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November 14, 2013

Thursday, November 14, 2013 - , No comments

Warhol's Farrah Fawcett Portrait subject of trial in Los Angeles in dispute between Ryan O'Neal and the University of Texas

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.
  

November 13, 2013

Gurlitt Art Collection: Paris Match Journalists Find Cornelius Gurlitt in his neighborhood -- just three days after Augsburg prosecutor denies knowing the whereabouts of the target of his tax evasion case

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. 
by Catherine Schofield Sezgin,
 ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Three days after Bavarian officials denied knowing the whereabouts of Cornelius Gurlitt, two journalists from Paris Match reported and photographed Gurlitt shopping near his flat in Munich ("EXLUSIF. Trésor nazi: Paris Match retrouvé Cornelius Gurlitt"). At a press conference on November 5, Augsburg chief prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz, heading an investigation of suspicion of tax evasion, would not confirm if Gurlitt was even alive.

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.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - , No comments

Gurlitt Art Collection: English language media reports German government to cooperate with publicizing art works

theguardian.com published a report today by the Associated Press under the headline: "German government unveils details of 'Nazi art': 'Almost 600 works of art discovered in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt may have been stolen by Nazis':
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.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - ,, No comments

ARCA Founder Noah Charney Publishes in The Guardian on the Question: "Did the Nazis steal the Mona Lisa?"

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.

November 12, 2013

Gurlitt Art Collection: Germany listed 25 pieces of art online and will establish task force of provenance researchers to examine 970 works

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

Coverage in the last week about the Gurlitt Art Collection has been published in print and online in primary sources in French and German. I have asked readers of the ARCA blog to help with identifying and summarizing into English the articles. One of our readers, Alex Kurys in Vienna, contacted us and recommended an article in ORF.at, the online news he describes as the 'Austrian BBC equivalent' with primary sources of news from Associated Press or Reuters. The article, Fall Gurlitt: Behörden veröffentlichen verdächtige Werke, reports that German authorities have published today a list of 25 works on the page www.lostart.de (The Lost Art Internet Database) from the Gurlitt case with "appropriate urgent suspicion of Nazi persecution conditional withdrawal background" will be posted. The article reports that a task force of six provenance researchers will be assembled to examine 970 works. According to the findings of the Augsburg prosecution, ORF reports, 380 works can be assigned to what the Nazis called "degenerate art" and 590 works will be checked to see if they were taken from their rightful owners during the era of National Socialism persecution. 

The Lost Art Internet Database is operated by:
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.
A search of "Gurlitt" on this Lost Art Internet Database includes a description of Wolfgang Gurlitt as a Berlin dealer and cousin of Hildebrand Gurlitt (father of Cornelius Gurlitt who's art collection was seized by Bavarian custom authorities in February 2012 for suspicion of tax evasion). Wolfgang and Hildebrand Gurlitt are both described by the Lost Art Internet Database as dealers involved in the Nazi cultural robbery. A special report "Spoils of War" from the international conference in Magdeburg in November 2001, highlights the Gurlitt art collection, but it is the collection of Wolfgang, who along with Hildebrand had close contact with Hermann Voss, the art historian who in 1942 was appointed to assemble art for the Führermuseum in Linz. The "Spoils of War" 2001 report highlights the 76 oil paintings and 33 prints Wolfgang Gurlitt sold to the City of LInz in 1953:
Wolfgang Gurlitt was not a National Socialist. There is not a single piece of evidence
among his many surviving letters from that time that he tried to ingratiate himself with
various public offices by using expressively National Socialist language. His lack of
concern in political matters was so marked that in his letters to the office responsible
for the "Linz Special Command" ("Sonderauftrag Linz") he all too often left out the
obligatory closing phrase "Heil Hitler!". His employment of a non-National Socialist,
Walter Kasten, in 1938, matches this image.

