reminded delegates of the need to apprise themselves of the various international exceptions to nemo dat, urging a better knowledge and understanding of those countries in which title does pass to a Good Faith buyer. She cautioned that obligation to check rests not merely on the trade but also on collectors. Art underwriting specialist Robert Read of Hiscox plc addressed delegates on Hiscox1s response to recent developments in the US, outlining his company1s Defective Title insurance. The policy covers both the 3potentially horrendous˛ defence and claimant1s costs in the event of a claim arising out of disputed title, and the agreed value of an insured work of art if good title has not been established by the insured once the legal process has run its course and the insured is obliged to return the work of art. Following an account of the work of The Art Loss Register from director James Emson, Jonathan Kelly of Simmons and Simmons focused on the legal peculiarities pertaining to disputes over Holocaust art, and pointed out that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) - involving independent processes of consensual mediation, conciliation and neutral evaluations of the specific circumstances - was fast emerging as the optimum means of resolving what are often deeply polarised disputes. Andrew Burnett of the British Museum, responded on behalf of the museum community to recent developments in the recovery of stolen art, stressing the importance of approaching each individual case on its own merits. The BM1s policy lays the moral duty and executive onus on each individual curator to scrutinise the evidence available in the establishment of good faith without hiding behind codes of practice. Things livened up markedly on the arrival of James Ede, Chairman of the IADAA, who took issue with Peter Watson1s notion of Oguilty objects1, arguing that works of art ought to be treated in the same way as people. He also objected to the suggestion that antiquities acquired after 1970 should be assumed to have been looted, asking why it was that such rigorous scrutiny was confined to antiquities and not applied to the art market in general. He went on to describe the Unidroit convention as a 3sow1s ear made from a silk purse˛ and warned that legitimate dealers are 3getting fed up with the increasing regulation and bureaucracy with which they have to contend.˛ He concluded by emphasising that his colleagues in the antiquities trade 3are all keen to help curtail the trade in stolen art˛. Finally, Professor Norman Palmer of University College London provided a lively summary of certain key aspects of Unidroit and the 1993 EU Directive on the Return of Cultural Objects. He demonstrated that Unidroit does not necessarily guarantee a straightforward resolution of disputes over unlawfully-removed cultural objects and he cautioned that although the Unidroit Convention had not yet been enacted in the UK, it nevertheless affected those operating in this country. If one message emerged from this seminar, it was the increasing need for the international art community, the trade, museum curators and collectors, to keep abreast of these often thorny legal developments and, above all, to make their specialist voices heard in the corridors of power.

