Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art

George Grosz's heirs want MoMA to return Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse.

     Great article and short video posted to the Arts section of the New York Times today by Patricia Cohen (7/1/13).  I am currently researching something related to this and thought the article was on point.  Cohen's argument focuses primarily on the fact that these cases are not being heard on their merit, because museums are evading the cases through legal loopholes, such as time expiring, museums showing up and talking to the judge who declares that the art belongs to the museum before the family has a chance to appear in court, and so forth.  

     There is no independent committee for hearing these cases of Nazi-looted art and possible restitution to their surviving heirs in the U.S.  There are legal committees dedicated to this process in many European countries, since it is quite a challenge to sort through the documentation, whether or not art dealers were coerced or threatened by the Nazis, and how precisely the art was obtained by the museums (provenance).  One of the problems indicated is that many art institutions in Europe are owned by the state, so they can uniformly apply the order for the designated committee to hear the cases.  Since the majority of institutions in the U.S. are privately owned, such unilateral measures could not be so easily enforced here as they are in Europe.  

Video Link: http://nyti.ms/14jZGOm 

Article Link & Excerpt: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/arts/design/museums-faulted-on-efforts-to-return-art-looted-by-nazis.html?smid=pl-share 

Museums Faulted on Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art

Critics assert that museums have backtracked in recent years on returning art to the heirs of Jews whose property was seized by the Nazis.

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