In May of last year, New York State became the first US jurisdiction to introduce legislation make museums label Nazi-looted art in their galleries. The main goal of the state education law amendment, which went into effect in August, “was to make sure we don’t forget,” says Anna Kaplan, the former senator of the State of New York who presented the amendment. “We need to make sure we do everything we can to teach this dark past to the next generation.”
Kaplan was motivated by a 2020 investigation by the Claims Conference, which represents Jews seeking compensation for the Holocaust. The survey found that 60% of New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 39 did not know that six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
But the law cannot be enforced. Kaplan admits that it is largely up to museums to implement and enforce the law themselves. “We hope museums will do the right thing,” she says. “Each museum has its own legwork and due diligence to do.”
The law reflects growing pressure on museums in the United States and Europe to be more transparent about the violent origins of some of the art objects they hold. As a result, provenance research – once a niche area – is becoming a major concern for American and European cultural institutions.
Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis looted hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures and works of art of the Jewish people, several thousand of which ended up in museums around the world. Under the non-binding agreement of 1998 Washington Principlesthe governments agreed to publish provenance research on Nazi-looted art from public collections and to seek a “fair and equitable solution” with the heirs.
The New York State Education Law Amendment reads: “Any museum exhibiting identifiable works of art known to have been created before 1945 and which have changed hands due to theft, seizure, confiscation, forced sale or other involuntary means in Europe during the Nazi era (1933-1945) should, where possible, prominently display a placard or other signage recognizing this information with this display.”
Many museums already publish provenance information online, and some already include information about former Jewish owners on labels.
The Neue Galerie in New York has acquired the most famous painting in its collection, that of Gustav Klimt Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) – after being returned to the heir of the original Jewish owner, Maria Altmann. It was seized by the Gestapo in Vienna in 1939. “The history of the painting was clearly displayed at all times in our galleries and on our website,” the Neue Galerie said in a statement. “The museum welcomes efforts to increase transparency around looted and dispossessed work and is taking steps to ensure it complies with the new law.”
Inscribing provenance on labels distances museums from the idea of the “white cube” that became the archetype of museums in the 20th century. “The ideal gallery strips the work of art of all cues that interfere with it being ‘art,'” the former wrote. New York Times art critic Brian O’Doherty in an influential art forum article in 1976. “The work is isolated from anything that would harm its own evaluation of itself. But the white cube concept seems increasingly outdated as museums strive to reflect the societies in which they operate.
mounting pressure
Public pressure is also mounting, with bands like the Commission for Looted Art in Europe and the World Jewish Restitution Organization in New York pushing curators to adequately communicate the origins of art seized by the Nazis. THE American Alliance of Museumsas for him, maintains the Nazi-era provenance internet portal. It currently lists nearly 30,000 objects in 179 participating museums, including 16 museums in New York with 2,370 Nazi-era pieces.
Some museums have become proactive, organizing exhibitions focused on the provenance of their collections. At Humboldt-Forum in Berlin, an exhibition of the Benin Bronzes – looted by British troops in 1897 in present-day Nigeria – includes video statements by scientists, artists and representatives of German and Nigerian museums and royal families in Benin City.
THE Kunstmuseum in Bern organized two exhibitions on art looted by the Nazis after inheriting Cornelius GurlittThe Tainted Collection. In New York, the Jewish Museum organized in 2021 an exhibition entitled Afterlives: Recover Lost Stories of Looted Art.
“The goodwill is already present in many museums and they are already doing the right thing,” says Agnes Peresztegi, an attorney specializing in Nazi-looted art and former chair of the New York-based Commission for Art Recovery. . While acknowledging the good intentions of the new law, she doubts that it will trigger a new campaign of transparency in museums. “Will a museum that didn’t exist suddenly start doing the right thing because of this law?” she asks. “Probably not.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art lists 53 works from his site returned to the heirs of the original owners. “We have followed this legislation closely and are now developing labels that will appear alongside these works in galleries,” says Ann Bailis, spokesperson for the museum. “The Met embraces the new requirement as it encourages the telling of important stories.”
But given that it is up to museums to determine which works fall under the new law, the art that remains contested is unlikely to be labeled as such. It can be difficult to assess whether a sale 80 years ago was unintentional or not, and opinions may vary. The Met has rejected a request from the heirs of German-Jewish art historian Curt Glaser for a painting it auctioned in Berlin in 1933, the work of Abraham Bloemaert. Moses striking the rock (1596). The fact that the dispute remains unresolved means that the museum and the heirs have so far been unable to agree on the wording of a label, says David Rowland, a New York-based lawyer who represents the heirs. Glaser.
“Who determines whether art changed hands due to theft, seizure, confiscation, forced sale or other unintended means in Nazi-era Europe?” asks Nicholas O’Donnell, a Boston attorney who specializes in Nazi-looted art. “How much certainty is required? The law does not say so. The law could have a chilling effect on further investigation.
O’Donnell also wonders if the law could contradict the First Amendment, which protects free speech. “Distilled to its essence, the law compels museums to say something,” he says. “And yet, we live in a time when social media posts deceive obvious lies.” The First Amendment, he notes, does not even allow the government to insist on corrections by private actors.
Yet Wesley Fisher, director of research at Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, says he can imagine other US states introducing legal requirements similar to the New York Amendment in the future. “But hopefully they will do it in a clearer way,” he says.