Doubts raised on Monet plaque

French 'whitewash' past, Zakim says

By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff, 12/19/98
The World Jewish Congress charged yesterday that the Boston Museum of Fine Arts used ''misleading'' language in a special label it applied a week ago to a Monet waterlily after the disclosure that the painting had probably been looted by the Nazis from the collection of a French Jew. The MFA was eager to add more complete information to the label, only to have the wording vetoed by the French government, which had loaned the artwork to the MFA for its ''Monet in the 20th Century'' exhibition, according to Leonard Zakim, the New England director of the Anti-Defamation League. Zakim, who was consulted by the MFA on the issue, said the language that the French deemed acceptable ''whitewashes history.'' He said a more detailed flier that the MFA produced separately contains language that is ''acceptable.'' Among the issues is a claim in the special label that the French had exhibited and loaned the painting over the years ''in order to facilitate its identification.'' As the Globe has reported, the French government took virtually no steps over several decades to seek the owners of - or even publicize - the Monet and about 2,000 other artworks that were recovered from the Nazis after World War II and returned to France. The artworks have long since been scattered among France's public museums, and the French government has refused to open its classified files on the artworks. When the MFA exhibition opened in September, the only clue to the painting's fate was the notation, on its label, that it had been ''recovered after World War II.'' The Globe disclosed on Nov. 30 that the Monet was part of the plundered collection of French dealer Paul Rosenberg, and that it spent the war years in an illicit art collection maintained by Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. That week, Rosenberg's heirs filed a formal claim in Paris seeking return of the Monet. Elan Steinberg, the executive director of the World Jewish Congress, complained in a letter sent yesterday to MFA director Malcolm Rogers that the new label is ''misleading and incomplete.'' While the label notes that France made restitution on 45,000 artworks to their owners after the war, Steinberg wrote, it omits the fact that 13,000 other artworks were auctioned by the French government, which kept the money. ''Most troubling, however, is the statement that the Monet had been lent out `in order to facilitate its identification,''' Steinberg wrote. ''Indeed, if identification were the real purpose, why didn't the MFA simply indicate originally that the painting had been stolen by the Nazis and [the MFA was] displaying it `in order to facilitate its identification.''' Kelly Gifford, an MFA spokeswoman, said Rogers was traveling and had not seen the World Jewish Congress letter. But she said that the Anti-Defamation League had agreed to the wording on the label. Zakim, however, said Gifford was wrong. Instead, he said he and other members of the ADL board, at a meeting with Rogers two weeks ago, proposed more complete language. ''Malcolm Rogers didn't take two breaths before he said `Yes,''' Zakim said late yesterday. ''We found the MFA totally receptive and responsive.'' But the French government objected. ''They refused to agree to the more detailed language that included the historical context,'' Zakim said, and the MFA informed him the French had the final say. As a result, ''the plaque doesn't quite make it. It is most noteworthy for its omissions. It whitewashes history from the French side,'' Zakim said. Last night, Gifford again contradicted Zakim, insisting that while the French government was consulted on the wording, the final decision on what to say rested with the MFA. Steinberg, in his letter, urged Rogers to make changes in the label, even though the exhibition closes Dec. 27. ''I am sure you agree that the historical record of these traumatic events - the greatest assault and dislocation of Western cultural objects ever undertaken - demands no less,'' he wrote. In an interview, Steinberg said the labels, both the original and its replacement, are ''disgraceful, incomplete and, in part, false.'' A casual reader of the new label, he said sarcastically, ''would want to applaud the fine job the French Ministry of Culture and the MFA have done.'' Zakim, for his part, said the MFA has been cooperative, and has even signaled its interest in an ADL suggestion that it host a conference on Nazi-looted art next year. ''The real onus here is on the French to come clean,'' said Zakim. The French, he said, have been rightly criticized for a lack of due diligence on the homeless artworks. After the Monet exhibition concludes, it is scheduled to travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Although Rosenberg's heirs have agreed to allow its exhibition in London, the French government has decided to have the painting returned to France amid expectations that its appearance in London would be a further embarrassment to France.
This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 12/19/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.

Brazil searches for Nazi-looted works of art

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -- A Brazilian commission has launched a search for a Picasso and other works looted by the Nazis and possibly taken to South America, joining a fresh international push to recover art seized during the Holocaust. "We were told there were great possibilities that these works are in Latin America," commission member and Sao Paulo Senior Rabbi Henry Sobel told Reuters on Tuesday. The most famous of the 10 works targeted by the commission is a Pablo Picasso pastel from 1925 entitled "Pierrot au Masque," taken from a French Jew in Paris in 1941. The government-supported Commission for the Search of Nazi Monies in Brazil hopes art collectors in the region will see reprints of the Picasso and shed light on its whereabouts, as one Brazilian family did in another case earlier this year.
Sobel said the Catholic family, which he refused to identify, had turned over to the commission a Picasso and a Monet, valued together at $2.2 million. Although the commission has not yet found any proof that the two small paintings were previously owned by Jews, Sobel said they had passed through a Swiss gallery which had specialised in selling art looted during the Second World War. The commission is also tracing the moves of one Austrian dealer who sold "an incredible amount of looted art" to Brazilian and Argentine families, Sobel said. An international conference on assets seized from Holocaust victims held this month in Washington D.C. drew up nonbinding guidelines for countries to identify and publicise stolen works so the original owners could claim them, a move which delegates said would have a big impact on the international art world. The art guidelines follow a landmark agreement in October with six insurance firms to set up a $90 million humanitarian fund to aid Holocaust victims and to conduct an audit of their books to identify unpaid Holocaust-era claims.
Copyright 1998 Reuters. All rights reserved.

