Art News

Frankfurt gallery of Guelph treasure dealers Rosenbaum and Rosenberg. (photo credit: YouTube screenshot)

An alert reader, alecti, discovered an aricle in the Berliner Morgenpost dated January 13, 2014 about the Welfenschatz (Guelph Treasure) lawsuit brought by twe Jews, Gerald Stiebel and Alan Philipp, against the German government. The article is titled "Who really owns the Guelf Treasure?"

Translating the article using Google Translate is far from perfect, but does give some clear ideas that I will use in this post. Anyone out there who can provide me with a better translation into English - please feel free to do so!

First, the dispute is officially between two heirs of the original  Jewish art dealers and the SPK, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the museums in Berlin. The collection of medieval reliquaries, alters, and crucifixes was kept for centuries in Prussia's Brunswick Cathedral. In the 17th century, approximately 80 items were removed from the cathedral by John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg.

Here he is - described by one disappointed critic as a mythical figure from Wagner's operas, “the tiny gnome, the Jewish caricature,” which brought on cries of "anti-Semitic hatred."

The next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic has been chosen: He is Kirill Petrenko, a Jew born and raised until age 18 in Russia! [Strangely, or not, the announcement was made on June 22 (the date of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941).] Isn't it wonderful, and so international as befits an “international city” like Berlin, yes?

The problem for true Berliners, though, is that Petrenko was selected over a Berlin-born German who many expected to get that job: Christian Thielemann, currently chief conductor for the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and former music director of the Munich (Bavarian) Philharmonic. Thielemann is 56 years old (born April 1, 1959), with a brilliant career in opera, being a regular conductor at Bayreuth and the Salzburg Festivals.

This is the article from the Wall Street Journal that I didn't get to in today's program. I am posting the whole thing with my comments in red.

Lauder Urges Germany to Comb Museums for Nazi Loot

By Kelly Crow and Mary M. Lane  Updated Dec. 11, 2013 10:17 p.m. ET

The family of prominent Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim is laying claim to Max Beckmann's 1927 "Still Life with Telescope," (above) estimated at $12 million and now in Munich's Modern Pinakothek (Picture Gallery).

Germany must create an international commission to scour its public museums for Nazi loot, cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder said Tuesday, adding a prominent voice to the growing cry for more transparency.

Nov. 23, 2013

Watercolor (21 x 25 inches) by Hans Christoph, one of the “artworks” that poor,  persecuted Jews are fighting to get their hands on. Called German Expressionism, how is this different from ordinary cartoons or caricatures that thousands of run-of-mill artists can do?

More of the art in the Cornelius Gurlitt collection has been put online, while a task-force, under Uwe Hartmann, has been set up to investigate the provenance of each one. Organized jewry is howling in protest because this could take a long time, and could prove much of their tale of “Nazi theft from Jews” to be wrong.  Cornelius will immediately get back over 300 of the artworks as rightly belonging to him, bringing more criticism from jews.