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Righting wrongs

Ten years after the creation of the Spoliation Advisory Panel are museums any closer to returning Nazi loot to its rightful owners? By Juliana Gilling

“More than six decades after world war two, the terrible ghosts of the Holocaust have not disappeared. The perverse ideology that led to the horrors of the Holocaust still exists and racial hatred and ethnic intolerance stalk our societies.

"Therefore, it is our moral and political responsibility to support Holocaust remembrance and education, and to fight against all forms of intolerance and hatred.”

This is a statement from Milo Pojar, the chairman of the organising committee of a conference on Holocaust-Era Assets that took place in Prague last June.

The issue of Nazi-looted art is still contentious, with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, an organisation established 60 years ago to secure a measure of justice for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, estimating that the Nazis stole 650,000 artworks and religious items, many of which remain in mu-seums and private collections.

But identifying and returning what is known as spoliated art is an area where UK museums are ahead of those in many other countries. The Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) bill – proposed by MP Andrew Dismore – became law last November, signalling the UK’s ongoing commitment to addressing ownership issues relating to the war.

The new legislation paves the way for national museums, previously prevented from deaccessioning property in their collections, to return family treasures looted during the Nazi period. The act helps to resolve the legal and moral inconsistencies highlighted by the work of the Spoliation Advisory Panel (SAP) during the past decade.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the advisory panel – an independent public body that was set up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The 11-strong panel considers claims from anyone, or their heirs, who lost cultural property between 1933 and 1945 that is now held in UK national collections. However, its powers are limited to recommending solutions – including restitution, compensation and rejection of claims – rather than enforcing them. And there is no appeals process open to unsuccessful claimants.

The SAP evolved out of a series of events in the late 1990s. These included the National Museum Directors’ Conference’s (NMDC) work on provenance research for the Holocaust and second world war period, which inspired its 1998 Statement of Principles and Proposed Actions.

There was also the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets in the same year, which brought Nazi spoliation and restitution issues to the world’s attention.

“Britain had led the way internationally, even before the Washington conference,” says Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which researches, identifies and recovers looted property on behalf of families, communities, institutions and governments worldwide.

“Before the 11 Washington principles were established, the NMDC had already committed to undertake and publish provenance research, and to exercise due diligence.”

Webber says it was essential that the panel was independent with clear terms of reference, clear procedures and a clear constitution. “The Washington principles said that nations should have national processes to enable countries to achieve fair and just solutions. I think the SAP has enabled that to happen. Anybody who goes to the panel knows in advance what they can expect.”

Before 1998, it was a very different story, says Webber: “Until that time any claimant who had the courage and the persistence to pursue a search for their works of art had no institutional support of any kind. It’s one of the reasons why we set up the commission to provide pro bono support for museums and claimants who needed guidance.”

After the war, people were scattered all over the world. “Correspondence took a long time, people didn’t necessarily speak the language and often they would get replies saying that institutions didn’t know where their paintings were, or that everything had been destroyed – things which we know today weren’t always true,” Webber says. “It was an impossible situation.

“The idea that there should be a transparent, accountable and free [mediation] process sounds obvious, but there are still very few countries where that is a possibility, Germany being one of them,” she adds.

Ten years on from the panel’s creation, Tate director Nicholas Serota says the system is seen as a model for other European countries. “It has dealt very effectively with claims, receiving evidence, making recommendations and preparing a series of lucid reports that examine the issues in each case with exemplary thoroughness. This has contributed significantly to the establishment of case law.”

One of the panel’s strengths is the quality of its membership (see panel on facing page), says Webber. “It’s important to have reputable, impressive people from many disciplines, bringing different perspectives. It’s interesting too that the panel’s membership has remained the same since 2000.”

Provenance research

However, changes to the panel’s constitution are underway, says Hillary Bauer, the head of the DCMS’s International and Cultural Property Unit.

“Under the new act, the Secretary of State can simply designate a panel of people to deal with each case. So it [the SAP] will be established differently, although it will have the same function. It’s really in response to the fact that there have been an unexpectedly small number of cases.” The SAP has heard only nine cases since 2000.

The US is among the countries looking at the British model, according to Suzanne Lewis, director of operations at the Ben Uri Gallery, the London Jewish Museum of Art.

“The SAP’s reputation has permeated the UK museum sector through its consistent and objective approach to the restitution of works of art, and this has resulted in a very positive outcome in the US,” Lewis says. “The federal government has plans to set up a Federal Mediation Panel to fund research and to put in place the human resources to mirror the workings of the SAP.”

In the UK provenance research is ongoing. In 2000 the NMDC estimated that 80 works of art at Tate had gaps in their histories; today, that number has dropped to 62. “When Tate started research in 2000, it was the area of International Modernism – works made before 1945 and acquired after 1933 – that we considered to be the most likely to be of concern,” says Serota.

Since then, Tate has reviewed and widened its research to other areas of the collection and any works that have been identified as having gaps in their provenance, or having uncertain histories, are all declared on a DCMS-funded website (see link below).

Museums and galleries are now extending their provenance research into loans in compliance with the recently introduced immunity from seizure legislation. “In seeking to guard against knowingly borrowing stolen works for exhibition or display, institutions in this country are raising the importance of provenance histories with a range of lenders, both institutional and private,” says Serota.

Yet some museums and galleries are still lagging behind, says Lewis: “They are slow to deal with Nazi spoliation issues for two reasons. It could lead to the eventual return of works, which is at odds with their principle function (the preservation and care of a collection), and because of a lack of resources and funds to dedicate staff to provenance research.”

