A Long Memory

Degenerate Art has denounced by the Nazis as un-German ie Jewish or Bolshevist. Josef Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, organized an exhibition of Entartete Kunst in 1937. The SS acted as curators for the show by confiscating the works of modern artists from museums and private collections. The assembled paintings, books, prints, and statues were arranged into three genres of insults to the German people. The opening in Munich was such a success that Goebbels sent the exhibition of an eleven city tour of the 3rd Reich, after which the choice pieces were distributed to the Nazi hierarchy. Over 4000 were torched by the Berlin Fire Brigade possibly inspiring Ray Bradbury to write his science-fiction classic FAHRENHEIT 451. Last week a Koln auction house offered a Wassily Kandinsky watercolor in its modern art sales. “Zwei Schwarze Flecke” had been given to a young lady by the artist. The aquarelle had been confiscated by the Nazis from a museum, although the auction house stated to the press that the family had given away the painting in the 1920s. “The sale will go ahead, We think this claim is totally unfounded.” This opinion differed with that of the heirs, whose ancestors were exiled to Siberia and died in poverty. I checked Friday results of Lempertz Kunsthaus sale without finding a record of the painting being sold. Please go to this URL : http://www.lempertz.com/444.html The art world lifted its head from the trough of Art-Basel/Miami to react to my friend's blog citing an article in bloomberg.com http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-01/nazi-loot-claim-fails-to-hinder-planned-cologne-kandinsky-sale.html UK female - mmm sounds like North American aboriginal claims using oral evidence. Yesterday at 7:34pm · Like Art Spive - Shameful Me - the indian were here before that cute johnny apple seed and the nazis financed their power through theft. the truth will out Female French - Did max ernst's 'the fair gardener' ever resurface? it was categorically field in 'entartete kunst', as "insult to german womanhood". its like 1 of francis picabia (sympathiser / collaborator!) "transparencies". late in life, max ernst made a sequel work, 'the return of the fair gardener'. UK Female ‎"grab what you can" the auction house for the present owner/the claiment heirs? Furious Male - Clearly the heirs deserve this work. It is part of their heritage in that their ancestors had the taste/foresight/vision to show an interest in it and buy it. I am just thinking of the auction houses..."grab, grab", and using any legal or other loophole they can find - even if the only loophole is a feigned uncertainty about the provenance. Zionist Female - BOO HISS SO ANTI-SEMITIC, the aucition houses who don't give back nazi looted art that belongs to jewish owners who suffered in the holocaust. such great art! 15 hours ago · Like Furious Male - How long have they had this stuff, or at least, how long have they waited to let the owners consign it? If they could have held out another 50-75 years maybe nobody would have noticed. I still have living relatives who fought in world war... Of course this vector pertains to many injustices in the world and I decided to enter a new subject into the fray. ME - on a tangent trajectory how does this subject pertain to the Palestinians right to return? Twenty-four hours later and still no response.