In recent art world news, artworks that had been seized by the Nazis from German museums and later discovered hidden away by Cornelius Gurlitt, a reclusive Munich art collector who had amassed a collection of 1,500 artworks acquired by his Nazi-era art dealer father, have arrived at the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland.
Select artworks from the Gurlitt collection are scheduled to go on view this fall on November 2, 2017. The artworks included in the exhibition are only those whose provenances are known. The origins of the remaining pieces from the collection are still under investigation in Germany. Mr. Gurlitt, who had passed away in 2014, had bequeathed the entire collection, which includes art by Otto Dix, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Franz Marc, to the museum.
The highly anticipated exhibition is titled “Degenerated Art” and will be one of two simultaneous displays of select artworks from the Gurlitt collection. The Kunstmuseum Bern will display about 200 of the 1,500 pieces from the collection. The exhibition will focus on art that was seized by the German authorities and deemed “degenerate”. “Degenerate” was a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art.
A separate set of artworks from the Gurlitt collection will be displayed at the Bundeskunsthalle museum in Bonn, Germany set to open on November 1, 2017. That exhibition will include about 250 artworks that are believed to have been looted from private Jewish art dealers.
A related post on the Gurlitt collection entitled “Germany Extends Funding For Another Year To Establish Provenance Of Looted Art From Nazi Era” was previously published on the Art Law blog in March 2016.