A German recluse’s pledge to give his billion-dollar hoard of Nazi-looted artworks back to their rightful owners was welcomed on Thursday but also met with scepticism about how it would work in practice and whether all of it would actually be returned. The legal custodian of Cornelius Gurlitt, who inherited the paintings drawings and sculptures…
Boy aims toy gun at wreckage of a Baghdad car bombing, one of 9 across Iraq that killed 14 on March 5. And that wasn’t Iraq’s worst day in March. / Getty Images Mission Accomplished: Just in time for the 11th anniversary of America’s war to liberate Iraq, a leading global business consulting firm comes…
Cornelius Gurlitt, whose stash of art in Munich was revealed to the world last fall, has launched a web site. In English and German, Gurlitt explains that he is both duty bound “to preserve and maintain his father’s collection” and “open to historic responsibility” in a post on the gurlitt.info site. At issue is whether…
Members of the Jewish community of Sochi and Israeli delegates to the Olympics held a memorial for the 11 Israelis killed by terrorists in Munich at the Summer Games in 1972. About 200 people took part in Sunday’s memorial at a hotel near the Games’ venue in Russia, Reuters reported. A Sochi youth group sang…
Cornelius Gurlitt, whose hidden collection of classic artworks stunned the world last fall, has signaled he may be ready to talk about restituting some works to their rightful heirs. Attorney Hannes Hartung told The Wall Street Journal Jan. 24 that: “We want to take responsibility.” But he added that “very few” of the 1,400 works…
The Viennese museum that houses one of Gustav Klimt’s greatest artworks says it has evidence that its previous Jewish owner sold it to the Austrian state in an amicable transaction, rather than too cheaply under duress. The Secession museum is defending itself against a claim from some of the heirs of art collector Erich Lederer,…
The recent revelation that German authorities discovered a treasure trove of presumed-lost masterpieces of art in the dingy apartment of a Nazi art dealer’s son has reignited the complicated issue of reparations almost 50 years after Germany declared its job of restitution complete. Though the legal ramifications are byzantine, it appears that officials have a…
(JTA) — The extraordinary disclosure last week that a trove of more than 1,400 vanished artworks were found in a Munich apartment has raised more questions than it has answered. What were these works, which were produced by masters such as Chagall, Matisse and Picasso? Who are their rightful owners? And where is Cornelius Gurlitt,…
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