[MSN] German art lovers angered by painting's 'surrender'

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German art lovers angered by painting's 'surrender'
 From Roger Boyes, of The Times, in Berlin

An influential art dealer says there was no legal or moral case for the 
restitution of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Berlin Street Scene

Art lovers are fighting to keep in Germany an evocative 1913 painting of 
a prostitute that was recently given back to its Jewish former owners.

The row over the painting — Berlin Street Scene by the expressionist 
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner — could lead to a fundamental overhaul of the way 
the Government deals with art confiscated by the Nazis.

The painting was returned to the heirs of the German Jewish shoe factory 
owner Alfred Hess in July after almost two years of secret negotiation 
with the regional government of Berlin.

Within days Christie’s had announced that it would be put up for sale in 
New York.

“It is the most significant work of German expressionism that has ever 
been put up for auction,” Andreas Rumbler, of Christie’s Germany, says.

But Bernd Schultz of the Villa Grisebach auction house — one of the most 
influential art dealers in Germany — says there was never any real 
legal, or even moral, basis for handing the painting over.

“Like many other German businessmen, Alfred Hess was made bankrupt by 
the world economic crisis of 1929,” says Herr Schultz. “All he had left 
was a great art collection.” The family started to sell paintings to 
survive.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the Hess family fled to Britain. 
Berlin Street Scene was sent to Switzerland for sale but was eventually 
sold to the Frankfurt collector Carl Hagemann in 1936. After the war it 
was acquired by the German state and has become a cornerstone of 
Berlin’s famous collection of expressionist art.

The Berlin government argues that the Hess family was forced to sell 
because of Nazi anti-Semitic persecution and that the price was 
artificially low.

“One cannot doubt the racial persecution of the former owners,” said Dr 
Hans-Gerhard Husung, the art specialist for the Berlin government. The 
city was therefore obliged to return the painting to the heirs.

Not true, says Herr Schultz, who is gathering support from across the 
German art world, which has long felt that formerly Jewish-owned art is 
being surrendered without proper examination of the ownership records. 
“The collector Hagemann financed his art purchases with income earned 
from patents — he was a knowledgeable and above all an honourable man 
who was a lifelong friend of the painter,” Herr Schultz says.

There was no suggestion that he had cheated the Hess family, nor that he 
was an instrument of Nazi persecution.

The painting comes up for sale on November 8, leaving too little time to 
raise the estimated £13 million needed to buy the painting back for 
Germany and for Berlin, says Herr Schultz.

Even so, say German art market sources, some industrialists have been 
approached and are considering putting in a bid. “This cries out for a 
rescue operation,” says Herr Schultz.

The restitution wave has also been irritating the art world in Austria 
where a Gustav Klimt portrait was returned to a Jewish family. The 
Austrians tried to raise the necessary money to buy it and to keep it in 
a Vienna museum. But the picture was already on its way to the auction 
house before Austrian art lovers could be mobilised.

It was put up for auction in June and was bought by Ronald Lauder, the 
cosmetics tycoon, for £71 million, making it the world’s most expensive 
painting.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk