Displaying items by tag: task force

Thought the Gurlitt saga had finally come to an end? Think again. Officials assigned to the task force charged with proofing the 1300 some works found in now-deceased collector, Cornelius Gurlitt’s Munich apartment announced on Thursday in Berlin that yet more work had recently been discovered.

Discovered three months after Gurlitt died after a long illness and several months in the spotlight thanks to his collection of potential Nazi loot, the new works include two sculptures, which experts suggest could be by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas.

German authorities announced that they would return a number of paintings to Cornelius Gurlitt, a recluse accused of hoarding hundreds of masterpieces stolen by the Nazis. Reinhard Nemetz, The chief prosecutor who is handling Gurlitt’s case, acknowledged that several of the works confiscated from Gurlitt's home clearly belonged to him. A task force was appointed to identify such paintings as soon as possible. Authorities stated that out of the 1,406 paintings, sketches and prints found in Gurlitt’s home, about 970 were suspected of being looted from Jewish families or taken from museums during World War II.

Gurlitt is the son of the art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt, who reportedly aquired the art trove in the late 1930s and 1940s. Hildebrandt Gurlitt had been put in charge of selling the stolen artworks abroad by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, but secretly hoarded many of them and later claimed that they were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden. Cornelius Gurlitt, who is unemployed, sold a number of the paintings over the years and lived off of the profits.

Determining the provenance of works by such luminaries as Pablo Picasso and Pierre-Auguste Renoir is expected to be a lengthy process, especially since Gurlitt is determined not to give up the artworks without a fight. He told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, “I will not give anything back voluntarily.”

The German government has released some details about the astounding art collection found in a dilapidated Munich apartment. Authorities released a written statement saying that about 590 of the 1,400 artworks could have been stolen by Nazis and identified 25 of the pieces on the website www.lostart.de. Among the paintings listed on the site were Otto Dix’s The Woman in the Theater Box, Otto Griebel’s Child at the Table and Max Liebermann’s Rider on the Beach. The trove also includes works by Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso.

The masterpieces were found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of the art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt, who reportedly acquired the works in the late 1930s and 1940s. Gurlitt’s father had been put in charge of selling the stolen artworks abroad by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, but secretly hoarded many of them and later claimed that they were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden. Gurlitt, an unemployed recluse, sold a number of the paintings over the years and lived off of the profits. 200 of the pieces have outstanding return requests from the original owners’ heirs.

The German government has assembled a task force of six experts to research the provenance of each recently discovered artwork. To date, it has been determined that one painting by Matisse was stolen by the Nazis from a French bank in 1942.  

German officials will update the Lost Art website regularly as the investigation progresses.