WJC Suspects France Will Retain 2,000 Looted Artworks

By Itamar Levin
The World Jewish Congress suspects that the French government is about to transfer to the ownership of local museums more than two thousand works of art looted by the Nazis. To date, the French government has refused to undertake that heir-less artworks will be sold to finance aid to Holocaust survivors. After World War II, the Allies returned to France sixty one thousand works of art looted by the Germans and removed from the country. Forty four thousand were given back to their owners, thirteen thousand were sold by public auction, and two thousand and fifty eight remained on loans to museums, with the Louvre taking the lion's share. According to the WJC, the historic background proves that the great majority of all looted artworks were taken from Jews. Of those that remain, one thousand are paintings and the rest are sculptures, china pieces and others. They include eighteen paintings be Renoir, twelve by Monet, fifteen sculptures and paintings by Rodin, two paintings by Goya, nine by Degas and one by Rembrandt. A senior WJC source told "Globes" that in 1992, French museums were told by their legal advisors that the works were given to them on unlimited time loan, for as long as it was possible that the owners might be discovered. The French government is now refusing to disclose papers documenting the history of the artworks, and will only submit them to the commission investigating the looting of Jewish property in France. Art investigator Hector Feliciano said at the Washington Commission at the beginning of the month, that his requests to view the papers have been rejected for the past three years. WJC director-general Ilan Steinberg also asked to see the papers, and was turned away empty handed. According to the source: "In this way, they created a `Catch-22' situation. They say they will restore the artworks to their owners, but are not prepared to afford access to documents that may provide proof of who the owners are". The French government has so far refrained from making any clear statement as to the fate of artworks whose owners are not traced. The WJC is calling for action in accordance with the Austrian precedent, in which eight thousand heir-less works of art were sold by auction, and the proceeds shared between the Jewish community (88%) and organisations handling other victims of Nazi persecution (12%).
Published by Israel's Business Arena

Dec. 29, 98

Despite Critics, Nazi Loot Hunt Is Right & Proper

In case you hadn't noticed, it's now fashionable to scorn efforts to recoup assets stolen by Hitler and Europe from Holocaust victims and their heirs. The Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman, who once led his own delegation to negotiate with Swiss banking authorities, now charges that the restitution battle is "desecrating the memory" of the Holocaust. A few usually crystal-clear writers are weighing in with similarly murky criticisms. Jonathan Tobin, one of the brighter voices in American Jewish letters, worries that the rash of "grandstanding" on Swiss loot, Nazi gold and stolen art is "distorting our view of the Holocaust." And recently on this very page, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer attacked what he called the "grotesque scramble for money" that would, he cautioned, revive "Shylockian stereotypes." Hold on! I agree that the spectacle of shyster lawyers trying to make a fast buck from Holocaust victims is repugnant. And I'm not enthralled by the simmering battle among Jewish organizations for "a piece of the action." As Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress, which has been in the forefront of the restitution struggle, puts it: "No one should be making a profit from the Holocaust." But that doesn't justify a blanket denunciation of those seeking truth and justice. The WJC has carried on a tough but honorable struggle. And not every lawyer involved in class actions is a money-grubbing ambulance chaser - some actually work pro bono and others for what is, by current court standards, minimal amounts. Besides, seeking court intervention is the only way many victims ever receive any compensation. Anyone who doesn't want restitution doesn't have to ask for it.

Time Is No Factor

I also dismiss the argument that wartime looting is "commonplace." So is wartime murder. And just as the mechanized slaughter of 6 million Jews was not commonplace killing, so the systematic, organized despoiling of Europe's Jewish communities and Jews is not akin to soldiers' pilfering watches from civilian houses. The fact that 50 years have gone by also is irrelevant. History doesn't work overnight. As historian Sidney Zabludoff points out, it took the U.S. more than 30 years to finally come to grips with a much less heinous crime than the Holocaust - the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans. The current battle is not redefining the Holocaust or its perpetrators- it's underscoring what happened. And its success will help aging survivors live their last years in dignity, provide for their heirs and give some financial backbone to future Jewish education and communal life, providing the ultimate answer to the Nazis and their helpers: continued Jewish survival. The weakest - and in many ways most dangerous of the neo-revisionist arguments is that struggling for truth will create new anti-Semitism. As former Nazi slave laborer Rudy Kennedy recently told "60 Minutes," "Anti-Semitism is not created by Jews, it's created by non-Jews." Still, if one follows the skewed logic of the critics, then rather than risk giving anti-Semites a self-fulfilling view of Jews as gold-grubbers, it's better that the money being sought should remain with the Swiss bankers who've sat on it for 50 years, or that the French and Austrians retain the looted paintings and precious books they hoarded, or that the Norwegians, Dutch, Croatians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians and others who profited from the Holocaust, keep the plunder they hold. Best yet, wealthy German industry shouldn't pay its former slave laborers. As for the aging survivors and their heirs, I guess that giving up the search means they get to feel morally superior - happy in the knowledge that they've relieved their critics' discomfort.
Chesnoff's book on the wartime plunder
of the Jews, "Pack of Thieves,"
will be published by Doubleday in 1999.

