"Schwabing Art Fund": publication of 590 works on www.lostart.de

Berlin, 14 November 2013 

press release of the Task Force "Schwabing Art Fund" 

Dr. Ingeborg Mountain Green Merkel 

The mandated by the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria Head of the Task Force "Schwabing Art Fund" Dr. Ingeborg Mountain Green Merkel welcomes the public prosecutor in Augsburg all around 590 works of art from the "Schwabing Art Fund", with possible Nazi-related withdrawal is not excluded, reports on the website of the coordinating body www.lostart.de Magdeburg. This happens also in agreement with the involved ministries at the federal and state level. With the publication - after the technical conditions have been created - started in the coming week. 

On the basis of existing findings in a timely and comprehensive research on the history of the works of art is possible only by the general public involved. Without a transparent documentation of the retrieved results is a comprehensive clarification of the provenance of the art works hard to achieve. In addition, potential voters are now set rapidly in a position to identify missing artwork and possibly be able to make a claim. Databases such as Lostart.de provide for a central communication base represents the publication of the works thus makes a decisive contribution to provenance research, and above all to easily and quickly find potential voters. The results of research on the individual works of art are made of Augsburg public prosecutor immediately available. 

"The origin of the so-called 'Schwabing Art Fund' seized works of art can be found as quickly and transparently as possible with the publication on lostart.de," said Ingeborg Mountain Green Merkel. According to the findings of the prosecution must Augsburg from the seized collection - minus the objects that clearly have no relation to Nazi-looted art - about 590 works are reviewed. 

For further research, a task force with experts has been formed for provenance research, which has already started work. And international expertise should be used. Personnel contribute to the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues and the Free State of Bavaria. This method ensures that the expertise of all participating institutions at the federal and state are included. 

The website www.lostart.de is the central service unit of federal and state governments for the documentation of cultural losses during the Nazi period and corresponding sources of messages. BKM Press Office Dorotheenstrasse 84, 10117 Berlin Phone: 030 / 18272-3281 Fax: 030/18 272 -3259 E-mail: pressestelle-bkm@bpa.bund.de Internet: www.kulturstaatsminister.de

On the Looted Art Internet Database, the English version (not based on Google Translation) is titled "Munich Art Trove." The press release, dated three days earlier, is as follows:

“Schwabing art trove”: Provenance of treasures to be

researched alongside criminal proceedings – suspicious works being publicised at www.lostart.de

Press release

11 November 2013

page 1 of 2

Joint press release by the Bavarian State Ministry of Justice, the Bavarian State Ministry of Education, Science and the Arts, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media:

We are working as quickly and transparently as possible to find out where the works of art come from which were discovered in the “Schwabing art trove”. The Federal and State Ministries involved have agreed in the interests of possible owners to take a broad-based approach to the provenance research, making use of the “Degenerate Art” Research Centre of Freie Universität Berlin and running parallel to the criminal proceedings of the Augsburg public prosecution office. The restitution issues arising from the Schwabing art trove in connection with Nazi-confiscated and looted art cannot be adequately resolved by criminal proceedings alone. That is not the job of criminal proceedings.

The federal and Länder authorities have agreed to put together a qualified task force of at least six provenance research experts without delay. Dr Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel has been charged by the federal and Bavarian authorities to head the task force, which will be coordinated by Berlin-based specialist provenance research office the AfP (Arbeitsstelle für Provenienzrecherche/ forschung). Dr Berggreen-Merkel was formerly Deputy Chair of the Board at the AfP as well as Deputy Minister of State to the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The AfP is funded by the Cultural Foundation of the Länder, and its main task is to help public museums and institutions in Germany identify cultural property in their collections which was confiscated from the legitimate owners during the Nazi era.

The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Office of Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, and the Free State of Bavaria will all provide specialists for the provenance research task force. This will ensure it can make use of the expertise of all the federal and Länder authorities involved.

