Martin Levy is a trustee of the Jewish Museum, London, and a member of the Spoliation Advisory Panel
Yes: The heinous actions of Christian Flick's grandfather Friedrich Flick during the Nazi era are well chronicled. In spite of his imprisonment after the Nuremberg trials, it is none the less understandable that there are many survivors from that period for whom the memory of the name Flick remains too much to bear.
The Flick family itself has publicly recognised, and shown deep and active remorse for, the evils perpetrated by an earlier generation. Should we not accept that individuals, as well as societies, can learn lessons. If we live entirely in the past, there can be no future.
In the case of Christian Flick, he has established a foundation to fight racism and xenophobia in all their disgusting manifestations; this is surely a true testament to his understanding of the insidious nature of prejudice and hatred.
Berlin, a city now regaining its soul, can only benefit from the opportunities a new art collection offers. Indeed, if there is an issue here, beyond those raised by the works of art themselves, it should not be the past. Is it not an indication of the transformation over three generations that a younger member of the Flick family wants to make his personal collection available for the benefit of all?
Flick's decision to show outstanding works of art by leading contemporary artists will draw people together and enable them to enjoy the endeavours of a civilised and free society; something manifestly not possible between 1933 and 1945.
Tom Flynn is the director of the Cass Sculpture Foundation
No: Like museums, private art collections are as fascinating for how they came into being as for what they contain. The Saatchi and Lloyd Webber collections are revealing documents of taste, but can never be entirely separated from the source of the millions that enabled their acquisition; advertising and musicals, respectively. But what happens when the source of wealth is deemed socially illegitimate, as with the Flick collection?
Public museums have become adept at disguising and even removing an object's ownership history. Failure to clarify provenance is to engender historical amnesia. So just for the record, the original wealth of Friedrich Flick was founded on Jewish slave labour from concentration camps.
Two years ago, Christian Flick's brother, Gert-Rudolf Flick, published Missing Masterpieces: Lost Works of Art, 1450-1900. By choosing 1900 as his cut-off date, he avoided the issue of Holocaust-looted art, which would have forced him to include Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man (1515), looted by the Nazis from Poland in 1939.
The Flick brothers should not be prevented from pursuing their interests, but to legitimise their ill-gotten fortune through official promotion and neglect of the historical record is misguided and dangerous.
Yes: The heinous actions of Christian Flick's grandfather Friedrich Flick during the Nazi era are well chronicled. In spite of his imprisonment after the Nuremberg trials, it is none the less understandable that there are many survivors from that period for whom the memory of the name Flick remains too much to bear.
The Flick family itself has publicly recognised, and shown deep and active remorse for, the evils perpetrated by an earlier generation. Should we not accept that individuals, as well as societies, can learn lessons. If we live entirely in the past, there can be no future.
In the case of Christian Flick, he has established a foundation to fight racism and xenophobia in all their disgusting manifestations; this is surely a true testament to his understanding of the insidious nature of prejudice and hatred.
Berlin, a city now regaining its soul, can only benefit from the opportunities a new art collection offers. Indeed, if there is an issue here, beyond those raised by the works of art themselves, it should not be the past. Is it not an indication of the transformation over three generations that a younger member of the Flick family wants to make his personal collection available for the benefit of all?
Flick's decision to show outstanding works of art by leading contemporary artists will draw people together and enable them to enjoy the endeavours of a civilised and free society; something manifestly not possible between 1933 and 1945.
Tom Flynn is the director of the Cass Sculpture Foundation
No: Like museums, private art collections are as fascinating for how they came into being as for what they contain. The Saatchi and Lloyd Webber collections are revealing documents of taste, but can never be entirely separated from the source of the millions that enabled their acquisition; advertising and musicals, respectively. But what happens when the source of wealth is deemed socially illegitimate, as with the Flick collection?
Public museums have become adept at disguising and even removing an object's ownership history. Failure to clarify provenance is to engender historical amnesia. So just for the record, the original wealth of Friedrich Flick was founded on Jewish slave labour from concentration camps.
Two years ago, Christian Flick's brother, Gert-Rudolf Flick, published Missing Masterpieces: Lost Works of Art, 1450-1900. By choosing 1900 as his cut-off date, he avoided the issue of Holocaust-looted art, which would have forced him to include Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man (1515), looted by the Nazis from Poland in 1939.
The Flick brothers should not be prevented from pursuing their interests, but to legitimise their ill-gotten fortune through official promotion and neglect of the historical record is misguided and dangerous.
