Cornelius Gurlitt (art collector)

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Rolf Nikolaus Cornelius Gurlitt (born December 28, 1932 in Hamburg ; † May 6, 2014 in Munich ) was the heir to the more than 1,500 works of his father Hildebrand Gurlitt's art collection . With Cornelius Gurlitt, this collection was the focus of the “ Schwabinger Kunstfund ” from the beginning of 2012 after it had become public at the end of 2013.

Life

Gurlitt was the son of the art dealer , art historian and museum director Hildebrand Gurlitt. His mother Helene (née Hanke ; 1895-1967) was a dancer and one of Mary Wigman's first students ; she became known by her stage name "Bambula". He was a grandson of the art historian of the same name Cornelius Gurlitt and great-great-nephew of the composer Cornelius Gurlitt . His great-grandfather was the landscape painter Louis Gurlitt . His uncle was the musicologist Wilibald Gurlitt and his aunt the expressionist painter Cornelia Gurlitt .

Gurlitt grew up in the Hamburg district of Dammtor together with his sister Benita (1935–2012). He attended elementary school in Hamburg. During the Second World War, his family moved to Dresden in 1940 , where he first attended elementary school and from autumn 1943 the Vitzthum high school, which was merged with the Annen school during the war . The school was destroyed on February 13, 1945 , as was the parental home. In the course of 1945 the family came to Aschbach near Bamberg via intermediate stops , where Gurlitt first attended the village school and received private lessons from spring 1946. From September 1946 to July 1948 he attended the reform pedagogical boarding school Odenwaldschule in Ober-Hambach in Hesse . After his father became director of the art association for the Rhineland and Westphalia in Düsseldorf in 1948 , Cornelius Gurlitt attended the Max Planck grammar school in Düsseldorf, where he graduated from high school in 1953.

After graduating from high school, he studied art history at the University of Cologne to become an art historian; he also attended lectures on philosophy and music theory. At the same time Gurlitt worked in the restoration studio of the Düsseldorf Art Museum , where he was trained as a painting restorer by the conservator Ernst Kohler. After completing his training in 1957, he independently carried out some restoration jobs for the museum. He did not complete his studies; In 1960 he deregistered from the University of Cologne and gave "change of university" as the reason. In the same year he also de-registered his residence in Cologne and stated that he wanted to move to Salzburg . After the death of his parents, he also lived in seclusion in Munich with the art collection left by his father, from which he occasionally sold individual pieces in order to earn a living. The saved works of art were of great importance to him, the love of his life.

At the end of 2013, the Munich District Court ordered Gurlitt to be taken care of temporarily for health reasons. Gurlitt died on May 6, 2014 after a serious heart disease in Munich. At his own request, he returned to his apartment after a long stay in the clinic, where he received medical and nursing care right up to the end. He was buried in his parents' grave in the Düsseldorf North Cemetery.

Gurlitt Collection

The prosecutor's office in Augsburg seized in the days from February 28 to March 2, 2012, all originating from the estate of his father's art, kept the Gurlitt in his Munich apartment. The confiscation of the 1280 works became known to the public through a report by the news magazine Focus on November 3, 2013. The Augsburg public prosecutor's office stated that they were investigating Cornelius Gurlitt on account of “a criminal offense subject to tax secrecy ” and on suspicion of embezzlement . Experts contested the legality of the seizure.

Gurlitt commented on the allegations against him in November 2013. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine , he said that the judiciary and the media misrepresented the connections. All works of art were legitimately acquired by his father and bequeathed to him. He does not think of a voluntary return. At the end of January 2014, his lawyer contradicted the New York Times with this account by the Spiegel; his client was always interested in a fair and just solution.

In February 2014 Gurlitt's supervisor had more than 60 works of art seized from Gurlitt's house in Salzburg in order to protect them from theft; the works would be examined for their origin. At the end of March 2014, Gurlitt's lawyers announced that the Salzburg part of the collection was four times as large as previously assumed and comprised 39 oil paintings and a total of 238 art objects. The total number of known works in the Gurlitt Collection increased to over 1,500 works of art.

