Stolen Art : French Government Under Fire

Bienvenue! ^ | FR Post 19FEB03 (Org Post 19 February 1997) | By Andrew Jack

[vannrox]

Stolen Art : French Government Under Fire

By Andrew Jack PARIS, 19 February 1997 - A writer who has been researching the fate of works of art taken from Jews in France during the second world war has criticized the lack of effort from the government in attempting to find their rightful owners. Speaking at a seminar on the expropriation of property organised by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris at the end of January, Mr Hector Feliciano said the initiative by the state to make available on the Internet a list of paintings not returned to their owners was both incomplete and pointless. In spite of claims by the Ministry of Culture at the end of last year that a list of 2,000 works of art held by the National Museum Service was now available on-line, Mr Feliciano said only 200-300 could currently be consulted. More importantly, he argued that the Service did little more than serve as a "smokescreen" and potentially stimulate the art market rather than help identify the rightful owners of the works. He said that anyone who knew that they or their family had lost a well-known work of art during the war would have made enquiries directly and did not need the Internet to help them. Others whose relatives had been killed and records destroyed during the war might not be aware of what had been lost. To identify them required active and intensive research by the Museum Service directly, he said. His own researches demonstrated how difficult gaining access to the official archives could be. He stressed the importance of Paris during the war as a centre both for art sales and collectors. He cited a German report dating from 1944 listing 25,000 paintings which had been officially confiscated, and argued that many more had been stolen or forcibly bought at low prices from Jews by individual soldiers. Some of the criticisms, first made in a book written by Mr Feliciano in 1995, have been picked up in a recent report by the Cour des Comptes, the public sector watchdog, which has not yet been made public, but which reproached the Museum Service for failing to publish a comprehensive catalogue and last exhibiting publicly all the confiscated works in 1954. A letter on the subject from Ms Françoise Cachin, Director of the Museum Service, to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, argued that the Service had never attempted to integrate the art works into its own collection, and stressed that some 45,000 it held had been returned to their owners in 1949. It argued that of the remaining 2,000 "probably a large number were sold, perfectly legitimately, by their owners to the Nazi occupiers", and there was no proof that many were originally owned by and stolen from Jews. Mr Feliciano's comments come at a time of growing pressure for research into the question of confiscated property during the war-time Vichy government in France, triggered in part by revelations in a book last year that a number of the apartments which the City of Paris is putting up for sale had been confiscated from Jewish owners during the war. Mr Alain Juppé, the French Prime Minister, at the start of February nominated Mr Jean Matteoli, head of the Economic and Social Council, to chair a Commission set up to identify and consider legal questions surrounding confiscated Jewish property. The French government also gave its approval at the end of last month for a change in the distribution terms of the tripartite Commission on Monetary Gold set up after the war in cooperation with the UK and the US. The modification would hand the remaining 5.5 tonnes controlled by the Commission to uncompensated victims of the holocaust rather than national governments.

[vannrox]

There seems to be a theme of the French embracing the Nazi beliefs and what they stood for.

[vannrox]

J U D A I C A

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NAZI WAR PILLAGES : A U.S MUSEUM TARGETED

The heirs of Jewish art collector Alphonse Kann have stepped up their offensive against several French and foreign museums to recover some 100 paintings missing from his collection, which was pillaged by the Nazis during World War Two.

Francis Warin, their representative, told Artcult, that a legal action was under way for the restitution of Georges Braque?s «Guitar Player» stolen from Alphonse Kann?s collection in 1940 and sold in 1981 by the Berggruen Gallery to the Georges Pompidou Museum of Modern art.

The Braque painting, considered as one of his most important Cubist works came in the possession of French dealer André Lefevre who kept it until 1964.  Lefèvre, whose role during the war remains to be clarified, also gave three paintings by Juan Gris, believed to have belonged to Kann, to the Paris Museum of Modern Art and sold two other paintings by the same artist  at auction in 1964. 

Warin added that a major 1911 work by Fernand Léger titled «Chimney fumes on roofs», now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, had also belonged to Kann who signalled its disappearance after his return to Paris in 1945. 

Apparently, this Léger painting was sold at auction in Paris in October 1942 with works by Picasso, Miro and Francisco Bores, which were believed to have been in his collection.

