Art Of The Day Weekly

#455 - from 12 January 2017 to 18 January 2017


Alberto Martini, Portrait of Wally Toscanini, 1925, pastel on paper, 131 x 204 cm, private collection (exhibition Art déco in Italia, Musei San Domenico, Forlì).

LOOTED ART

The shadow of the Nazis

Artworks that were robbed continue to be sought, and the destiny of collections acquired illegally under the Third Reich continues to be a cause for debates. While we wait for the phenomenal Gurlitt collection to be shown at the museum of Bern, which will put a temporary end to the long legal soap opera, we will all relive that period with 21, rue La Boétie, in which the Musée Maillol in Paris shows from 2 March to 23 July 2017 the destiny of the collection that belonged to art dealer Paul Rosenberg. Among the artists who were persecuted, there is one of the great Expressionists, with the many colors, and the trademark of dark rings under the eyes that are close to xylography: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The Kunsthaus Zurich will show from 10 February to 7 May 2017 his Berlin period during WWI when he sketched the night owls, the excesses and satirical side of the big city. In Cologne, the Ludwig museum will look into the work of Otto Freundlich (1878-1943), who paid a big price to the Nazi rage. After living for along time in France, he was deported and died in the camp of Majdanek while a large part of his work was burnt by the Nazis, among them his famous “primitive” head, which was on the cover of the leaflet on the exhibition in 1937 on “degenerate art” (from 18 February to 14 May 2017).

Read the full Newsletter