On February 14, 2014, Gurlitt's lawyers filed a complaint against the confiscation of the art collection with the Augsburg District Court. The lawyers demanded the return of the collection because of formal deficiencies in the court order at the time. The seizure of the pictures violates the principle of proportionality.

According to media reports, an agreement was reached between Gurlitt, the Bavarian Ministry of Justice and the federal government in April 2014 . Gurlitt then made all works deemed to be contaminated available for provenance research for one year . The federal government and the state of Bavaria are to bear the costs of this research. In the case of works that have been withdrawn as a result of Nazi persecution, a fair and just solution should be sought with the claimants. A few days later, the public prosecutor's office lifted the seizure because new findings had emerged and the legal situation had been reassessed.

The preliminary proceedings against him ended with Gurlitt's death. As announced on 7 May 2014 Gurlitt had in his written on January 9, 2014 Testament , the foundation of the Kunstmuseum Bern determined to be the sole heir of his collection. The board of trustees and the management of the museum were “on the one hand grateful and pleasantly surprised”, but also emphasized the “multitude of most difficult questions” that the legacy placed on them, “especially of a legal and ethical nature”. There was no previous relationship with Gurlitt.

On November 22, 2014, the Board of Trustees of the Kunstmuseum Bern decided to take on the Gurlitt estate, which was made public two days later at a press conference in Berlin.

In December 2016, the validity of the will, which was questioned by a relative, was confirmed by a court so that the collection can be handed over to the museum in Bern. This announced that they would be presented in an exhibition, the provenance research and possible restitutions should be continued.

Sale, restitutions

The auction house Lempertz in Cologne sold in summer 2011, gouache -work lion tamer of Max Beckmann for 864,000 euros. As the auction house suspected that the Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim had sold the work after 1933 as a result of persecution, Gurlitt and Flechtheim's heirs agreed in a settlement to share the sales proceeds with them.

In March 2015, Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters signed the contract on the restitution of the painting “Seated Woman” by Henri Matisse to the heirs of Paul Rosenberg . In mid-May 2015, Max Liebermann's oil painting Two Riders on the Beach was restored to David Toren, a great-nephew of the original owner, entrepreneur and art collector David Friedmann (1857–1942) from Breslau. Furthermore, a representation of the Seine by Camille Pissarro , formerly in the collection of the French entrepreneur Max Heilbronn, and a Gothic church view by Adolph von Menzel , formerly owned by Elsa Cohen, were handed over to the heirs.

Résumé

The seizure of the collection was criticized in the press and its legality was questioned. Die Zeit called the case a "Bavarian judicial scandal, which the matter was also". In its final report on the provenance research Gurlitt, the German Center for Cultural Property Losses describes a total of 1,566 items, of which only nine works are listed as red (probably Nazi-looted art). Only four paintings by French painters of the late 19th century, all of which were only bought by Hildebrandt Gurlitt after the end of the Nazi regime, from a Paris gallery between 1947 and 1953, are secured - after the restitution has taken place.

The value of the collection was initially estimated by the press at one billion euros, later the art dealer Robert Ketterer valued the collection at less than 50 million euros. The winners of the affair are, on the one hand, the Bern Art Museum, which took over the inheritance, and, on the other hand, provenance research in Germany, whose funds were significantly increased.