Current information from the Augsburg public prosecution office suggests that, not counting those which clearly have nothing to do with “degenerate art” or Nazi confiscation, there are around 970 pieces among the artwork seized which need to be investigated. Of these, around 380 works belong to the category of so-called “degenerate art”. Approximately 590 pieces need to be investigated for possible confiscation under the Nazi regime.

In order to ensure transparency and to advance the provenance research, an initial 25 works of art where confiscation by the Nazis is particularly strongly suspected are being listed today on www.lostart.de. The Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg, which runs the internet database, will keep the list continuously updated. The Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg, run jointly by the Federation and the Länder, is Germany’s central service for documenting and returning cultural treasures and will be available to answer any questions about the documented objects. Questions about the criminal proceedings should be directed to the Augsburg public prosecution office.

Aware of Germany’s responsibility for resolving issues related to Nazi crimes and in deference to the 1998 Washington Conference Principles and the 1999 Joint Declaration by the Federal Government, Länder and National Associations of Local Authorities, we are thus ensuring transparency and due attention to issues of ownership and cultural history, without hindering the proper conduct of the Augsburg public prosecution office’s criminal investigations.

“The myth of the sophisticated, art-loving Hollywood gentleman art thief is nothing like the real thing,” says Dick Ellis, a career detective with London’s Metropolitan Police. He set up the Art and Antiques Squad at New Scotland Yard in 1989, and was involved in the recovery of a version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, after it had been stolen from the first floor of the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994 by two thieves who gained access by using a ladder and breaking a glass window, before leaving a postcard in Norwegian: “Thanks for the poor security”. “In reality, art thieves are professional criminals who view art and antiques as a soft touch, offering potentially high rewards and/or the ability to utilise the asset as a form of collateral to fund other areas of criminal activity.”

In part, this explains one of the puzzles surrounding this form of art crime: why thieves would want to purloin world-famous works of art that are essentially unsellable because they would be recognised at once if they were ever offered for sale in the future.

While some criminals hope to ransom lost artworks back to the institutions from which they were stolen, this strategy rarely works, according to Dick Ellis, because paying out ransoms, as well as being illegal, only encourages further thefts. Institutions are more likely to offer rewards for information leading to the recovery of stolen artworks. A $5m reward, for instance, is on the table for anyone who can crack the Isabella Stewart Gardner case – though, 23 years on, this has yet to yield results. 

“Recovery rates internationally are very small, but best for well-known works of art,” explains Noah Charney, the founder of ARCA, and a professor of art history specialising in art crime. “So smarter criminals would steal B- or C-level works of art rather than more famous ones.”

With ransom rarely an option, criminals find other uses for high-profile stolen paintings, which often accrue a new value on the black market – typically, according to Ellis, around three to 10% of a painting’s total estimated value as reported in the media. Once this value has been determined, a stolen painting can then be offered as collateral to help secure a loan to finance illicit endeavours. “In this way stolen art actually funds activities such as drugs or tobacco trafficking,” Ellis explains.

Moreover, he continues, “Art now provides an alternative mechanism to transporting cash” – offering a solution for criminals keen to circumvent money-laundering regulations. “Stolen art can easily be carried across international borders and is used as a kind of banker’s draft to pay for things like drugs consignments. It has an international value without the hassle of currency conversion and may even be accepted as a trophy payment by senior cartel members.”

Warhol's Farrah Fawcett, bequeathed to the University of  Texas in 2010, is at the Blanton Museum of Art.

Today in the LA Times, David Ng reports in "Farrah Fawcett portrait by Andy Warhol at center of legal battle" on the beginning of the trial in Los Angeles between Ryan O'Neal and the University of Texas regarding the disputed ownership of Warhol's portrait of the 1970s sex symbol Farrah Fawcett who died in 2009. The trial in Los Angeles Superior Court is expected to last two weeks, Ng writes.

