Why Nazi-seized art is only now resurfacing – and how it will change the art world
Submitted by Steve on November 6, 2013
Max Fisher pens a comprehensive article on the story of the recently discovered art stash in Germany:
In 2011, German investigators found more than 1,400 pieces of art, some by famous painters such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, in the Munich home of Cornelius Gurlitt, a discovery that was made public only this week with a German news report. Gurlitt's father had been an art collector during World War II, when much of Europe's art was confiscated by the Nazis or otherwise went missing. The Munich trove is historic in its own right but is also part of the continent's seven-decade rediscovery of an artistic heritage that is still recovering from the Nazis' efforts to wipe it out.
To understand the complex, fascinating and often dark history of how so much great art disappeared under Nazi rule, and what it means that this art is now coming back, I talked by phone with Anne-Marie O'Connor. A Jerusalem-based journalist, O'Connor is the author of the nonfiction Nazi art-theft saga "The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer." Our interview has been edited lightly for clarity.