nazi looting

Similar to World War I, World War II had a profound effect on the European wine industry.  From labor shortages to Nazi looting, it was a very difficult time for the industry - but it was also a period that produced some standout war year vintages. To discuss  wine and World War II, the MacArthur Memorial Podcast recently hosted Walter Wolf III—a lawyer, military historian, and wine expert. The conversation focused on French and Italian wine, the ties between resistance movements and the wine industry, Nazi wine looting, and an evaluation of the Nazi palate. 

Follow us on:

Twitter: @MacArthur1880; @AEWilliamsClark
Facebook: @MacArthurMemorial


www.macarthurmemorial.org

To learn more, please visit the Worcester Museum's webpage.

SHOW NOTES

 2:45 Richard Neumann’s grandson Tom Selldorff  approached Worcester Museum to take  Neumann collection of 16 recovered works on long term loan

3:45 exhibition is meant to tell the story of the Neumann collection and efforts to reconstitute it 

4:25 Richard Neumann was a collector’s collector 

5:10 two exceptional works by Alessandro Magnasco

5:50 Madonna and Child by Neri di Bicci

7:45 Maerten van Heemskerck Donor Panels

9:20 Donor panels held in the Künsthistorisches Museum 

12:00 Neumann’s inventory 

12:50 Neumann’s lecturing on art in Cuba 

13:10 collection includes some works Neumann purchased from the Habsburg Dynasty holdings

13:45 Neumann’s primary advisors included Albertina Museum curator Otto Benesch and Italian drawings specialist Lili Fröhlich-Bume

14:25 Vienna was a city of Old Master and new artists when Neumann is collecting all while royal collections are also becoming available 

16:05 Sophie Lillie’s role in restitution of works to Neumann family 

17:40 di Bicci panel  discovered in a Sotheby’s catalog by Lillie

18:00 materials incorporated into exhibition 

18:30 verso of two paintings on pedestals 

18:40 di Bicci’s verso 

19:00 images in exhibition include French Ministry of Culture ceremony in 2013 for return of six works to Neumann family

19:30 Neumann family’s experience of looting speaks to larger narrative 

20:00 Neumann family’s efforts to locate looted works

20:30 museum’s responsibility for looted works

20:50 Worcester Museum publishes all works with incomplete Nazi provenance online and is in the process of working with one family to determine if a work in the Worcester collection is the looted work that the family is seeking

21:40 exhibition design: recreation of works in the Neumann’s Vienna home and process of locating works post-war 1950s-2021

25:20 verso of works 

26:50 forced sales / sales under duress

27:55 di Bicci’s Madonna and Child and Magnasco’s Monks at Mealtime appeared at auction 

30:00 Sotheby’s Art Loss Register search for Magnasco’s Monks at Mealtime 

31:20 1938 inventory of Neumann assets

32:20 1938 inventory includes paintings but not sculpture or works on paper

33:20 Linz Museum and works shipped to Paris

34:00 missing from Neumann inventory - van Dyck and Rubens

35:00 late 17th C / early 18th C Barogue / Rococo paintings for Linz Museum 

35:30 oil sketches

37:30 visitor reactions

40:15 exhibitions that informed Whitner in preparation of Neumann exhibition 

44:45 Sophie Lillie’s book Was Einmal War (What Once Was)

46:10 Stephanie Barron’s catalog of Degenerate art exhibition for LACM 

47:15 French government website with images of looted works 

48:30 Richard Neumann’s legacy is one of generosity and tenacity

50:00  escape from Vichy France to Cuba

Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com

To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.

Music by Toulme.

To view rewards for supporting the podcast, please visit Warfare's Patreon page.

To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.

Thanks so much for listening!

© Stephanie Drawdy [2024]

Cover Art from the Afterlives Exhibition by Kurt Schwitters, Opened by Customs, 1937 or 1938, Paper, printed paper, oil, and graphite collaged on paper Tate, London, purchased 1958

For more information about the Afterlives exhibition, please visit the Jewish Museum's website.

Show Notes:
00:02:00 inspiration for Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art

00:06:30 design of Afterlives 

00:10:15 windows metaphor of seeing through to the history of works and events

00:11:20  August Sander’s portrait photos of persecuted Jews

00:13:00 Jeu de Paume’s “Room of the Martyrs”

00:13:40 1942  photograph of Room of the Martyrs includes images of work by  Matisse,  Picasso,  Léger, and  Derain who were defamed as degenerate 

00:14:15 exhibition reunites large nude by Cezanne, small surrealist Picasso and post-cubist painting Composition by Fédor Löwenstein

00:14:52 Cezanne and Picasso looted from Alphonse Kann

00:15:00 Composition seizure

00:16:20 restution of Composition  in  process

00:17:45 works celebrate history of their creation and document their looting

00:18:00 artwork as documentation 

00:19:30 Rose Valland

00:20:20 Dachau records in ‘Creativity Under Duress’ gallery

00:20:50 work  by artists in exile

00:21:05 work  by artists  in camps and/or in hiding

00:22:00 Nuremberg trial  excerpt 

00:25:30 Judaica Room includes pieces from Jewish Museum’s collection affiliated with Jewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR) and community of Danzig and  installation by Maria Eichhorn

00:28:15 Jewish Museum as temporary storage depot for the JCR 1949-1952

00:32:00 JCR aluminum tags on objects

00:32:20 Hannah Arendt’s work at the core of  Eichhorn’s commission

00:34:40 Eichhorn’s commission 

00:37:50 Arendt’s documents 

00:39:30  commissions by Lisa Oppenheim, Hadar Gad, Dor Guez and  Eichhorn

00:41:30 international perspective from these artists 

00:42:15  Oppenheim’s piece deals with work by Jean-Baptiste 

00:46:00 historical justice

00:49:00 international culture of memory

00:50:00 symposium

00:52:00 Pechstein's 1912  Paysage and Löwenstein’s 1939 Composition

00:54:45 We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz; and upcoming exhibition related to Ephrussi family story 

00:57:45 1940 charcoal portrait by Jacob Barosin while in French forced labor camp of fellow prisoner

01:00:15 Picasso’s 1929 Group of Characters

01:02:50  Pissarro’s 1872  Portrait of Minette

01:06:00  Portrait of Minette, Group of Characters and Cézanne’s Bather and Rocks 

01:06:50 Kurt Schwitters’ Opened by Customs from 1937/38

01:09:35 Afterlives  catalog 

01:10:30 reactions of visitors

Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com

To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.

Music by Toulme.

To view rewards for supporting the podcast, please visit Warfare's Patreon page.

To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.

Thanks so much for listening!

© Stephanie Drawdy [2024]