On the other hand Wolfgang Gurlitt understood well how to remain in business
between 1933 and 1945. Besides his regular activities as an art dealer he was
successful in getting involved in special projects (although on a modest scale
compared to his cousin, Hildebrand Gurlitt): these included the sale abroad of artwork
confiscated and labeled "degenerate art" ("Entartete Kunst") by the Reich's Ministry
for Propaganda, as well as making purchases for Linz’s "Führer Museum".
The "Spoils of War" 2001 report notes under "results of the research into provenance":
It is demonstrable that Gurlitt acquired artwork of previous Jewish ownership on
several occasions: through direct purchase from the Jewish owner, through auctions,
and probably also through other art dealers. The total scope and the method of
acquisition in respective cases are unclear; the number probably extends beyond those
examples proven unequivocally. Like practically all art dealers who were active
during the rule of the National Socialists, Gurlitt had no qualms about this form of
acquisition. 
Documentation of Results:
The Mayor of the City of Linz initiated the process of examining the Gurlitt
Collection of the New Gallery of the City of Linz as far back as September 17, 1998.
The archive of the City of Linz examined – primarily through existing municipal files
– the provenance and acquisition of the pictures in stock. A comprehensive report
with the results of the research (which have been briefly summarised here), together
with a catalogue including all works in the "Gurlitt Collection" was published in
January 1999.13 The complete report has been accessible since then on the Internet at
http://www.linz.at/archiv, the first public body in Austria to decide to act in this way.
1,800 hits a month (as of February 2002) to the contents of this documentation bears
witness to the active interest of the public in this matter.

November 11, 2013

James "Whitey" Bulger to be Sentenced to Prison Thursday

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

More than two years after the FBI apprehended James "Whitey" Bulger in Santa Monica, the 84-year-old convicted murderer will be sentenced Thursday to prison for the rest of his life -- without ever leading investigators to the paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990.

Both the Gardner's security director and investigator, Anthony Amore, and the federal prosecutor who put Bulger away, Brian T. Kelly, have said publicly that Bulger was not connected to the heist in any way and is not considered a suspect.

Shelley Murphey, reporter for the Boston Globe and co-author with Kevin Cullen of Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt that Brought Him to Justice (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013) summarizes Bulger's legal status here in "'King of Bulger's victim's set to speak out in court" (Boston Globe, Nov. 11):
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.
In the biography of Bulger by Murphey and Cullen, a word search for "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum", "art theft",  or "museum" resulted in none of the speculation found in previous years about Whitey's possible knowledge of what had happened to the ISGM paintings. [I did read in their book that in 1996 Bulger and his companion Cathy Greig walked into an residential building on Third Street in Santa Monica, lied about their identities on an application form for a rent-controlled apartment, then moved into a two-bedroom unit at $837 a month. When I lived in Santa Monica in the early 1990s, everyone I ever knew had to know someone to get a unit due to the fierce competition for affordable beach housing.]

In Ulrich Bosert's 2009 The Gardner Heist, rumors retold include that Whitey Bulger approached someone in Florida to sell the Gardner loot for $10 million and that Bulger had shipped the stolen paintings to the IRA in Ireland.

November 9, 2013

Saturday, November 09, 2013 - , No comments

Gurlitt Art Collection: HARP Calls on the German Government to Immediately Disclose a Detailed and Complete Inventory of the Cornelius Gurlitt Collection and Set Up a Commission to Hasten Restitution of Nazi-Looted Artworks to Holocaust Victims and Their Heirs

Washington, DC, USA – November 8, 2013 - The Holocaust Art Restitution Project ( HARP), based in Washington, DC, chaired by Ori Z. Soltes, has called on the German Government to immediately publish a full, detailed and complete inventory of the Cornelius Gurlitt art collection, and to set up a Commission to hasten the restitution process of Nazi-looted artworks to Holocaust victims and their heirs.

Following the disclosure by the weekly magazine Focus that the German Government has been in control of the Cornelius Gurlitt collection for several years, HARP, through its legal counsel, sent a letter to the German Ministry of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, calling on the German Government to immediately disclose a full, complete, and detailed inventory of this collection, and to establish a Commission to hasten the process of identification and restitution of any Nazi-looted artwork found in this collection.