Monet painting's disputed past may keep it out of London show

By Douglas Davis
LONDON, Dec. 7 (JTA) -- A painting by the artist Claude Monet is unlikely to be included in an upcoming London display of the artist's 20th-century work because it is believed to have been looted by the Nazis from a private Jewish collection. The Monet, currently part of an exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, is one of more than 100,000 Nazi-looted artworks that have not been returned to their rightful owners, according to estimates by the World Jewish Congress' commission on art recovery. The story of what happened to the Monet in the postwar years indicates how difficult the restitution of looted art truly is.
According to research carried out by the London-based Art Loss Register, the French Impressionist painting, called ``The Waterlilies," was confiscated from the Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg by the Nazis in 1941. The Art Loss Register is a compilation of Jewish-owned artworks that were seized by the Nazis throughout occupied Europe. The Register currently lists some 3,000 such works.
After it was confiscated, the Monet, now valued at some $7 million, entered the personal collection of Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop, who had organized the systematic plunder of Jewish-owned art throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Descendants of Rosenberg now want the painting to be returned and are considering their legal options, one of which involves a lawsuit that will prevent the work from leaving the United States. The Rosenberg family, which lives in New York, identified the painting-- one of 48 depictions of waterlilies that Monet executed in the garden of his home in Giverny, France -- from a photograph of paintings that were owned by Paul Rosenberg. The work is one of 58 paintings plundered from Rosenberg's collection that the family has asked the Art Loss Register to trace. Since it was recovered after the war, the work was held in trust by the Musee Nationaux de France and, since 1975, it has been in the care of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in the city of Caen.
Based on the provenance of the work, both the Royal Academy of Arts in London, which was hoping to include the painting in its exhibition, and the Boston museum are understood to have been aware that the work was among those recovered from the Nazis. The director of the Art Loss Register, James Emson, stressed how difficult it is to determine a work's true owner. ``It is important to remember that this is a very shady period of history," he said. ``We do know, however, that this painting was in the collection of Von Ribbentrop and that it was among the 40,000 items seized by the Allies and handed over to France at the end of the war.
``All but 2,085 were returned to their owners," he added, ``and the remainder were distributed for safekeeping to Paris and provincial museums.''
(c Jewish Telegraphic Agency Inc.