“Sunset clause”

Lewis wants to see a commitment from all museum directors in the UK to give higher priority to undertake provenance research covering the period 1933-45 and to publish their findings. “This needs to be part of the accreditation process dictated by the Mu-seums, Libraries and Archives Council and, in turn, supported by the DCMS,” she says.

The new act contains a “sunset clause” – meaning that it will cease to have an effect ten years after it was passed. But Webber says there are artworks in this country that are known to have been unlawfully seized.

“There’s a question as to whether museums might seek to make contact with the claimants, or whether it is right to wait until the claimants make contact with them.”

Also, the new law will not be retrospective, so cases where claimants accepted compensation where collections were legally unable to offer restitution cannot be revisited. In the case involving the Beneventan Missal, Dismore says that he expects to see a repeat application to the panel now that the change in law has resolved the legal limbo.

In 2005, the British Library was legally prevented from returning the 12th-century manuscript to its Italian hometown, although it accepted the SAP’s recommendation for restitution.

A future sticking point might arise if a museum or gallery refuses to return items, even if the panel recommends restitution and the secretary of state approves, given that the panel’s decisions are not legally binding. “What then?” asks Webber. “Claimants should know whether museums might oppose restitution, even though the law exists.”

Whatever happens, it’s unlikely that the latest legislation will prompt a wave of new claims. Bauer says: “During the passage of Andrew Dismore’s bill, which the government supported and enacted, it was said that there were 20 cases in the pipeline. We’ve asked the various groups for details, but we haven’t had any.”

There is no room for complacency in museums. “We need to remain vigilant and continue to take this issue seriously, encouraging members of the public to come forward if they suspect a work has been spoliated,” says Serota.

Juliana Gilling is a freelance journalist

Provenance posers

2001

Institution Tate Gallery, London
Object A View of Hampton Court Palace, by Jan Griffier the Elder
Claimant Anonymous
Outcome SAP recommended an ex gratia payment of £125,000

2004

Institution Glasgow City Council/Burrell Collection
Object Still Life, formerly attributed to Chardin
Claimant Anonymous
Outcome SAP recommended restitution. Claimants accepted £10,000 for the painting to remain in Glasgow

2005

Institution British Library, London
Object Beneventan Missal
Claimant Metropolitan Chapter of the Cathedral City of Benevento
Outcome SAP recommended restitution and called for legislation that would allow this to happen. Still in British Library collection

2006

Institution Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Object Portrait of a Young Woman Holding a Flower, attributed to Nikolaus Alexander Mair von Landshut.
Claimant Heirs of Jakob Goldschmidt
Outcome SAP recommended rejection of claim

2006

Institution British Museum, London
Objects Four drawings including the Holy Family, attributed to Niccolo dell’Abbate
Claimant Heirs of Arthur Feldmann
Outcome SAP recommended that the government should make an ex gratia payment of £175,000

2007

Institution Courtauld Institute of Art
Objects Three drawings, attributed to Carl Ruthart, Frans Van Mieris and Giuseppe Bibiena
Claimant Heirs of Arthur Feldmann
Outcome SAP recommended restitution of all three drawings. Two were returned, while the heirs donated the third to the Courtauld

2007

Institution Samuel Courtauld Trust
Objects Three paintings by Rubens
Claimant Franz Koenigs
Outcome SAP recommended rejection

2008

Institution British Museum, London, and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Objects Viennese dish at the British Museum; glass cooler at the Fitzwilliam
Claimant Heir of Heinrich Rothberger
Outcome Restitution recommended. Fitzwilliam returned the glass cooler. An ex gratia payment of £18,000 was made for the dish by the British Museum

2009

Institution Samuel Courtauld Trust
Objects Eight drawings
Claimant Heirs of Curt Glaser
Outcome SAP recommended rejection

Ten years on: who’s who on the Spoliation Advisory Panel

David Hirst (chairman)
Hirst was a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1992 to 1999.

Donnell Deeny
A barrister, whose public appointments include chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland between 1993 and 1998. He is also a former trustee of the Ulster Museum in Belfast and past chairman of Opera Northern Ireland.

Richard Evans
Evans is currently professor of modern history at Cambridge University. His publications include Telling Lies about Hitler; The Coming of the Third Reich; and The Third Reich in Power.

Terry Heiser
Heiser was permanent secretary of the Department of the Environment between 1985 and 1992, when he retired from the civil service.

Peter Jones
Jones is the professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He was a trustee of National Museums Scotland from 1987 to 1999.

Martin Levy
Since 1997 Levy been the chairman of H Blairman & Sons, dealers in works of art, and is a trustee of the Jewish Museum, London.

Peter Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer has been a fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, since 1967 and is now president of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

Norman Palmer
Palmer is a barrister specialising in claims relating to cultural property, personal property, commercial security and dispute resolution. He has been chairman of the Treasure Valuation Committee since 2001, and was chairman of the Illicit Trade Advisory Panel from 2000 to 2005.

Anna Southall
Southall chaired the Barrow Cadbury Trust from 1996-2006 and remains a trustee. She is vice chair of the Big Lottery Fund and has been director of the National Museums & Galleries of Wales.

Liba Taub
Curator and director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science and reader in history and philosophy of science in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.

Baroness Warnock
Baroness Warnock is an independent life peer.

Links

www.culturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk



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