Didier Schulmann,

"History in the Face of Art Works"

The presentation of a handful of Twentieth century works recovered after the fall of the Third Reich and now in the care of the MusΘe national d'art moderne / Centre de crΘation industrielle, demands some explanation.

The thirty-eight works 1 shown are a reminder: they are what is left in the wake of the restitution of thousands of despoiled artworks. A limited collection, necessarily eclectic given its origins because it includes works that belonged to families which were decimated, works which were never reclaimed for reasons still unknown, works which were too ostentatiously put onto the black market, and indeed works commissioned by the Nazis themselves. But, fifty years on, the meaning of these remaining works lies in their invaluable testimony they offer on the Nazi's policies regarding both public and private European collections.

Conflicts do not spare artworks: bombings, vandalism, pillage, and fire accompany wartime seizures. The owners and art lovers who took it upon themselves to save artworks, did everything in their power to remove them from harm's way, protect and even had to part with them. With the Second World War what has to be grasped, is that the general framework had changed. What had until then, always been circumstantial became intentional: with Hitler the goal of war included the pillage of art. The organization of the destruction of the Jews of Europe which formed the basis for their project right from the beginning, inevitably led the Hitlerians to help themselves to works of art, an initiative closely tied to the eradication of "degenerate art" and the promotion of an "authentic German art" which, in France, was done with the active cooperation of the Vichy authorities.
Already in 1947, Jean Cassou, only recently renamed at the time Director of the Museum of Modern Art, in a preface to a collection of Nazi documents ("The German Pillage of Artworks and Libraries Belonging to Jews in France", published by the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine), pointed out with discernment how the hatred for Jews was, for the Nazis, inextricably bound up with the hatred for works of art and especially those of modern artists: "Without a doubt, works of human genius especially awakened the greediness in the Germanic thugs, given that these works were worth a great deal. But deep down, in their beast-like core, they abhored the spiritual reality of which this price was the symbol. [...] In fact, all these treasures had a spell cast over them: it was the stuff of Jews. First of all the Jews had buried them away beneath the melodious streams of their caves. And then, what do the efforts of human genius in the plastic domain lead to anyway ? To degenerate art, to Jewish art. [...] Yes, the Boche mobster abominated these works which are a sign of Satan, and which he, the Barbarian, is unable to understand and grasp the essence. Here his thirst for depth ran aground. And it is not by chance that he invented his whole antisemitic system. For what he refers to as Jewish, is what is inaccessible to him, what is unable to satisfy and suffice him..."
The chronological table drawn up for the document accompanying the exhibition of these thirty-eight works very precisely bears witness to the way in which the operation came about: the anti-semitic procedures and manoeuvers are to be seen in terms of their consequences in the form of measures and exactions specifically aimed at artworks. In the appalling game of complicity and renunciation in which the Vichy regime engaged, it becomes clear to what extent the distinction - essential in a state of law - between public and private collections was strictly meaningless for the Nazis. What is revealed is how little the respect for private property counts for when the owners happen to be Jews, and how no imaginative subterfuge is able to protect anything whatsoever. The chronology also reveals the struggle the various Nazi departments waged against one another.
Above all, the chronology sheds light on the Nazis' voraciousness, and that of certain of their leaders, to consider France to be a sort of immense reservoir of artworks, of whatever status. Thus, for Goering and Hitler, the formation of a collection was at issue as was the gathering of a stock of works, of whatever origin, for the Museum for which Albert Speer had drawn the plans in Linz.