«Chimney fumes on roofs» was purportedly purchased during the war by the Paris Louise Leyris Gallery, which sold it back to the Buchholz Gallery of New York before it was acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Francis Warin said he was about to call for the return of that painting and added that he was certain that several other paintings from the Kann collection were in the possession of some U.S and foreign museums. He indicated that he recently discovered a 1921 painting by Picasso, ?Head of Woman? in the Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes, Brittany.

Many works of art and paintings belonging to Jewish collectors were seized by the Nazis or the Vichy regime during the Second World War and so far the owners of some 2000 works recovered after 1945 have not been traced back.

The daily «Le Monde» reported on March 15th 1999 that a 1914 Fernand Léger painting, titled «Woman in red and green», had not yet been claimed by the heirs of French collector and dealer Leonce Rosenberg whose collection was seized by the Nazis in 1942 and sold to the German dealer Gustav Rochlitz in exchange against a painting by the Master of Frankfurt representing the Adoration of the Magi.

This Léger painting was recovered by French authorities but neither Léonce, who died in 1947, nor his brother Paul claimed its restitution. The heirs of the Rosenberg family have been unable so far to find a document that it effectively was in Leonce?s collection while ?Le Monde? suggested it might have been left in his care by another collector.

Referring to the World Jewish Congress? proposal to auction  all unclaimed works of art which have remained under the custody of French museums, Henri Hadjenberg, Chairman of the Council of France?s Jewish Institutions (CRIF) told ?Le Monde? that such settlement was simply not a financial matter.

?The Crif is against the WJC proposal because there not many masterpieces among the 2000 paintings or so which have been left in the care of French museums. Most of these works belonged to Jewish families and the State should set up a fund to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust and inform people about this tragedy. A special center, financed by the State in exchange of these paintings and with the  equivalent of Jewish assets seized in French banks during the war and unclaimed so far, would be suitable.?

He added that the WJC was making a mistake in carrying out an action similar to that launched against Swiss banking institutions. ?The problem is quite different as what happened in France was far more serious. French authorities were the accomplices of a crime perpetrated against the Jewish people and were not only responsible for the assets they seized. In France, the question cannot be limited to financial indemnities as there are also moral responsibilities in the balance,? Mr Hadjenberg stressed. 

[Tacis]

I'd check Chirac's girlfriend's apartment. There may be some stolen art decorating the walls there.

[buffyt]

There was a woman on the news a few months ago who said that some of the paintings by Gustav Klimt belonged to her, but were taken from her by the Nazis. She is trying to get them back. She said she was the person he painted in some of his paintings. I do not remember her name. I think she said she was a survivor of a concentration camp. I will see if I can find her name and story and post it here. Here is an example of Klimt art.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/klimt/klimt.adele-bloch-bauer.jpg

[buffyt]

Activities by Country
Austria
http://www.comartrecovery.org/accomplishments/austria/text/austria1.htm

Austria began to pay attention to the problematic legacy of Nazi-looted art in the 1980s. A trove of art, returned to Austria by the western Allies after the war, was stored at a monastery in Mauerbach. The conditions were poor, and the Austrians said the art was third-rate. Reacting to media pressure and Jewish interventions, Austria agreed that the art should be sold by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Austria for the benefit of needy Holocaust survivors and supporting organizations. The sale took place in Vienna in 1996 under the leadership of an international steering committee of which Ronald S. Lauder served as co-chair. Organized pro-bono by Christie’s auctioneers, the proceeds of the sale were over $11 million.

In 1998, after research by the Austrian government into its own archives revealed that Austria’s federal museums profited greatly from exiled Jewish families after the war, Austria’s Minister of Culture, Elisabeth Gehrer, proposed legislation in Parliament to create a Provenance Research team to be comprised of government historians. After searching archives and other information, the Provenance Research Office would present its findings to a politically appointed Beirat (Advisory Council). On December 4, 1998, this proposal was enacted as the Federal Law On Return of Art Objects From the Austrian Federal Museums and Collections. Among other things, the 1998 law was designed to return art that had been "donated" to federal museums under duress or in exchange for export permits for other art owned by exiled families. The 1998 law does not, however, provide claimants a right to file claims with the government, and the review of any particular works of art is largely initiated from within the Provenance Research Office, although the government will in at least some instances review requests from claimants to review their cases. Restitution efforts after the passage of this law have met with mixed results.