Conference Agrees On Guidelines For Nazi-Looted Art

By Carol Giacomo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An international conference on assets seized from Holocaust victims by the Nazis ended Thursday with agreement on guidelines that are expected to have a major impact on the international art world. The 11 principles, which are nonbinding on the 44 nations and 13 nongovernmental groups at the U.S.-hosted meeting, would impose on countries a moral commitment to identify and publicize stolen works so the original owners can claim them. ``From now on, the sale, purchase, exchange and display of art from this period will be addressed with greater sensitivity and a higher international standard of responsibility,'' U.S. delegation leader Stuart Eizenstat said. ``This is a major achievement which will reverberate through our museums, galleries, auction houses and in the homes and hearts of those families who may now have the chance to have returned what is rightfully theirs,'' he added. Despite what organizers called a ``breakthrough'', the complex art issue continued to fan debate. The World Jewish Congress faulted France, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland for not doing enough. But Eizenstat, in his concluding remarks, cited several countries for ``courageous steps,'' including Switzerland, the Netherlands and France. All hailed Austria as a model. Some feared the conference would harm the art market by creating greater uncertainty. The United States called the conference as part of the recent campaign to clear up loose ends from the Nazi era, when Germany plundered and massacred millions of European Jews. Delegates discussed how to restitute or compensate Holocaust survivors for billions of dollars in art, communal property and insurance claims seized by Hitler's forces. They also focused on efforts to educate people on the Holocaust as a way of preventing such a thing happening again. Sweden offered to hold a conference on this subject next year. Chairman Abner Mikva called the meeting a ``landmark'' that made advances in all areas, although Eizenstat said efforts to return communal property to Holocaust survivors were too slow. Russia, which earlier shifted position and agreed to cooperate fully in restitution efforts, stunned organizers by handing over actual records Thursday to Eizenstat. One is a 40-page list of several hundred art works, including coins and weapons, taken from Austrian Jews and sent to various museums in Austria. The second document lists art seized by the Nazis from the collections of two Austrian Jews, Louis Rothschild and Leo Furst. Some of the pieces went to Hitler's museum in Linz. The third was a letter to Dr. Hans Posse, who chose looted art for Hitler, warning him that Rudolph Gutmann, a Jew, might have fled Germany for Austria with a medieval manuscript. ``This is not proof ... but one of the leads that might help the legal successors of his (Gutman's) family to find his own property. In September 1942, his property was in the Vienna National Library,' Russian delegate Valery Kulishov said. German delegate Antonius Eitel, in a move hailed by participants as significant, announced that henceforth ``any work of art that belonged to a victim of the Holocaust and may still be in the possession of the German government will be returned to the survivors or their successors.'' ``If neither victims nor successors can be traced, the work will be handed over to the Jewish claims conference,'' he said. The total value of Holocaust era assets is not known. But Ronald Lauder, board chairman of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, estimated that ``50 percent -- 110,000 pieces of art worth $10 billion to $30 billion -- are still missing.'' Lauder, who heads the World Jewish Congress's art recovery commission, has asserted that every institution, art museum and private collection has some of these missing works. Many of the confiscated art works were returned after the war but others are now held by museums around the world, like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, or in private collections. Under the 11 principles, countries would make an active commitment to encourage the process of identifying the stolen art and restoring it to the owners. For the past 50 years, many governments have obstructed such claims. They would also try to set up a central registry of information about art looted by the Nazis, probably on the Internet, so that claimants can have easy access to it. In addition, Eizenstat said there are plans for a ''mega-website'' as central database for all Holocaust-related information, including the conference proceedings. He said the conference put a sharp focus for the first time on the contentious issue of communal property -- schools, churches, synagogues -- seized by the Nazis. He placed special emphasis on urging new democracies in eastern Europe to return property, especially Poland where there are upward of 5,000 claims and the government in recent years has shown more commitment to resolving the problem. Poland may host a follow-up conference on this issue.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.


Albright talks of blood and balance at Holocaust conference

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told an international conference Tuesday that returning Nazi-seized artwork and other property to Holocaust victims and their heirs would "make the ledger slightly less out of balance." Albright said that she learned only last year of her Jewish heritage and that her Czech grandparents and other relatives were victims of the Nazis. A refugee who came to the United States as a child, Albright was raised Roman Catholic. Albright said that now, as a grandmother, she has begun to "think of the blood that is in my family veins." "Does it matter what kind of blood it is?" she asked delegates at the Holocaust conference. "It shouldn't. It is just blood that does its job," she said. "But it mattered to Hitler and that matters to us all, because that is why 6 million Jews died. And that is why this obscenity of suffering was visited on so many innocent, irreplaceable people." Albright said archives around the world should open their files to researchers and the public so the Nazi loot can be tracked down and returned to the proper owners. Among the governments and other groups represented at the conference was the Vatican, which has refused to open its files. "We cannot restore life nor rewrite history," Albright said in opening the conference. "But we can make the ledger slightly less out of balance by devoting our time, energy and resources to the search for answers, the return of property and the payment of just claims." The total value of Holocaust-era assets is not yet officially known.

Lauder: Every museum has Nazi loot

But Ronald Lauder, board chairman of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, estimates that "50 percent --- 110,000 pieces of art worth $10 billion to $30 billion -- are still missing." Lauder, who also heads the World Jewish Congress' art recovery commission, said "that every institution, art museum and private collection has some of these missing works." And, he added, governments and museums should return the works or auction them to help Jewish groups. "It is time for museums to set the same standard for ownership that they expect of themselves for authenticity," Lauder told delegates. "Is the art genuine? Is the art genuinely theirs?" Russia, in a move the U.S. delegation called a breakthrough, pledged full cooperation in identifying and returning "victim art" looted by the Nazis. Looted art was confiscated by Josef Stalin's troops after the war in what the then-Soviet state saw as reparations for damage caused and lives lost at the hands of Germany.

