Second World War

Restitution round-up: France, Austria, Italy, and Germany

Recent developments in the restitution of looted artworks

Dia Center shows Beuys taking notes on Leonardo

Beuys drawings based on the Renaissance master’s famous Codices Madrid show revolutionary artist experimenting with the ideas of another

Picasso's reaction to the Second World War

“Picasso and the War Years 1937-45”, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 5 February-9 May

Much piety and hot air at Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets

No binding agreements were reached and little effect on restitution is expected

Austria makes legal amends by passing a bill ensuring restitution

Works acquired in a “suspicious manner” will begin to be returned at once

Jewish family loses out to Louvre over WWII spoliation case

After an emergency ruling, the Louvre retains five Italian paintings that were salvaged after the war and the aggrieved Gentili family must now await appeal. Meanwhile, the Musée national d’art moderne has approved the return of more works

Ronald Lauder returns Nazi loot

1829 Kipresnky painting was taken to Berlin in the 1940's

Looted artarchive

US museums deny holding war loot

Museum directors summoned before the House of Representatives

Nazi lootarchive

US Customs seize a painting from a looted collection

The collection was stolen during Nazi occupation of France

Why did leading US museum director keep mum over paintings stolen from Kassel?

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts and its former director, Alan Shestack are castigated in the press

Weimar gets a painting back as Sotheby’s returns stolen Tischbein portrait

“A very happy occasion” as painting looted by American soldiers returns home

Twenty-five Hermitage “treasures” gained as war loot still unclaimed

Watercolours and drawings seized by the Red Army in a Berlin bunker in 1945 have been on show in the Hermitage earlier this year for the first time

Russiaarchive

Russian Parliament nationalises art taken from Germany

But negotiations continue between Chancellor Kohl and President Yeltsin

Newsarchive

Texas war booty charge thrown out of court

Technicality spares the sellers of the Quedlinburg treasure

A symbol of the city rises from the rubble as Dresden's Frauenkirche is reconstructed

The crypt of the baroque Frauenkirche was reopened last month, with an altar by Anish Kapoor

Swiss bank accounts trace Nazi art deals

Newly declassified records track the deposit of Nazi assets in Swiss banks—they include references to works of art

Newsarchive

War loot funded Quedlinburg GI’s double lifestyle

Former acquaintances in Dallas’s gay scene report war booty on show in his apartment

Dresden Museum on restitution: It’s okay—take the pictures

Surprisingly resigned attitude to restitution claims by a leading German museum

Newsarchive

US indicts war booty sellers

Brother and sister of the US soldier who stole the Quedlinburg treasure to face possible imprisonment

Lost Italian art: Search goes on for masterpieces which went missing in WWII

We publish here for the first time in English a sample of the huge quantity of works of art removed from Italy during the war. One brave man, Rodolfo Siviero, devoted years to tracking them down, but many are still missing. Can you help?

Russians get nowhere on WWII restitution

More roadblocks further slow the process

Post-wararchive

Fifty years ago: looking at the art and artists of 1945

Peace was celebrated in Europe fifty years ago. As The Art Newspaper reaches its fiftieth issue this month, we look at the art of a war-torn world

Booksarchive

Books: Stalin’s supermuseum

As the Red Army pushed back the Nazi invaders in 1944, a pair of Soviet art historians compiled a list of masterpieces from Europe’s museums to be brought back to Moscow

Hitler, the prince and the Dürers: The complex story of Lviv's looted Old Master works

After a long, strange journey, the Lubomirski Museum Dürers are now subject to restitutions claims by both Poland and the Ukraine