Sophisticated Analysis of Adolph von Menzel Drawing Distinguishes Itself from Recent Revisionism Elsewhere

As the original term of the Gurlitt Task Force (Taskforce Schwabinger Kunstfund) winds down, the panel has issued a report on a work that it deems appropriate for restitution: Interior of a Gothic Church (Inneres einer gottischen Kirche) by Adolph von Menzel (pencil drawing, signed/dated 1874). The drawing has been called Church in Hofgastein in some English language articles.

Topics: Interior of a Gothic Church, Hildebrand Gurlitt, Cornelius Gurlitt, Nazi Germany, Inneres einer gottischen Kirche, Dresden, Gurlitt Task Force, Adolph von Menzel, Nazi-looted art, Gurlitt Collection, Ernst Julius Wolffson, Washington Principles on Nazi-Looted Art, Advisory Commission, Munich, Albert Martin Wolffson, Salzburg, Restitution, Catrin Lorch, Bavaria, World War II, Switzerland, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Austria, Kunstmuseum Bern, Federal Republic of Germany, Raubkunst, Taskforce Schwabinger Kunstfund, Elsa Helene Cohen, Limbach Commission, Jörg Häntzschel

Topics: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Blurb, monkey selfie, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Wildlife Personalities., PETA, David Slater, Copyright, United States Copyright Office

Topics: Karl Waldmann, Ceroni, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Leonardo da Vinci, Cady Noland, Knoedler, New York Assembly, Catalogue raisonée, authentication, Dean R. Nicyper, New York University, Colette Loll, Blue Room, Dan Flavin, Dada, Visual Artists Rights Act, Rick Johnson, Rethinking Art Authentication, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduct, Jennifer L. Mass, Art Law Committee, Trial Lawyers Association, Beltracchi, Events, La Bella Principessa, Hyperspectral imaging, Gerhard Richter, New York City Bar Association, Cornell Tech, Rijksmuseum, Cowboys Milking, Andy Warhol, Picasso, New York Senate, Walter Benjamin, Elmyr de Hory, Withers Bergman LLP, Amadeo Modigliani, Amy M. Adler

Topics: Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Dean R. Nicyper, New York University, Colette Loll, Rick Johnson, Jennifer L. Mass, Art Law Committee, Events, New York City Bar Association, Cornell Tech, Rijksmuseum, Withers Bergman LLP, Amy M. Adler

We reported last week on the outrage over the decision by Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) to argue in their motion to dismiss my clients’ claims to the Welfenschatz that a commercial interaction between German Jews and a cabal instigated by Hermann Goering in 1935 “predated the Holocaust by several years.” As we noted last week, the suggestion that the Holocaust was a distant possibility in 1935 was an indefensible statement, factually, historically, and ethically. The initial reaction was swift and severe. As Germany gets ready to host the First Conference of the German Centre for Cultural Property Losses next week, its policies are hurtling in the wrong direction.

Topics: Jewish Week Mel Urbach, Hermann Goering First Conference of the German Cen, Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, Henning Kahmann, Atlanta, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Varda Neumann Federal Administrative Court, Yale University, Marion Kaplan, New York University, Germany, Nazi-looted art, Hitler, Kristallnacht Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Markus Stoetzel, Emory University, Behrens, Holocaust, Bloodlands, SPK, Advisory Commission, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Restitution, Los Angeles, World War II, Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil, Washington, Raubkunst, Timothy Snyder, Welfenschatz

Topics: Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, authentication, Dean R. Nicyper, New York University, Colette Loll, Rick Johnson, Jennifer L. Mass, Art Law Committee, Events, New York City Bar Association, Cornell Tech, Rijksmuseum, Withers Bergman LLP, Amy M. Adler

