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Cognoscente of the art world will have a chance to see with their own eyes the notorious Gurlitt’s collection. This year two museums in Switzerland and Germany will showcase hundreds of approximately one thousand and a half artworks,which secluded Cornelius Gurlitt,a son of an art dealer engaged in Nazi looted art,has been keeping for a long lime in his own apartments in Munich and Salzburg.
The both showcases will be open at the same time at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern(Switzerland) and at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn(the Bundeskunsthalle).
Franz Marc,The Lanscape with Horses(about 1911) — gouache
Gouache (fr. gouache — “wet”) is a type of painting to use matte water-soluble paints. These paints are also called gouache. Gouache appeared in the 11th century, when glue and whitewash were added to watercolours to achieve greater density. Its consistency creates an opaque image, it can overlap the “bad” places. In the Middle Ages, book miniatures were created with gouache paints. Renaissance artists used them for sketches. In Russia, gouache has become popular among poster artists. In easel painting, it is used to design decorative elements, together with ink or watercolours. Gouache works well not only on paper, but also on canvas, plywood, fabric. The paint is first applied in a thin layer, and then overlaid more densely. There is art and poster gouache. The latter is characterized by high saturation. Read more
painting on the coloured paper,which was found in Cornelius Gurlitt’s apartment
We would like to mention that the information about Gurlitt trove was published in 2013 as the result of a tax investigation of Gurlitt. Three years before 9,000 Euros were found at 78 year old Gurlitt when he was crossing the board by train. The sum exceeded the permissible one. The customers officers raised flags by the old retired man without any legal income and pension and the social and revenue services had no data on him.
German customs officials obtained a warrant to search Gurlitt’s apartment in Munich,and discovered about 1,500 works of art including the masterpieces by Pablo Picasso,Henri Matisse,Marc Chagall,Emil Nolde,Paul Klee,Oskar Kokoschka and many others.
Towards left: pastel drawing The Portrait of a Girl(about 1900) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from the Gurlitt’s collection. The photo is posted on the German site Lost Art Internet Database
Because of his reticence Mass Media nicknamed Cornelius Gurlitt a phantom and invisible man.
Hildebrand Gurlitt. a father of Cornelius,collected the masterpieces during the Nazi times. That time he sold abroad the so-called degenerative art by Joseph Goebbels’s order. After the end of the War the art dealer was able to convince the allies that the collection had been burnt during the fire and he had been subjected to persecution. After the death of his parents Cornelius Gurlitt inherited the priceless fortune and from time to time he sold some masterpieces to guarantee his comfortable life.
The Two Riders on the Shore by Max Liebermann(1901) from Gurlitt’s collection,has been returned to the grand-nephew of the pre-war owner. Just at once it was sold at the Sotheby’s auction for about $ 3 million.
Not long before his death in 2014 Cornelius Gurlitt bequeathed all the artworks from his collection to the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern. The Museum intended to showcase the collection in spring 2017. However the plans were frustrated because of Uta Werner,a cousin of Mr. Gurlitt,filed a petition with a Munich court calling his will into question and challenging the museum’s right to the inheritance.
Uta Werner claimed the 81-year-old wasn’t mentally fit when he wrote his will shortly before his death. She contested the will,claiming that Gurlitt was delusional and had named the Swiss museum as his only heir because he wanted to protect the art from Nazis — even 70 years after the end of World War II. However,the Munich state court ruled in December last year that a priceless trove of art kept hidden from the world for decades by reclusive German collector Cornelius Gurlitt can go to a Swiss museum in Bern,as requested in his will.
Towards left: repetitions of the lithograph poster the Divan Japonais by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec(1898) are currently housed at the artist’s museum in Albi,at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,New York,and in the Gurlitt’s collection.
Camille Pissarro painting(La Seine vue du Pont-Neuf,au fond le Louvre,1902) was also found in Gurlitt trove.
Certainly,the investigation of the artworks from the Gurliit trove is underway so that Nazi-looted items can be identified and restituted; the main task of the German authorities is to find out what artworks were looted by the Nazis and what were sold forcedly far below their market value. Nowadays the legal owners of only five artworks were determined.
One of the artworks which legal owners were found is the Seated Woman also known as the Woman with a Fan by Henry Matisse. In the photo: attorney Christopher Marinello,who works with Rosenberg’s heirs,is examining the painting before returning it to the heirs of Nazis victims. Photo: AFP Photo / Wolf Heider-Sawall
The Bundeskunsthalle(the Museum of Fine Arts) in Bonn and the Kunstmuseum Bern(the Museum of Fine Arts) are collaborating in the organization of a concurrent double exhibition. Under the title of Dossier Gurlitt,the two exhibitions will present Cornelius Gurlitt’s extensive art collection. In Bern the focus lies on art that was considered "degenerate" and on works from the Gurlitt family circle. The Bundeskunsthalle,on the other hand,will concentrate on works of art that were taken from their owners and collectors,who were Jews,as part of the Nazi persecution and on works whose provenance has not yet been established.
The showcase in Bonn will include about 150 artworks and the exhibition in Bern will present 100 artworks. The first exhibition mentioned above will be open from November 2,2017 to March 4,2018,and the other one in Bern will work from November 3,2017 to March 11,2018. Then the artworks will be exchanged from the Bundeskunsthalle to the Kunstmuseum and vice versa.