The parties are set to square off Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. At the time of her death in 2009, Fawcett bequeathed art that she owned to the University of Texas at Austin, which she attended before hitting it big in Hollywood. 

The university had reportedly received one Warhol portrait of Fawcett, but O'Neal is in possession of another that is virtually identical. The "Barry Lyndon" actor is claiming that the portrait he has is rightfully his and that Warhol gave it to him. 

O'Neal and Fawcett never married but they were in a long-term, on-and-off relationship. They have a son, Redmond O'Neal. 

The University of Texas is claiming that Fawcett left all of her artwork to the university and that the portrait in O'Neal's possession should be transferred to the school. O'Neal has countersued the university, saying that a sketch created by Warhol wrongly ended up at the Blanton Museum of Art on the Austin campus.

At one time, the Warhol portrait of Ms. Fawcett was considered missing until it was found during an airing of Ryan O'Neal's reality television show in 2011.

Peter Sheridan reporting for Britain's Express discusses the revelations the fight over the paintings has revealed about the actress' relationship with Ryan O'Neal.

A Warhol portrait of Fawcett is on display at the Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin.
  

Two photographs credited to Best Image/Vantagenews.co.uk, published by the Telegraph online of Cornelius Gurlitt 'seen for the first time in public shopping at a supermarket  in Munich'. Paris Match photo credits Goran Gajanin.

Paris Match's Berlin Correspondents, David Le Bailly and Denis Trierweiler, wrote they found the "élégante" Gurlitt on Friday, November 8, continuing his habits in the Schwabing district near his apartment. Gurlitt responded to a question from the journalists which they reported in French: "Une approbation qui vient du mauvais côté est la pire des choses qui puisse arriver". Gurlitt's quote, as retold in English by Colin Freeman for the Telegraph ("First pictures of Cornelius Gurlitt, pensioner accused over Nazi-era art stash", November 12), was translated into English as: "Approval that comes from the wrong side is the worst thing that can happen".

Last week, when Bavarian prosecutors held a press conference after revelations in Focus Magazine about a 'Nazi art hoard', Gurlitt's whereabouts were reportedly unknown. As of November 8th, though, it appears he was shopping for groceries and still living in the same flat (or at least the same area) from which Bavarian customs officers took 3 days to remove 1,400 works of art in February 2012 in an investigation related to tax evasion.

The following sources documented Bavarian authorities denial of Gurlitt's residence at the Augsburg press conference (Augsburg is a 35-minute train ride north of Munich):

The mystery around Gurlitt himself, meanwhile, has thickened. The whereabouts of the 80-year-olld are not known, said the customs authorities. When asked by one journalist if Gurlitt was alive, Augsburg chief prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz said he could not comment. "Picasso, Matisse and Dix among works found in Munich's Nazi art stash", Philip Oltermann in Berlin, theguardian, Nov. 5.

Of the whereabouts of Mr. Gurlitt himself, nothing is known, the officials said. Mr. Nemetz said that he had been questioned after the paintings were found, and that investigation under the tax law was continuing. But there was no reason to detain the elderly man, and authorities do not know where he is, Mr. Nemetz said. "German Officials Provide Details on Looted Art Trove," Melissa Eddy, November 5, originally published in The New York Times and since revised.

Senior public prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz said Mr. Gurlitt's current location was unknown to the authorities. Neighbours at Mr. Gurlitt's apartment have reportedly not seen the white-haired 80-year-old -- who has an Austrian passport -- since summer. "Lost Nazi art: Unknown Chagall among paintings in Munich Flat", Louise Barnett, Berlin. November 5.

The paintings were discovered stacked between dirty plates and cans of food past their sell-by date, in the run-down apartment of the reclusive 80-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of an art collector who was yesterday said to have disappeared without a trace. "He could be anywhere in Germany. We think he may have access to unlimited funds," a Munich customs spokesman said. "Search is on for second cache of art confiscated by the Nazis", Tony Paterson, Berlin, The Independent.