Victim art vs. trophy art

Moscow's representative, Valery Kulishov, asked for research help to separate "victim art" from "trophy art" -- or works that were originally owned by institutions rather than Holocaust victims. Trophy art "is still an issue of great contention," said Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress. Russia looks at that art as reparation for Nazi destruction of cultural property of the Soviets. The emotionally explosive issue of reclaiming Nazi-seized assets has caused friction between Jewish groups, Switzerland, Russia, France and others. Organizers of this conference strove to set a balanced tone, with Albright urging an "atmosphere free from threats" and saying "our goal must be justice ... we must dig to find out the truth."

U.S. offers 'principles and processes'

The United States on Tuesday distributed to delegates 11 proposed "principles and processes" on dealing with suspected Nazi-looted art, much now in government custody. Under the guidelines, governments would agree to use resources and research to identify all Nazi-seized art that hasn't been returned to prewar owners or their heirs, making allowances for "unavoidable gaps or ambiguities in the provenance in light of the passage of time" and postwar confusion. Nations and other groups also would publicize Nazi-confiscated art to try to locate prewar owners, as the French have done with more than 2,000 works listed on the Internet. Heirs would be encouraged to come forward. And a central clearinghouse for the project would be considered, as well. The U.S.-authored guidelines don't suggest compensation or a specific remedy. Instead, they suggest: "A just and fair solution should be flexible and may vary according to the facts and other circumstances surrounding a specific case." On the issue of life insurance, British delegate Anthony Layden said the conference is likely to support the idea of a global settlement of claims from families whose relatives died without collecting on wartime policies. An international commission chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleberger is already working with half a dozen major insurance companies on such a plan, and a $90 million humanitarian fund already has been launched. Earlier this year, Swiss banks reached a $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust survivors and Jewish groups over Nazi-looted gold, allowing attention to shift to the recovery of other assets.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Pompidou center has looted Picasso - Jewish group

By Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A Picasso painting hanging in the Pompidou Centre in Paris is a work that was looted by the Nazis from a French Jewish collection, according to recently discovered U.S. government documents, a Jewish group said on Friday. The work, ``Head of a Woman,'' painted in 1921, is one of 2,058 works of art hanging in French museums that have not been returned to their owners since the end of the war. France says it is temporary custodian of the art works. While it has been known for more than 50 years that the painting was looted by the Nazis, it was not clear where it had been taken from, the World Jewish Congress said. But a WJC spokesman said his group had recently discovered a report on a U.S. intelligence group's questioning of a German art dealer in Paris that provides the answer. The dealer, Gustav Rochlitz, was notorious for selling and trading art works looted by the Nazis and had the Picasso in his possession when he was captured and questioned by the Office of Strategic Services' Art Looting Investigations Unit in August 1945. In the interrogation, he said that it had been taken from a Jewish art collection. Based on what was previously known about the painting, the WJC spokesman said it was believed that the painting had been in the collection of Picasso's art dealer Alphonse Kann and might have been confiscated from his collection. The OSS document said that Rochlitz ``perhaps more than any other individual sought and derived personal and material gain from the depredations'' of the Nazi task force that confiscated Jewish-owned art works and cultural treasures. He received a total of 82 paintings, including many impressionist and modern works not wanted by the Nazis because of their supposed decadence. The report also described Rochlitz as a ``weak and cowardly individual'' and added, ``politically (he) had no genuine convictions. He appears to have acted at all times in his own interest as an unscrupulous opportunist.'' The Picasso work was one of 22 left in his possession at the time of his capture. At the end of the war, the Allies returned to France some 15,000 art works looted by the Nazis of which 2,058 are still in French museums and the subject of a controversy between French officials and Jewish groups. The World Jewish Congress this week asked France to end its ``custodianship'' of the art works and auction them off for the benefit of Holocaust victims. WJC executive director Elan Steinberg said, ``In my dictionary the words 50 years and temporary are not on the same page.'' Steinberg added that French museums are refusing to allow access to curators' files, which he said could provide vital evidence as to where the looted works came from.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

