Cornelius Gurlitt – Illicit Cultural Property

Litigation seems inevitable in the Gurlitt case

Next week the Kunstmuseum in Bern will announce if it will accept the bequest of 1300 works of art from Cornelius Gurlitt. Gurlitt’s father was art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, operating during World War II. As a consequence a large number of these works will have possibly been stolen or forcibly taken during the Nazi regime. Receiving these works will be a challenge for whoever ultimately gets them. But the likely result no matter what will be litigation. There has never been such a large and contested body of artworks collected in one estate, but even if this were just a mundane estate without Nazi-era art association, large estates often carry with them the likelihood of litigation.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Kunstmuseum is expected to accept the works:

The Kunstmuseum Bern’s legal team has been researching the artworks’ provenance since the museum was informed of the bequest on May 7. Barring a last-minute legal discovery that could scuttle the deal, the museum’s board of directors will accept the gift at its meeting on Saturday, the last of half a dozen deliberations regarding Mr. Gurlitt’s bequest. . . . Much of the delay in accepting the trove has come because the tiny museum needed to secure seven-figure private funding from Swiss donors to be as free as possible of German funding that the museum thought could taint the neutrality of their provenance research, people familiar with the deliberations said.This was a daunting task for the board members. The museum lacks the financial backing of other Swiss museums like Fondation Beyeler. Unlike European and American museum boards filled with wealthy collectors and art world insiders, the Kunstmuseum Bern’s board comprises local government officials and academics.

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Cornelius Gurlitt has died (but leaves a lot of art behind)

The apartment block in Munich where 1500 works were discovered in 2011

Cornelius Gurlitt, the 81-year-old German man who gained prominence in the fall because he was revealed to have a massive amount of artwork has passed away after a heart procedure.

The Financial Times reports:

Several claims have been lodged on behalf of the descendants of people whose works were allegedly stolen under the Nazis. Among them are the heirs of David Friedmann, a German Jewish businessman, who have laid claim to the Max Liebermann painting “Two Riders on the Beach”. August Matteis, the US lawyer in the Friedmann case, said Mr Gurlitt “never had a role in the claim” because the painting clearly belonged to Mr Friedmann’s heirs.His death removed the tax investigation as a cause of delay because any tax owed to the authorities could be covered by the sale of Mr Gurlitt’s other works. “There must be no more paralysis for the sake of delay,” said Mr Matteis.

The NYT reports on the reaction by German officials:

Monika Grütters, who oversees cultural affairs for Germany’s federal government, issued a statement on Tuesday lauding Mr. Gurlitt for allowing the investigation of his collection. “As a private person, he set an example in his commitment to moral responsibility in seeking out fair and just solutions,” the statement said. “For this step, he was rightly accorded recognition and respect.” The German authorities have held the trove at an undisclosed location, citing security reasons for the secrecy. In February, an additional 238 works — some of them said to be top-quality paintings — were removed from Mr. Gurlitt’s second home, in Salzburg, Austria, and relocated also to an unnamed location. Mr. Gurlitt was last known to have sold a painting in December 2011, when the “Lion Tamer” by Beckmann fetched 864,000 euros, or $1.17 million, at an auction in Cologne, Germany. The auction house, Lempertz, said it brokered an agreement for some of the money to go to heirs of Alfred Flechtheim, a Jewish art dealer who was forced to leave Germany and died a poor man in London in 1937. Although reporters from around the world camped outside his Munich apartment for weeks after his art collection was revealed, Mr. Gurlitt gave only one interview, to the news weekly Der Spiegel. In that conversation, he revealed little about his life, saying that the only thing he had loved were his pictures.

The question now is what becomes of Gurlitt’s estate, as reported by the Wall Street Journal:

Although that investigation will lapse now that Mr. Gurlitt is dead, fresh hurdles abound, mainly surrounding a simple question: who has inherited Mr. Gurlitt’s estate? Christopher Marinello, a lawyer for the Rosenberg heirs, says the family will continue pursuing the case, but that “we’ll have to wait for the estate process to run its course.” It is unclear, though, whom Mr. Marinello should even contact or who will be handling the estate process.

Given Mr. Gurlitt’s perpetually frail state of health, a German court appointed Munich-based lawyer Christoph Edel as his legal guardian late last year. But Mr. Edel’s position was “voided as soon as Mr. Gurlitt died,” his spokesman, Stephan Holzinger, told The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Holzinger says he doesn’t even know if Mr. Gurlitt has a will and that his own contract will only continue for “the next few days.”

Melissa Eddy & Alison Smale, Cornelius Gurlitt, Scrutinized Son of Nazi-Era Art Dealer, Is Dead at 81, The New York Times, May 6, 2014.

Mary M. Lane, German Art Collector in Nazi Loot Uproar Dies, Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2014.

Stefan Wagstyl, Cornelius Gurlitt, Son of Nazi Era Art Dealer, Dies, Financial Times, May 6, 2014.

60 minutes tackles the Gurlitt art hoard

The interesting story is how Gurlitt and his father were able to explain and justify the possession of these works for so many years, else keep it so well-hidden. The 30-year German statute of limitations on stolen art claims now also supports his current possession (though if there is any evidence Gurlitt knew these works were stolen would surely be grounds for challenging his possession).

His lawyers claim that with “clear evidence” Mr. Gurlitt will return works to claimants. Gathering that evidence is of course extremely difficult. And how clear is clear:

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Cornelius Gurlitt to return art to their original owners

Claude Monet's "Waterloo Bridge", which according to the BBC has not been seen in 75 years — Claude Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge”, which according to the BBC has not been seen in 75 years

Back in November, Germany’s Focus magazine reported that German tax officials had discovered a trove of hundreds of works of art by Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Renoir and others. They were found in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of an art dealer during the Nazi-era named Hildebrand Gurlitt. Well now it seems the inevitable decision has been made by Gurlitt to return the works of art to rightful owners. This seemed the inevitable result, it was just a matter of whether court action would be necessary to compel the return of many of these objects. And it may still, but for now Gurlitt appears to be making fast efforts to settle claims over these works.

The New York Times reports:

Mr. Gurlitt’s lawyers are in talks to return “Seated Woman/Woman Sitting in Armchair” to the descendants of Paul Rosenberg, a French art dealer whose family recognized the work when it was made public last year.

“The agreement is not yet signed, but it will certainly happen,” Mr. Gurlitt’s spokesman, Stephan Holzinger, said.

Christoph Edel, a lawyer appointed by a Munich court to handle Mr. Gurlitt’s health, financial and legal affairs, told the German broadcaster ARD that more deals were coming. Mr. Gurlitt, 81, who has heart problems, underwent surgery recently and has been slow to recover, leading the court to appoint a legal guardian.

But it is also true that the amount of art Gurlitt has in his possession keeps growing larger. Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

In February, another 60 works of art were found in a house in Salzburg, Austria. A preliminary assessment has found no evidence that the pieces in Austria were stolen or looted by the Nazis, Holzinger said at the time.

The Salzburg portion of Gurlitt’s collection is bigger than was initially apparent and contains 238 art objects, including 39 oil paintings, according to the statement released by Holzinger yesterday.

Of the 39 paintings, seven are attributed landscape painter Louis Gurlitt, who died in 1897 and was the grandfather of Cornelius Gurlitt. Among the other paintings and watercolors are works by Claude Monet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Eduard Manet, Gustave Courbet, Camille Pissaro, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Max Liebermann, Paul Cezanne and Emile Nolde, according to the statement.

Stephen Evans for the BBC has a video with access to the undisclosed location where much of this art is being stored.