Any delay in implementing these steps would constitute grave injury to both the art market which requires that full and complete diligence be performed on any transaction, and to Holocaust survivors who have been looking for their artworks since 1945,” the letter states, which was also shared with Reinhard Nemetz, the Head of Augsburg State Prosecutor’s Office in charge of investigating Cornelius Gurlitt.

HARP is a not-for-profit group based in Washington, DC, and chaired by Ori Z. Soltes, dedicated to the identification and restitution of looted artworks require detailed research and analysis of public and private archives in North America. HARP has worked for 16 years on the restitution of artworks looted by the Nazi regime.  HARP was notably involved in the "Portrait of Wally" case, where a Schiele painting was seized by the U.S. Government, as well as in the restitution of an “Odalisque”, a painting by Henri Matisse, to the Rosenberg family.

HARP is advised and represented by the Ciric Law Firm Firm, PLLC in New York, USA.

Gurlitt Art Collection: Reuters Video: 'Cornelius Gurlitt who hid 1,400 art works was a tragic figure'

In this November 8 Reuters video posted on YouTube, Wolfgang Gurlitt in Barcelona says that his cousin Cornelius Gurlitt, whose collection of 1,400 artworks was seized from his Munich apartment by Bavarian authorities in February 2012 in an investigation regarding tax evasion, only sold paintings to support himself.

"He could have sold it [the art collection] in all these 60 years," Wolfgang Gurlitt said. "He could have sold the Picassos and all these famous paintings to a museum, to any rich people, so he was not interested in making money -- he was just interested in making money to make his own living."

Gurlitt Art Collection: Images of the FOCUS Magazine 'Exclusive'

First page of FOCUS article
The second half of the front page spread




















Jacobiene Kuijpers (ARCA '13) kindly scanned images of the FOCUS article that broke the news of the 'discovery' of the Hildebrand-Cornelius Gurlitt art collection. Sascha Gleckler, an American living in Berlin, reviewed the article, translating from German to English. Ms. Gleckler, who took an art law class while earning her degree from Stanford Law, said that until this week she had not been aware of the weekly publication FOCUS but that the investigation on the Gurlitt collection lead the evening news on television last Sunday in Berlin. "How did this remain a secret while they were researching these paintings?" Ms. Gleckler asked. "And how will they deal with what started as a tax issue and is now leading into issues about restitution for Holocaust looted art?"

The issue of this week's FOCUS carries a front page exlusive of "Der Nazi-Schatz", The Nazi Treasure, described as a sensational discovery after 70 years of 1500 lost works of art by artists including Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, and Dürer with a value that might be worth more than one billion euros. Credit at the end of the 11-page article (exclusive of advertising) is given to Markus Krischer and Thomas Roell. Here's a link to a German television interview with Mr. Krischer.

Third page
Fourth page

Focus-Research described how Cornelius Gurlitt's trips on the train with large amounts of cash aroused the suspicion of Bavarian custom authorities and lead to a search of his dirty and cluttered apartment in Munich and the discovery of about 1,500 artworks. The article includes a summary of the history of degenerate and confiscated art during the National Socialist era.

Fifth page
Sixth page
The article includes images of paintings by Franz Marc (fifth page) and a photo of the legendary Parisian art dealer Paul Rosenberg standing next to a painting by Matisse. On the sixth page is an image of Max Beckmann's 'Lion Tamer' (in German, "Löwenbändiger").

The seventh page includes a photo of Cornelius Gurlitt's residence and photos of artists on file.

Seventh page
Eighth page

Gurlitt Art Collection: Images of FOCUS Magazine 'Exclusive' Continued


The article includes information about three art dealers who had handled (bought and sold) degenerate paintings during the Nazi regime: Karl Buchholz, who opened a gallery in New York City and conducted business from Spain to Romania for Joseph Goebbels; Ferdinand Möller, an international dealer in Expressionist paintings who made a lot of money selling confiscated (including degenerate) -- he held back a lot of expensive paintings and pictures for himself and after the war he showed the invoices that he had bought them for himself (FOCUS); and Bernhard Böhmer, a sculptor and a dealer, who as an associate for National Socialism became a millionaire before committing suicide at the end of the war.