art restitution
New Frontiers of Provenance Research:
The Mosse Art Research Initiative (MARI)
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Meike Hoffmann, Berlin (Germany)
1014 - space for ideas
1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
MARI is innovative in many ways. For the first time, descendants of victims of Nazi persecution are cooperating with German institutions in a public/private partnership in provenance research. After an initial three-year research period, the successful project at Freie Universität Berlin is now being continued. Numerous works from the former Mosse collection have already been recovered and restituted. In the process, surprising stories came to light showing the whole challenge range of provenance research and restitution. MARI's task, however, is not only to search for the works of the former collection, but also to gain insight into the strategies of the so called “Gleichschaltung” (consolidation) of the press just after the Nazis came to power in 1933, as well [...]
“There is something mad about the art”
The German-Jewish Art Dealer Alfred Flechtheim and his Heirs’ Fight for Restitution
Presentation by Journalist Michael Sontheimer, Berlin (Germany)
ONLINE
VA, United States
Journalist and author Michael Sontheimer speaks about Alfred Flechtheim, who was born in 1878 in Münster as the son of a wealthy German Jewish grain dealer. He was trained as a trader but did not want to stay in the family business. As he was fascinated with art, he left his hometown and moved to Düsseldorf, where he opened a gallery in 1913. Image above: Rudolf Großmann, Alfred Flechtheim, 1922-27. Pencil, ink, and gouache on paper, 5.3 x 3.8 in. Museum für Moderne Kunst, Freiburg (Germany) G 62/008 b. After serving in the German Army during the First World War, in 1921 he opened a second gallery in Berlin, the place to be in the 1920s. [...]