From: w_robinson@globe.com
Date sent: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 08:37:20 -0500
This and other related stories can be found on Boston Globe website at www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/paintings/
----------------------
Forwarded by Walter V Robinson/Editorial/GLOBE on 11/30/98 08:46 AM
---------------------------
Walter V Robinson
11/30/98 08:35 AM

Monet in MFA show believed Nazi plunder

By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff, 11/30/98

A Monet waterlily on loan for the ''Monet in the 20th Century'' exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was almost certainly plundered in 1941 by Hitler's art looters from French Jewish collector Paul Rosenberg, whose family is now poised to claim the valuable artwork, the Globe learned yesterday.
Jonathan Petropoulos, an expert in Nazi art looting, was even able to pinpoint for the Globe where the painting was during the war. Petropoulos said the painting at the MFA is identical to a Monet that was part of the plundered art collection put together for Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Alerted to the evidence by the Globe, MFA director Malcolm Rogers last night issued a statement saying he will consult with the French museum system, which loaned the painting for the exhibition. Rogers said the MFA plans to retain the painting as part of the exhibition, which concludes Dec. 27.
Paul Hayes Tucker, the curator for the MFA show and a Monet expert, confirmed yesterday that the photo of von Ribbentrop's Monet in Petropoulos's book, ''Art as Politics in the Third Reich,'' matches the waterlily on exhibit in Boston.
Sarah Jackson, the research director in London for the Art Loss Register, used a Rosenberg family photo of the missing work in mid-September to match it to the Monet, which is normally housed in the collection of a French museum in Caen. Tucker, without having seen the Rosenberg family photo, said the evidence disclosed this weekend ''leads me to believe that the painting in the exhibition had been confiscated from the Rosenberg collection.''
The painting's tainted history came to light after the Globe reported on Saturday that the MFA had not disclosed on its exhibition label that the signature Monet waterlily was one of 1,955 artworks now in French custody that were in German hands during the war; most of those are believed to have been confiscated or sold under duress. The MFA had referred to the Monet only as ''recovered after World War II.'' Last night, Rogers declined to say whether the MFA would now add more detailed information to the painting's label.
One clue that the painting at the MFA was looted appears in lists of unrecovered French wartime losses from the National Archives, copies of which are in the Globe's possession. They include a record of the looting of a Monet waterlily owned by Paul Rosenberg, with dimensions of 35 by 36 inches. That matches the dimensions of Monet's ''Water Lilies 1904'' on exhibit here.
Unknown to the MFA, Rosenberg's American descendants were alerted by Jackson of the Art Loss Register that the Monet painting they have long sought was in the custody of the Musee des Beaux-Arts at Caen, in Normandy. The Caen museum loaned it to the MFA. The family had asked the Register, an art industry-created agency that catalogs art thefts, to help locate 58 missing paintings. After Jackson's discovery, the family has yet to lodgeits claim, nor had it said anything about the painting until after the Globe contacted Petropoulos on Saturday. The discovery of the painting, according to art experts, is likely to be a major embarrassment for France at tomorrow's opening of a 45-nation conference in Washington that will focus on unrecovered Holocaust-era assets, including how to identify and restitute the thousands of artworks that remain missing. Already, the World Jewish Congress has said it will demand at the conference that France sell the 1,955 artworks, whose owners it has been unable to locate, and donate the proceeds to Holocaust survivors.
But French officials have acknowledged making no serious effort to find the owners after the artworks were retrieved from Germany at war's end, and farmed the artworks out to various public museums, including the one at Caen. If a Monet from such a prominent collector as Rosenberg could remain unidentified for a half-century, that is likely to add weight to the views of dissenting art experts. They believe that the remaining works should not be sold because many owners or their heirs may still be found.
Willi Korte, an art investigator who has uncovered many looted artworks in recent years, said the news about the Monet find also represents an embarrassment for American art museums. Though the MFA and other major art museums have pledged to comb their collections for looted paintings and to refuse loans of suspect paintings, Korte said, ''This case proves once again that American museums are much more interested in acquiring and exhibiting beautiful artworks than they are in insuring that those artworks do not have questionable backgrounds.''