reception

Movies

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Gurlitt family's personal details were recorded in the 1939 census and stored in a special file for families of Jewish descent. A digital database of the 1939 census is available at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Resource Center in Washington, DC, and at the Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde .
    b) Document from 1948 from father H. Gurlitt with the exact year of birth of the son.
    c) Document from 1945 , probably drawn up before December 28th.
  2. ^ Partial estate of the art historian Cornelius Gurlitt in the university archive of the Technical University of Dresden : C. Gurlitt estate ( MS Word ; 1.39 MB), reference 26/17: letter to his sister Else Gurlitt (Dresden), December 29, 1932, communications about the Birth of a son by Helene and Hildebrand and thoughts on his name "Cornelius".
  3. ↑ Özlem Gezer: Finally silence . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , May 12, 2014, ISSN  0038-7452 , p. 122-124 .
  4. ^ A b After months of illness: the art collector Cornelius Gurlitt is dead. In: Spiegel Online . May 6, 2014, accessed May 7, 2014.
  5. ↑ Breakdown series - Too many questions remain unanswered. ( Memento from November 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: B5 aktuell . November 20, 2013, accessed November 20, 2013.
  6. ↑ a b Gurlitt wants to return pictures. In: Süddeutsche.de . March 26, 2014, accessed March 26, 2013.
  7. ^ Alison Smale : Report of Nazi-Looted Trove Puts Art World in an Uproar. In: New York Times . November 4, 2013, accessed May 7, 2014.
  8. ^ Alison Smale, Melissa Eddy: Pressure Mounts to Return Nazi-Looted Art. In: New York Times. November 10, 2013, accessed May 7, 2014.
  9. ↑ "A good restorer" . In: Der Spiegel, 25/2015, p. 118
  10. ↑ Kate Ferguson: Phantom Collector: The Mystery of the Munich Nazi Art Trove. In: Spiegel Online. November 11, 2013, accessed May 7, 2014.
  11. ↑ Der Spiegel, 25/2015, p. 118
  12. ↑ a b Özlem Gezer: Conversations with a phantom. In: Der Spiegel . November 18, 2013 (sketch), accessed May 7, 2014.
  13. ↑ Der Spiegel, 25/2015, p. 118
  14. ↑ Der Spiegel 25/2015, p. 118
  15. ↑ Cornelius Gurlitt - Death of a Driven Man. In: RP Online . May 7, 2014.
  16. ↑ Munich District Court places Gurlitt under supervision. In: Zeit Online . December 23, 2013, accessed May 7, 2014.
  17. ^ Nicola Kuhn: Find in Gurlitt's Salzburg house - find and deposit. In: Der Tagesspiegel . February 11, 2014, accessed May 7, 2014.
  18. ↑ No longer recovered after heart surgery - art collector Gurlitt is dead. In: n-tv.de . May 6, 2014, accessed May 7, 2014.
  19. ↑ Nordfriedhof Düsseldorf - art collector Cornelius Gurlitt buried. In: RP Online. 19th May 2014
  20. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Cornelius Gurlitt
  21. ↑ 1500 works by artists such as Picasso, Chagall and Matisse - masterpieces between garbage - investigators discover Nazi treasure worth billions in Munich. In: Focus . November 4, 2013, accessed May 7, 2014.
  22. ^ Münchner Kunstschatz: Authorities publish suspicious works from Gurlitt's fund. In: Spiegel Online. November 11, 2013. Retrieved November 12, 2013.
  23. ↑ Julia Voss : Münchner Kunstfund: Where is the rule of law? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 17, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2013 .
  24. ^ Volker Rieble : Schwabinger Kunstfund: Politische Strafjustiz. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. November 25, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013 .
  25. ↑ Stephanie Lahrtz: Münchner Kunstfund: Return all paintings to Gurlitt? In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 25, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2013 .
  26. ↑ Münchner Kunstschatz: Gurlitt does not want to voluntarily return a single picture. In: Spiegel Online. November 17, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2013.
  27. ↑ Melissa Eddy: German at Center of Looted-Art Case Is Said to Consider Restitution Claims. In: New York Times. January 27, 2014, accessed January 28, 2014.
  28. ↑ Art collector in Germany find works in Austria too ( Memento from February 11, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ). In: The Washington Post . 11th of February 2014.
