Monthly Art Report
“Do the Right Thing”, Sylvia Hochfield
ARTnews
February, 1998 Page 66
Mrs. MacLeod, ART I
September, 2005
Summary:
This article is about the controversy about art displaced during World War II.
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The article opens with the statement “When writing on the subject of the Holocaust, one
must imagine that one is in the presence of burning children” by historian Yehuda Bauer
read at a recent Art Dealers Association of America symposium on the subject of war
loot.
The statement was read by speaker Jonathan Petropoulos, a historian at Loyola College.
Petropoulos called for cooperation among dealers, collectors, museum officials, and
scholars to research artworks and return them to their rightful owners.
The audience, which included many art dealers had many questions about what to do if a
work was purchased in good faith only to find out it had been looted from a Holocaust
victim. Some collectors may be inclined to turn down requests to lend their works for fear
someone might see and claim them.
The new Commission for Art Recovery was formed as part of the World Jewish
Restitution Organization. Their goal is “to recover art taken from Jewish families and
Jewish communities during the Nazi era, to return it to heirs if possible, and to reclaim it
for Jewish charities if it is heirless”.
The director, Constance Lowenthal says “I understand a good-faith purchaser’s point of
view. My job is to overcome their reluctance. We’re going to have to find a way between
what is feasible economically and what is correct morally.”
The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, started by the National Jewish Museum in
Washington D.C. will be a clearinghouse for information on stolen works.
The International Research Center for the Documentation of Wartime Losses is being
organized by Elisabeth Rosenberg Clark. Her grandfather was Paul Rosenberg, whose
famous Paris gallery was seized by the Nazis.
The Holocaust Victims Redress Act, passed by the Senate, calls for all governments to
facilitate the return to its rightful owners of property confiscated by the Nazis.
While these groups have proliferated in the US, the Russian Parliament refuses to allow
the return the largest amount of looted art which is housed in Russian museums.
Evaluation:
This was a really interesting article regarding artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II. I
have only read a little bit on the subject, so most of the information was new to me. This is
definitely a subject I would read more about.
The article was well written and contained a lot of information for a relatively short article. There
was only one photograph of a relief sculpture by Andrea della Robbia that was taken from
Germany to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and a photograph of Constance
Lowenthal, the director of the Commission for Art Recovery.