An exhibition in Washington (state) that included art by a number of Native Americans, including Leonard Peltier, has provoked an outcry that may have Constitutional dimensions that went unconsidered. Peltier is a controversial Native American activist who was convicted of murdering in 1975 two FBI agents, Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams. His conviction has long been a Rorschach Test for responses to Native American activism and the federal government’s response—Peltier has strenuously insisted he is innocent, and the FBI has adamantly maintained he was properly convicted. This has now raised its head in the realm of the public display of art, and whether the government may, or should discriminate among artists. After an outcry about the inclusion of Peltier’s art by a number of current and retired law enforcement officials, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries has announced that it will remove Peltier’s paintings from the display that marked Native American Indian Heritage Month there, and has apologized. Yet regardless of one’s opinion if Peltier’s guilt or innocence, the government has stepped in a First Amendment quagmire when it made a public forum available for expression and then removed the expressive work of only one person because of who he is. The First Amendment, after all, acts to protect expression regardless of popularity, indeed, particularly so. It is hard to argue that his work was removed for any of the reasons that courts generally permit restrictions on speech in the various kinds of public forums. It remains to be seen whether Peltier will object on those grounds.

Topics: Ray Lauer, Wounded Knee, Ronald A. Williams, North Dakota, Florida, South Dakota, American Indian Movement, Native American Indian Heritage Month, Pine Ridge Reservation, Native American, Coleman Federal Correctional Facility Coleman, National Retired Agents Association, Washington Department of Labor and Industries, First Amendment, Guardians of the Oglala Nation. GOON, Jack R. Coler, AIM, Leonard Peltier, Lakota Sioux Chippewa

Topics: cultural property, VAT, Georg Baselitz, Germany, Minister of Culture Monika Grütters, EU, Artforum, Kulturgutschutzgesetz, Gerhard Richter, cultural heritage protection law, Michael Werner, Welfenschatz

A recent injunction ruling that prohibited the destruction of the “Bicentennial Freedom Mural” in Corona, California had occasion to consider the rights asserted by the plaintiffs and artists under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), 17 U.S.C. § 106A. The order ultimately granted the injunction but on different grounds, holding that the plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail on their VARA claim.

Topics: work of recognized stature, Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, 555 U.S. 7, Moral Rights, United States Army Corps of Engineers, Cal. Civ. Code §§ 987 and 989, Inc., Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, California, Santa Ana River Mainstem Project, Pippa Loengard, 54 U.S.C. § 306108, VARA, Kernochan Center for Law Media and the Arts, Corona, Ronald Kammeyer, Columbia Law School, Phillips v. Pembroke Real Estate, Copyright, Prado Dam, NHPA, Administrative Procedure Act, National Historic Preservation Act, 17 U.S.C. § 106A(a)(3)(A)-(B), 459 F.3d 128, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706, Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, SARM

Germany Runs Counter to 20 Years of International Commitments

As readers know, my clients Alan Philipp and Gerald Stiebel sued the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) in February for restitution of the Guelph Treasure (or Welfenschatz as it is known in Germany), assisted by my co-counsel Mel Urbach, Esq. and Markus Stötzel of Marburg, Germany. As my co-counsel speak to an event tonight hosted by Congresswoman Grace Meng on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, an event inextricable to the persecution of Jews in Europe, Germany’s response to the Complaint advances a stunning revisionism about the Holocaust and the international commitments that Germany has made. While paying lip service to the seriousness of Jewish suffering, the papers filed in court are nothing less than an attempt to move the goalposts to exempt a historical period from responsibility about which there can be no serious debate. Independent condemnation was not far behind the filing.

Topics: Grace Meng, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Shoah, Adolph von Menzel, Hans Sachs, Washington Principles on Nazi-Looted Art, 1943 London Inter-Allied Declaration, Dachau, Holocaust, Mel Urbach, SPK, George Eduard Behrens, Nuremberg race laws, Holocaust revisionism, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Marburg, Restitution, Los Angeles, Gerald Stiebel, World War II, Markus Stötzel, Saemy Rosenberg, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Reichskristallnacht, Isaac Rosenbaum, Lucie Ruth Hackenbroch, Federal Republic of Germany, Zacharias Hackenbroch, Pariser Wochentag, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Paris Weekday, Alan Philipp, Welfenschatz, Military Government Law 59, Frankfurt