Nazi Looted Art Analysis

In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, a pair of thieves disguised as Boston police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and roamed the Museum’s galleries, stealing thirteen works of art. The stolen works are valued at $500 million, which made the lottery the largest art theft in American history. There were 14 pieces of art that was stolen on the March 18, 1990. There is a reward of $5 million for information leading to the recovery of these works in good condition. No one has found out, it has been 25 years of theories as to what happened.

Yes, they did. The destruction of monuments, artwork,etc. by the Nazis took two different forms. Either they were doing it to humiliate/culturally destroy an occupied people, or they were destroying German monuments/artwork/etc. to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Its also worth noting that the Nazis destroyed art works and cultural monuments that felt they were dangerous/subversive/or degenerate; so works from Jews, works depicting nudity, not properly playing up to Aryan ideals could all be destroyed by the Nazis; but that was mostly related to artwork and music.

While death was the major tragedy of the Holocaust, all of the art stolen was definitely a dark spot. Most people don’t realize, but the art was taken from all Jews and many others by the Nazis. Some pieces of art have been found, but most still remain lost. Many that have been discovered are in museums and are not given to the true owners. There should be efforts spent on finding and recovering the art stolen by the Nazis to return it to their rightful owners.

There is an ongoing art-ownership debate over paintings and other art stolen from European Jews during the Holocaust of World War II (1939-45). As Jews were sent to concentration camps, Nazi German soldiers looted valuable art from their homes. During the ensuing decades, some of that art landed in major museums on display, prompting Holocaust survivors and the families of Holocaust victims to ask that those works be returned to them.

Part three is a slightly unconventional criteria, which is nonetheless is important because there are times when an auction house or an art foundation decides to take a stand in particular issue, which means that they will be alienated by firms or individual lawyers that push their own opinion on what will be the best outcome. In this case, as the general counsel of Sotheby's I choose to take a stand and fight for my reputation of selling rare authentic works of art, otherwise Sotheby’s will quickly lose business. Hence, it is necessary for me to take the appropriate measures to deter dealers and collectors selling fakes using Sotheby’s. Ideally, I need to find someone who is an excellent litigator with art authentication disputes

Both the previously mentioned Holocaust museums have archives and exhibits that preserve, not the loss caused by the events of the Shoah, but the success and on-going life of the victims. The Jewish Museum in Berlin holds a traditional museum collection that is meant to educate people on ‘the richness and vibrancy of Jewish cultural history’ (Univeristy, 2015). This use of conventional museographic means is capable of representing the loss felt in the Jewish community through remembering and documenting the history and accomplishments of the Jewish

The Dallas Museum of Art has a wide variety of ancient and modern art from around the world. The DMA’s Asian collection has a large array of artworks that represents Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. In the DMA’s Asian collection I found two statues that were both called The Lokapala (Heavenly Guardian). The Heavenly Guardians were the first thing my eyes settled on when I entered the room where they stand on display. The way the figures were displayed as well as being able to see them up close and in person allowed me to have a greater connection with the artworks as well as a greater appreciation for the craftsmanship of the pieces more than I would have if I saw them on a screen.

"Holocaust Restitution: Recovering Stolen Art." Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Mar. 2017. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Art work has gone missing from as far back as 1930. It really hard to locate something that went missing decades ago. Famous artifacts went missing like 10 pages of Walt Whiteman's papers, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, and etc. The GSA and the FBI are working to recover all the art that went missing and having a hard time. They are trying to recover these art work for the public.

The two works of art that I have chosen to analyze are 1) Jordan Casteel. Miles and JoJo. 2014. Oil on canvas, 54” x 72” and 2) Aaron Fowler. He Was. 2015. Mixed media, 134” x 165” x 108”. The themes that these works of art represent in regards to the exhibit are love, family, and pain. However, they also fall into other thematic categories. The main theme that seems to apply to both “Miles and JoJo” and “He Was” is Human Experience. Additionally, these arts differ in some ways.

In 1942 the German political party began to deport Jews to concentration camps all around Europe. In this process the germans looted the houses and took anything of value including things like silverware, desks, and even chandeliers. One thing of all else was worth quite a bit of money and still is probably worth more now is art. Art back then was rare and worth an extreme amount of money because of the fact they didn’t know how to replicate them very efficiently or effectively. That is why whenever they saw art in the houses of jews they took it immediately. Although the Nazis had committed genocide, they knew how to keep and preserve art and valuables. All 650,000 pieces of art stolen.

Museum of Genocide in Vilnius, Lithuania and I felt really sad and depressed seeing isolation rooms where sometime people were isolated. Now I understand that I felt empathy with victims. And I think that Philip Nolan should not have said that they felt like they had a day in hell, because this was the reconnection with the past.

Finally being recovered after many years of stolen property. Artwork is starting a new beginning. Since forever ago people have always stolen artwork for the money, and later resold it. Federal works are still in the process to recover and save the artwork that was stolen, even from many years ago. A few people that are with GSA's Office are many investigators. Going undercover and searching for the loss artwork. 'Items owned by the U.S. government that have been going missing, many dating back to the New Deal era of the 1930s'-from the New York Times 2015, is clearly stating that robbery has been going way back. And nobody really took It to consideration of finding the thefts and recovering the artwork.

Art and culture during the Third Reich is a complex phenomenon to understand due to the ambiguity of the scholarship. When the Nazi’s came to power in 1933, they understood that art and culture are going to be a fundamental institution in furthering the efforts of the regime to transform and build a utopian society. It became important to eliminate influences that were being generated by a part of the population considered to be degenerate. However, it is also important to have enemy’s to look down upon and trample over in order to feel superior amongst all races.

Collections play a crucial role in fulfilling a museum’s mission and purpose. A museum’s collection is defined by its collection policy past and present which in turn helps to shape the museum’s goals and direction. As stewards of collections, museums are expected to maintain the highest professional standards legally and ethically.