Restitution to the Thief?
The news of 1406 paintings found in a Munich apartment expectedly caused great furore in the German media, but also worldwide. Among the ‘treasure,’ as it is called, are pieces unknown or believed to be lost by first rank artists like Picasso, Dürer and Dix, with an overall value estimated to be around one billion Euros. Sums and names like these are quickly worth a note, however, the catch of the whole story was their origin. It is assumed that the artworks were taken from Jews during Hitler’s art raid through Europe in the 1930s.
During that time, Hitler and his officials collected classic art from museums all over Europe to decorate their palaces or to build up nazi-conform museums. Moreover, they banned all art from existing museums which did not match nazi aesthetics. This ‘degenerate art’ was shown in a large-scale travelling exhibition to show people the abnormality of artists that were otherwise regarded as avant-garde. In the end, their works were sold abroad to finance the regime.
The question now is whether Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a collaborating Jewish art collector, has to give back his ‘treasure.’ The Central Council of Jews in Germany immediately attacked German authorities for their slow action when it came out that the finding already took place in February 2012. For the rightful owners, the Council argues, every minute counts, given the age of the survivors. And indeed, the German government does not push on restitution cases like this. The laws to give back stolen art are less precise than those in Austria for example, and museums are not obliged to search their stock for artworks with unclear provenance.
Yet the prosecutor’s decision to publish some works online on lostart.de to appease the Jewish community is also critiqued for being indiscriminate against Gurlitt’s privacy. The case officially investigates tax fraud (Gurlitt supposedly made a living from occasionally selling works) and does not support confiscation of private property, nor the public display of it. Furthermore, about one-third of the paintings were made by his great-grandfather and hence are legally his own, and about 380 more stem from the clearing of German museums under his father, which accords to the law, as well.
Apparently Gurlitt is about to get back the paintings that are not considered stolen art by a so-called ‘task-force.’ Still, it is unclear where he could store them safely after journalists publicised photographs of his apartment. Although the value of his ‘treasure’ is, reasonably estimated, much less than one billion Euros, insurances could nevertheless become unaffordable.
The scandal is twofold: First, the laws for the restitution of stolen art in Germany but also elsewhere is far from appropriate, given that disappropriated artworks were bought by museums in the US and other countries in the 1930s, but are not considered for restitution. In this case, however, as the accusations are less founded but hyped, the second reason to raise the public voice is the right for privacy in times of illegal espionage and legal data retention.