The Commission for Art Recovery, working with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Austria, filed a request with the government and the Albertina Museum in Vienna, on behalf of the heirs of Claire and Gustav Kirstein, for the return of a drawing by Käthe Kollwitz entitled Sturm bewaffneter Bauern. On January 23, 2001, the government restitution committee issued its decision that this drawing should be returned to the heirs of the Kirsteins. Later in 2001, the government tentatively concluded that these heirs on whose behalf the Commission submitted this claim were in fact the persons entitled to receive the drawing. In November 2002, the government confirmed this conclusion, and in December 2002 the drawing was returned to the heirs.


The new law has not, however, prevented the Austrian Government from continuing to block the return of art that it does not want to return to its rightful owner. A prominent example of this refusal by the Austrian government to return stolen art is the case brought by Maria V. Altmann against the Republic of Austria and the Austrian National Gallery in U.S. federal district court in Los Angeles, California for the return of art stolen from her uncle, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, in 1938 by the Nazis in Austria.


Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer was a prominent businessman and art collector in Vienna prior to the Nazi annexation of Austria. Ferdinand owned several paintings by Gustav Klimt (including two portraits by Klimt of Ferdinand’s wife and Ms. Altmann’s aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer). Adele died in 1925, and she expressed a non-binding aspiration in her will that Ferdinand donate his Klimt paintings to the Austrian National Gallery. When the Nazis occupied Austria in 1938, they confiscated Ferdinand’s home, business and art collection, and Ferdinand fled first to Czechoslovakia and then to Switzerland. Several paintings in Ferdinand’s collection were sent to Adolf Hitler and Herman Göring for their private collections. Upon his death in Zurich, Switzerland, in November, 1945, Ferdinand did not bequeath any artwork to the Gallery, but instead bequeathed all of his property to Mrs. Altmann and two other heirs, most likely disregarding Adele’s wish due to the hostile wartime actions of the Austrians in seizing virtually all of his art and other assets as part of the persecution of Jews in Austria. Moreover, Mrs. Altmann believes that there is substantial evidence that the Klimts were not even owned by Adele Bloch-Bauer, but were in fact owned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, which would render any comments in Mrs. Bloch-Bauer’s will irrelevant to the ownership of the paintings.


Mrs. Altmann, the daughter of Ferdinand’s brother and Adele’s sister (Ferdinand and his brother married Adele and her sister, respectively), fled Austria after the Nazi annexation and arrived in Los Angeles in 1942. She became a U.S. citizen in 1945.


The heirs were unsuccessful in their attempts following the Second World War to recover the Klimt paintings. The Austrians first claimed that the non-binding aspiration in Adele’s will made a legally effective bequest of the paintings, as opposed to expressing a mere wish. In the post-War years, the Austrian museums also made use of a "cultural heritage" law that forced persons, typically Jews, to relinquish some of their art in order to obtain a government permit to export others. Following the passage of the 1998 law, a committee of government officials and art historians was formed, and in February, 1999, the committee recommended that hundreds of works of art that had been "donated" be returned to their rightful owners. As part of this process, Austria’s federal minister of education and culture, Elisabeth Gehrer, concluded that there was evidence that the Klimts were "donated" to the Austrian National Gallery under duress based upon the Austrian export permit law. Following a wave of political protest to the requested return of the Klimts, however, in what was apparently a politically predetermined decision, the government committee voted not to return the Klimts to Mr. Bloch-Bauer’s heirs. (The apparently political nature of the committee’s decision is evidenced by the fact that the committee did vote to return other works that belonged to the Bloch-Bauer heirs and that were "donated" by the family in exchange for export permits.) When Mrs. Altmann protested the committee’s decision regarding the Klimts, the Austrian government suggested that her only remedy was to go to court. In order to commence such a suit in Austria, however, Mrs. Altmann would have to pay a filing fee of approximately $2,000,000, which amount was beyond her means. Mrs. Altmann applied for a waiver of the full amount of this fee. This resulted only in limited relief as she was permitted to pay a filing fee equal to an amount that represented nearly all of Mrs. Altmann’s assets. Moreover, Austria appealed even this limited relief. Frustrated in her quest for justice under the political and judicial systems in Austria, Mrs. Altmann filed suit for the return of the paintings in U.S. federal district court in Los Angeles in August, 2000.


In her lawsuit in the US courts, Mrs. Altmann seeks to recover six paintings from the Austrian National Gallery, alleging that the Austrians’ original seizure of the paintings, as well as the application of the export permit law, were in violation of international law. The paintings are presently valued at approximately $150 million.