  29. ↑ Gurlitt hoarded 60 other valuable pictures. In: Zeit Online. February 11, 2014, accessed May 7, 2014.
  30. ↑ press release. ( Memento from April 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) On gurlitt.info, March 26, 2014.
  31. ↑ Gurlitt's lawyers demand the return of the pictures. In: Süddeutsche.de. February 19, 2014, accessed February 22, 2014.
  32. ^ Agreement between the Free State of Bavaria, the federal government and Cornelius Gurlitt. Press release from the Bavarian State Ministry of Justice, April 7, 2014.
  33. ↑ Cornelius Gurlitt gets his collection back. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. April 9, 2014, accessed May 12, 2014 .
  34. ↑ Michael Sontheimer: Deceased collector: Gurlitt's pictures go to the Kunstmuseum Bern. In: Spiegel Online. May 7, 2014.
  35. ↑ Gurlitt heritage is “lightning from the blue” for Bern. In: Tages-Anzeiger . May 7, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014.
  36. ↑ Michael Sontheimer: Gurlitt Collection in Switzerland: Taskforce “Ahnungslos”. At Spiegel Online , November 24, 2014 (accessed November 25, 2014).
  37. ↑ At the beginning of November 2017, an exhibition with pictures from the Gurlitt collection, most of which are classed as degenerate art , was opened in the Kunstmuseum in Bern . On the other hand, an exhibition was opened in the Kunsthalle in Bonn with pictures whose path into the Gurlitt collection is still unclear. [1]
  38. ↑ dpa: Gurlitt's pictures go to Bern. In: FAZ.net . December 15, 2016, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  39. ↑ Max Beckmann. Lempertz.com, accessed November 11, 2013.
  40. ↑ Ira Mazzoni : Depot with Nazi Looted Art in Munich - The Reclaimer and His Son (with a photo of Beckmann's lion tamer from the auction house catalog). In: Süddeutsche.de. November 3, 2013, accessed November 11, 2013.
  41. ^ Nazi Looted Art - Who Owns the Expensive Works of Art? In: Zeit Online . November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  42. ↑ Frank Meyer in conversation with Karl-Sax Feddersen: “That was a completely normal individual consignment for us” - How Max Beckmann's “Lion Tamer” got into the art market. In: Deutschlandradio . November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  43. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : It all started with Matisse Article by Rose-Maria Gropp, updated March 25, 2015
  44. ↑ Lost art, Kunstfund München final report, pp. 5, 10 ( Memento from May 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  45. ^ Der Standard (Vienna): Gurlitt: Salzburger Pissarro identified as a Nazi predatory art , April 25, 2015
  46. ↑ Deutsche Welle : Grütters hands over the Menzel picture from the Gurlitt collection to the rightful owner , February 20, 2017
  47. ↑ Die Zeit : Schuld und Atonement , article by Thomas E. Schmidt, September 30, 2017, first published in Weltkunst
  48. ↑ German Loss of Cultural Property Center : Closing notes (red) , accessed on February 14, 2020, the works marked in red are:
    Thomas Couture : Portrait de jeune femme assise , 1850-55
    Jean-Louis Forain : Femme en robe du soir et une chaise (Jeune femme en blanc) , ca.1880, and Portrait de femme , 1881
    Paul Signac : Quai de Clichy. Temps gris , Opus 156, 1887
  49. ↑ tz (Munich): Gurlitt Fund not worth 50 million , November 27, 2013
  50. ↑ The Federal Government: Office for Provenance Research says goodbye with a record , press release 448, December 15, 2014
  51. ^ Arte film about the Gurlitt case sueddeutsche.de
  52. ↑ Gurlitt's shadow. ARD.de from November 4, 2017
  53. ^ Looted art - Gurlitt and his pictures | Art trade during the Nazi era | Documentation | SRF DOK. Retrieved August 25, 2019 .
  54. ↑ Christoph Heim: Critique. Gross failure of the state. Maurice Philip Remy's «The Gurlitt Case»: Exciting read and sharp criticism. Basler Zeitung online, November 2, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Gurlitt, Cornelius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gurlitt, Rolf Nikolaus Cornelius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art collector
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 2014
Place of death Munich