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Just 5 Nazi-stolen works found in Gurlitt art haul

Investigators poring over the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt, son of Hitler's art dealer, have managed to identify just five works that were definitely stolen by the Nazis and can be returned to their rightful owners.

Published: 22 December 2015 11:27 CET
Just 5 Nazi-stolen works found in Gurlitt art haul
The signature of Hildebrand Gurlitt confirms his purchase of a painting in a record book at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. Photo: DPA

It's a bitter disappointment for many who had hoped that a Matisse painting restored to its rightful owner in May would be the first of many among the roughly 500 pieces to be given back.

With just five pieces clearly identified as Nazi-looted art, the two-year, €1.7-million investigation has been a letdown after the big promises made by Culture Minister Monica Grütters, who had pledged to return stolen art with “no ifs or buts”.

A photo of the returned Matisse painting is displayed on a screen. Photo: DPA

Opposition politicians from the Green and Left parties were quick to label the result a “disgrace”.

Meanwhile, Jewish victims' representative Rüdiger Mahlo, of the Claims Conference organization, said that the investigation had not been conducted quickly enough and had disappointed the Holocaust survivors and their descendants.

The taskforce will present its final report in mid-January on the works, some of which can be found at www.lostart.de.

A poisonous legacy

The Gurlitt haul was discovered in a Munich flat in 2012, immediately becoming the subject of a bitter legal battle for ownership that continued after Gurlitt's death in 2014.

He wanted to leave the entire collection of around 500 artworks to the Museum of Fine Art in Bern.

But directors there agreed to leave them in the care of the German government while it investigated which artworks might have been stolen from Jewish families during the Nazi period.

Gurlitt's father Hildebrand acquired most of the paintings in the 1930s and 1940s, when he worked as an art dealer tasked by the Nazis with selling works taken from Jewish families and avant-garde art that the Hitler regime deemed “degenerate” and had seized from German museums.

Gurlitt never married or had children, declaring his art collection to be “the love of his life”.

But with the help of a revolving cast of lawyers and advisors, Gurlitt eventually softened his stance and began cooperating with the German government to reach an agreement that was also welcomed by Jewish groups.

SEE ALSO: How a German insurer helped Nazis rob Jews

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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