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Should They Be Gifted or Sold?

February 22, 2018

According to Catherine Hickley’s article in The Art Newspaper: The widow of Erhard Göpel, an art historian who worked as a dealer for Adolf Hitler in occupied Europe during the Second World War and was embroiled in Nazi art-looting, has bequeathed an important collection of works by the German artist Max Beckmann to Berlin’s State Museums. Initial research into the works’ provenance by the Central Archive “gave no concrete cause for suspicion that these works were looted”, says the institution in a statement.

I am not sure how I feel about this one.  On the one hand, it is nice to see that these works will end up in a public collection. On the other hand, maybe theys should be sold and used to help fund the restitution efforts of relatives of the the people who were wronged by her husband.  Right now, I am leaning towards the latter.

Source: Widow of Hitler’s art dealer, Erhard Göpel, bequeaths Max Beckmann works to Berlin | The Art Newspaper

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