Works of modern art held a strategic position in this vast plan of predation: despised by the Nazi regime, disdained by Vichy and under-rated by the National Museum Board 2 they served as bargaining tools. First of all because they were easily accessible: many of those who collected modern works, and many important dealers in modern art were Jewish. If only recently naturalized or had left French territory, Jews had their French citizenship taken away and they were stripped of their possessions. Their collections were then quickly seized by the departments of Alfred Rosenberg (E.R.R.) 3 the Nazi theorist and seconded by their French auxiliaries at the Commission for Jewish Issues.
The Jeu de Paume Museum, transformed into a storage site for despoiled works, organized shows exclusively for Goering's visits (twenty-one of them all told !) and included a sorting station for the artworks subsequent transport to Germany, even comprising a room (which the Nazis themselves named the "Martyrs' Room") where the modern works were gathered. The Nazi's intention, as Rose Valland 4 has revealed, was to exchange these works for the classical paintings they coveted, available in abundance on the art market, and could be acquired with ease on the black market.
In this way entire collections belonging to prestigious private funds (Rosenberg, Kann, Watson, Bernheim) remained at the Jeu de Paume up until the last days of the occupation. As the Allies were advancing toward Paris, the nazis were bent on loading hundreds of art works onto train #40.044, which thanks to the combined efforts of Rose Valland and the train workers, was blocked at the Aulnay-sous-Bois Station. These were the first art works to be recovered, after the creation of the Commission de la RΘcupΘration Artistique in November 1944 (but active since September) which was to be as active in France as in Germany, as collectors or their heirs make themselves known to the Commission.
In this train, there were at least two works, today in the care of the MusΘe national d'art moderne. They are the two paintings which were brought respectively first (Gleizes, R1P) and last (BissiΦre, R25P) into the 20th century M.N.R., the traces of which can be followed in the index cards dedicated to them: this index provides proof that the origin of the two works was firmly established. Why then could they not be restituted? Was it because, at the time, the process for the identification of their origins was without the benefits of the experience the inter-allied teams were subsequently to acquire in dealing with several thousand works, of which they did manage to restitute the better part? Or was it rather that, in the disorder of Liberation, the inevitable difficulty of collating the lists which were drawn up together with the stocks of works that were built up, raised obstacles which we, when we consult these documents today, are simply unable to appreciate?
The first work, Gleizes' cubist landscape, belonging to Alphonse Kann, an art dealer and collector in exile in London, was despoiled in 1940 by the Nazi unit of the E.R.R. This painting appeared on a 1947 list the works of which A. Kann, who remained in England, obtained restitution, but which because he was ill, left in storage with the National Museums Board. A. Kann died the following year. His heirs, to thank the national museums for their commitment in returning the works (the Gleizes apparently not among them), agreed to make a generous donation, including two Matisse sculptures, to the MusΘe national d'art moderne. The Gleizes turned up again, in 1949, on the lists and decrees which led to its being registered with the M.N.R..
To assess what happened, it must be remembered that the research work being carried out today, fifty years after the facts, is without the benefit of the direct experience of those who had tens of thousands of works to deal with, but relies on sources which were then unavailable. Thus the E.R.R. lists - when they exist at all - are the only documents explicitly correlating the names of persons despoiled of their possessions with lists of works and the code numbers making it possible to identify the collectors. But these lists, however, were not transfered to the Office des Biens et IntΘrΩts PrivΘs (the O.B.I.P.) until December 1953. It is the case for this work of which only the title, the description, the code number and the name of Alphonse Kann appear on the list.
The case of the BissiΦre painting is also very symptomatic of the residual situations which arise when, after having dealt with thousands of objects, the administrative machine goes awry, simply because some object is not where it is supposed to be when its turn came to be dealt with. Found on the "Aulnay train" in August 1944 and immediately recognized as having come from the stock of art dealer Paul Rosenberg, this painting appeared, the following year, on a list of works which were restituted to him through legal channels. In 1946, it turned up on a National Museums list, as a work donated by P. Rosenberg to provincial museums in gratitude for their help in saving his collection. Having never been placed in the care of any provincial museum, the work remained in the Louvre's reserves where it was only discovered in 1964. It doubtless occured to no one at the time that it was merely a forgotten donation. Was it assumed that it was a despoiled work, omitted at the time of the restitutions ? In any case, it was included, belatedly, and wrongly, on the M.N.R.'s list. This error should today be rectified by its inclusion in public collections.

