In a Dramatic About-Face, the Kunstmuseum Basel Will Compensate the Heirs of a Jewish Collector for Disputed Works in Its Collection (Q101584114)
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news article 2020 ArtNews
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | In a Dramatic About-Face, the Kunstmuseum Basel Will Compensate the Heirs of a Jewish Collector for Disputed Works in Its Collection |
news article 2020 ArtNews |
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In a Dramatic About-Face, the Kunstmuseum Basel Will Compensate the Heirs of a Jewish Collector for Disputed Works in Its Collection (English)
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The Glaser heirs first sought restitution in 2004. At that time, the Kunstmuseum insisted their purchase of Glaser’s collection was made in good faith and at market prices.But since the Kunstmuseum opted against restitution in 2008, several other museums have returned art to Glaser’s heirs, including the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 2014, the Hamburg Kunsthalle in 2015 and 2018, and Berlin’s State Museums in 2016.The issue of Nazi-related restitution became headline news in Switzerland when Cornelius Gurlitt left his collection of potentially looted art to the Kunstmuseum Bern in 2014, forcing the museum to vet each work carefully to determine if it had been lawfully acquired.The Basel Art Commission, the Kunstmuseum Basel’s advisory committee, decided it was worth taking a second look.“The Gurlitt case opened up lots of questions and prompted us to look more closely at the legal basis for restitution decisions,” Felix Uhlmann, the commission’s president, told the Times. “We also looked at how other institutions had responded to Glaser claims, and saw that some had reached different conclusions to the Basel decision in 2008. So we thought we must at the very least revisit this case.” (English)
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Glaser got his start as an art critic in 1902 before working at the Royal Gallery of Prints in Berlin. In 1924, he became the director of Berlin’s Kunstbibliothek, the city’s art library. He lost that job in 1933 after the Nazis came to power, and fled the country, first to Paris and then to the US, where he died in 1943.Before leaving Berlin, Glaser sold most of his collection at Max Perl auction house, including the 200 or so works acquired by curator Otto Fischer on behalf of Basel’s public collections. (English)