The Monet, if proven to be Rosenberg's, will be among the most important looted artworks discovered in the United States since the war, and one with an exotic wartime pedigree: In addition to von Ribbentrop, Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering and Hitler amassed collections of plundered art, many of them taken from prominent Jewish collectors like Rosenberg.
Petropoulos, a historian at Loyola College in Baltimore, said that when he saw a photo of the painting on the front page of Saturday's Globe, he recognized it instantly. Petropoulos had included a photo of the painting, from German archives of von Ribbentrop's illicit wartime collection, in his book. Though Monet painted 48 waterlilies, the painting in Petropoulos's book is identical to the work on exhibit at the MFA. ''There is little doubt from the records that this painting was looted and was in the hands of the Third Reich's foreign minister during the war,'' Petropoulos said.
The Monet represents yet another case where Petropoulos, Jackson, and other researchers have often been able to find archival records pointing to stolen artworks - records that many museums did not know existed until recently.
This Friday, for instance, the National Archives is holding a seminar, in conjunction with the international conference, on how researchers can use its archives to find records of wartime thefts. Last week, a National Archives official said the MFA is one of the few art museums not sending a representative. Relying on the archives, several scholars have chronicled the looting of the Rosenberg collection, one of Europe's finest. The scholars include Lynn Nicholas, writing in her ground-breaking book, ''The Rape of Europa''; and Hector Feliciano in ''The Lost Museum,'' which focuses principally on looting in France.
It was uncertain last night what course the painting may take on its apparent voyage back to the Rosenbergs. The Monet exhibition is scheduled to go on to the Royal Academy of Arts in London when the Boston show ends. Art law specialists said the family might choose to file a claim against the MFA, to keep the painting in the United States. But since the French museum system does not claim to own the ''heirless'' painting, such an action seems unlikely. Last year, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau threw the art world into turmoil when he subpoenaed two Egon Schiele paintings from an Austrian loan to the Museum of Modern Art after descendants of the artworks' Jewish owners asserted they were looted during the war. The case is tied up in the courts, and the paintings remain in storage at MoMA.
The Monet now on loan to the MFA was apparently among five Monets in a group of 162 valuable Rosenberg paintings that were stored in a bank vault in Libourne in southern France to hide them from the Nazis, according to ''The Rape of Europa.'' According to an account in Feliciano's book, the Nazis seized the artworks in September 1941, and then shipped them to Paris, where Goering and other Nazi leaders looked them over.
But with such masterpieces at stake, the German art looting unit, known as the ERR, had competition from German diplomats seeking their own share of the plundered art. Chief among those, according to Nicholas's book, was Otto Abetz, Germany's ambassador in Paris. Nicholas, citing archival documents, said Abetz kept 74 paintings from the looting unit. Twenty-one of those, including ''works by Utrillo, Monet, Degas, Bonnard, and Bracque, were reserved `for decoration of the house and offices of the Foreign Minister.''' Petropoulos, in his book, cited records showing that Abetz took control of several Jewish art collections. Petropoulos, who researched German records of the collections of officials like von Ribbentrop and Goering, found evidence that von Ribbentrop and his wife acquired two Monets, including the painting ''Water Lilies 1904.''
In an interview yesterday, Petropoulos said there is documentation that the von Ribbentrops bought some of their paintings before the war. But, he said, there is no documentation they purchased either Monet. ''That's suggestive,'' he said. Von Ribbentrop was executed for war crimes on Oct. 16, 1946. Dawn Griffin, the MFA spokeswoman, insisted that there was no embarrassment for the museum in having an apparently looted artwork as part of such a blockbuster exhibition. More than 350,000 people have seen the Monet show since it opened in September. Another 120,000 tickets have already been issued.
''There is nothing but positives associated with every aspect of this show, including this discovery,'' Griffin said. Rogers, in his statement, said he was ''delighted that the rightful owners of this masterwork may have been found.'' Tucker, the curator, said he saw no risk in taking the work on loan, despite its unknown and potentially troubling past. ''This painting has been in the public realm, and often on loan,'' he said, including to the Art Institute of Chicago for a 1995 Monet exhibition. ''So it seemed legitimate for us to accept it. To me, it seemed unfettered by the darkness that surrounds other paintings in that category,'' Tucker said.
Maureen Goggin of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 11/30/98.

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