Bowing to demands from Jewish groups and art experts, the German government has made public the details of paintings in a recovered trove of about 1,400 pieces of art, many of which may have been stolen by the Nazis, and said it would put together a taskforce to speed up identification. 

In a written statement, the government said as many as 590 works of art could have been stolen by the Nazis. In a surprise move, it quickly featured some 25 of those works on the website lostart.de and said it would be regularly updated.

According to the article:

A taskforce of six experts will be put together by the German government and the state government of Bavaria, with the support of a research group on "degenerate art" at the Free University of Berlin. Such art was largely modern or abstract work that Adolf Hitler's regime believed to be a corrupt influence on the German people. Many such works were later sold to enrich the Nazis. There were 380 works of art in this category, the government said. 

The taskforce would work in parallel with the continuing legal investigation by prosecutors in Augsburg, the government said. 

The prosecutor had only said there was evidence that one item – a Matisse painting of a sitting woman – was stolen by the Nazis from a French bank in 1942.

This is the photograph by Jean-Pierre-Muller Javier Sorrian/AFP/Getty Images of the Louvre's Mona Lisa  and the copy housed at Madrid's Prado Museum. guardian

Here's a link to an article in today's Guardian, Did the Nazis steal the Mona Lisa?, written by Noah Charney, founder of ARCA. The article was adapted from Charney's book, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World's Most Famous Painting.

With the recent discovery in Munich of €1bn (£860m) worth of art looted by the Nazis, and the forthcoming release of a feature film, starring George Clooney, based on the exploits of the Monuments Men, it is a fitting time to recall how fortunate we are that so much art survived thesecond world war. The Nazi art theft division, the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), was responsible for the theft of around 5m works: from the Louvre, the Uffizi and countless churches, galleries and homes. From headline-grabbing works like Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna to the most frequently stolen artwork in history, Jan van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, both of which feature in the Clooney film, to lesser-known gems that nevertheless held a place in the hearts of museumgoers or families, the story of art looting during the second world war is a tree with countless roots. Each masterpiece has its own history, a provenance ripe with intrigue. Few of the individual stories have been told, fewer still in depth.

Among the many enduring mysteries of this periodis the fate of the world's most famous painting. It seems that Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was among the paintings found in the Altaussee salt mine in the Austrian alps, which was converted by the Nazis into their secret stolen-art warehouse. 

The painting only "seems" to have been found there because contradictory information has come down through history, and the Mona Lisa is not mentioned in any wartime document, Nazi or allied, as having been in the mine. Whether it may have been at Altaussee was a question only raised when scholars examined the postwar Special Operations Executive report on the activities of Austrian double agents working for the allies to secure the mine. This report states that the team "saved such priceless objects as the Louvre's Mona Lisa". A second document, from an Austrian museum near Altaussee dated 12 December 1945, states that "the Mona Lisa from Paris" was among "80 wagons of art and cultural objects from across Europe" taken into the mine.

You may read the rest of the article here.

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg, Germany’s central office for the documentation of lost cultural property. It was set up jointly by the Government and the Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany and registers cultural objects which as a result of persecution under the Nazi dictatorship and the Second World War were relocated, moved or seized, especially from Jewish owners.

In August, following an eight-week trial, jurors found Bulger participated in 11 murders while operating a sprawling criminal enterprise from the 1970s through the 1990s that trafficked in cocaine and marijuana; extorted drug dealers, businessmen, and bookmakers; and corrupted FBI agents and other law enforcement officials. He was convicted of 31 counts of racketeering, extortion, money laundering, and weapons possession. 

In a sentencing memorandum filed last week, prosecutors said Bulger “has no redeeming qualities” and faces a mandatory term under federal sentencing guidelines of life in prison, followed by another life sentence for possessing machine guns and another five-year term for possessing handguns.