In their initial court filings, the defendants’ contested the jurisdiction and suitability of the court to hear the case, as well as whether the plaintiff had adequately stated a claim for relief. The court rejected all of the defendants’ motions in a ruling handed down on May 4, 2001. In a key finding, the court ruled that the defendants are not immune from suit under the provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The court held that this case falls within an exception to that Act because Mrs. Altmann made a "non-frivolous" claim that (i) the art was seized in violation of international law, because the seizure by the Nazis was done with no public purpose and in a discriminatory manner; (ii) the art is owned by an agency or instrumentality of the defendant state—namely, the Austrian National Gallery (which qualifies as an agency or instrumentality of a foreign state despite its privatization in 2000); and (iii) the relevant agency or instrumentality engages in commercial activities in the U.S., in that the Austrian National Gallery advertises in the U.S., sells an English-language guidebook in the U.S, has lent certain Klimt paintings, including one of the Klimts in question, to U.S. museums, and receives many U.S. visitors every year.


The court made several other important rulings in favor of Mrs. Altmann. The court held that a foreign state is not a "person" under the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, so the legal concept of personal jurisdiction is inapplicable in this case (as a grounds for dismissal). The court also held that the suit could not be dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens (that is, the Austrian courts would be a more "convenient" forum to hear the suit) because the Austrian courts are not an "adequate alternative forum," in that they would impose excessive filing fees and might bar the claim under the Austrian statute of limitations. The court also ruled that neither the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 nor the 1959 Austrian Exchange of Notes Constituting an Agreement Concerning the Settlement of Certain Claims under Article 26 of the Austrian State Treaty posed a bar to Mrs. Altmann’s claim. Indeed, the court stated that these international agreements not only did not grant immunity to the defendants but also placed responsibility on Austria to return property that was improperly seized by the Nazis. (click to view court decision)


The defendants appealed the district court's decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On December 12, 2002, the Court of Appeals upheld the district court's decision. In its ruling, the Court of Appeals held that (i) the art was wrongfully and discriminatorily appropriated in violation of international law, (ii) the Austrian National Gallery was engaging in commercial activity sufficient to justify jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, (iii) the District Court had personal jurisdiction over the Republic of Austria and the National Gallery for the purposes of Mrs. Altman's suit, as a result of the National Gallery's commercial activities in California and elsewhere in the United States, and (iv) the suit did not have to be dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. (click to view appeal court decision)


The Bloch-Bauer case demonstrates the continued reluctance of the Austrian government to return art that was stolen from Jewish families by the Nazis notwithstanding the passage of a law that was designed to effect such restitution. This case also demonstrates the overt politicization of the issue in Austria and resulting difficulty for of Jewish victims to be treated fairly in the current political and legal climate in Austria.


The Commission for Art Recovery endorses Mrs. Altmann's claims and the decisions of both the district court and the appeals court. The Bloch-Bauer case demonstrates the need for comprehensive restitution laws that are enforced in both letter and spirit and which provide claimants with an effective alternative to time-consuming and costly litigation.

On November 15, 2002, in another case involving stolen art in Austria, Austrian police seized a painting by Egon Schiele entitled "Wayside Shrine". The police seized the painting in response to complaints that the painting had been confiscated by the Nazis in 1938 from the collection of Dr. Heinrich Rieger, a Jewish dentist and art collector in Vienna. Dr. Rieger and his wife died in concentration camps. The painting is now being claimed by Dr. Rieger's descendants The painting had been scheduled to be auctioned by Dorotheum, an Austrian auction house, and was seized at the request of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien, the organization representing Vienna's Jewish population, acting at the request of Dr. Rieger's heirs.

[tsomer]

It argued that..."probably a large number were sold, perfectly legitimately, by their owners to the Nazi occupiers."

Sure.

Sort of like gold fillings. After all, of what use were they to the original owners?

As to the Vichy government's loot: screw that. The greatest art heist in history was carried out by Napoleon. I think its time we set things right and return that stuff.

Let's have a fair accounting of this at the UN.

[dfwgator]

Reminds me of the scene in "Back to School":

Guest: Your wife was just showing us her Klimt
Rodney Dangerfield: You too huh?
Guest: She's very proud of it
Rodney Dangerfield: I'm proud of mine too but I don't go waving it around at parties