Thus, as these two examples show, not only is each work a unique case with its own particular history over the years in question, but the reasons which led them to be included in the collection, in the context of the 1950's, were motivated by a consideration which is no longer ours today: the desire to "turn over a new leaf". Looking back, it seems first of all that, generally speaking, everything that could be restituted was. It is clear as well that efforts were made to go beyond the restitution claims made by individuals or families despoiled of their works.
This is shown by the efforts undertaken to determine where the small TorrΦs-Garcia (R18P) could possibly have come from. It is shown too by the list, hurriedly drawn up by Rose Valland, the most knowledgeable person about what actually transpired. In 1965, she asked Michel Hoog, at the time an Assistant at the MusΘe national d'art moderne, to provide her with the M.N.R.'s 20th century list. In pencil, on a large sheet of paper 5, she drew up a two column table on which are written, on the right, most of the paintings that were recovered, and on the left, all possibly similar works taken from the E.R.R.'s lists. She was unable to establish any equivalence.
The research, which has to be continued today, should be able to determine how and why the Gleizes was not returnable; but reopening these files, even if it has enriched our knowledge regarding the history of the works, has established no unequivocal advance either for the LΘger, the Picasso, the Ernst, or the Mauny.

The research which has just recently got back underway has, for the time being, come up with no clues regarding the other paintings: the Utrillo, the Matisse, the Laurencin (which, as everyone will note, is dated 1941...), the Moreau, the Edzard, the Friesz, the Vlamincks; the source documents didn't "talk" under perusal, and no indication of where they came from, which may have escaped the investigators at the time of the Liberation, came out in reading them.
This research has, however, allowed the reconstruction of the history of a tapistry commissioned by Ribbentrop from the Gobelins, thus not only revealing an overlooked episode of the collaboration, but above all demolishing the claim that the M.N.R. was made up of nothing but "artworks stolen from Jews during the Occupation". The exhumed documents, published here, concerning the affair of this tapistry, bear witness to an important fact: the agents in charge of returning the works correctly completed their mission which was, strictly speaking, to gather together what appeared to be "possessions without masters". Which, at that point in the History of France and Germany, is what that tapistry was.
Today it is up to us to take this "heritage" into account, to etch into the very heart of the collections of which we are in charge, the fact that History has left its mark on these works, and that the institutions which keep them have the duty to bring to mind. Thus, to the following table:

Author: Tsugouharu FOUJITA
Deux femmes nues, (Deux amies), 1929
water color and ink on prepared and pumiced canvas
178 x 94 cm
signed, dated, lower right (in Japanese and French) (ideograms) / Foujita / 1929
Attribution by the Office des Biens PrivΘs (1951). Inv #: R 20 P

the history of the despoilment of which was recently discovered:
- ERR documents "Sammlung Swob (sic) d'HΘricourt (SHD) Paris, 47, Bd. BeausΘjour". Despoilment of 6 February 1942, transfered to the Jeu de Paume, listed 6 April 1943 by Dr. Eggemann / He.
"Inv. # 1; Master-Period: Foujita 1921; description: two female nudes. One sitting on a stool covered with a green cloth, looking at the other standing at her side; the standing woman seems lost in thought. Drawing in quill pen and brush on oil paper on canvas - Signed: Foujita 1921 - Framed - 176 x 94 cm."

must henceforth be added the following information:
- Drancy, convoy #61, destination: Auschwitz; on board:
Marcel Schwob, born 16 June 1884 in Mulhouse, RenΘe Schwob, born 16 July 1903 in Paris.

Didier Schulmann, curator of the MusΘe national d'art moderne - Centre Georges Pompidou, head of the Gestion des collections




1. Initially 60 works were listed on the special provisional inventory: 25 paintings, a Mauffria having been "put back" in the MusΘe d'Orsay = 24 paintings.1 art object (the Peiner Tapistry) = 1 art object. 11 drawings, a Maillol having been "put back" into the MusΘe d'Orsay = 10 drawings. 14 sculptures, 10 Maillol having been "put back" into the MusΘe d'Orsay = 4 sculptures.
Total = 39 works.
A painting by Friesz, "Tulipes dans un vase", could not be found for this show. Research is currently underway as to its whereabouts, most probably in a small town museum where it has been put in a storage.

2. It should be remembered that at the time the collections included only eight Matisse, two LΘger, and a single Picasso, and that Jean Cassou, who championed these artists was forced into retirement by Vichy.

3. See "A Chronology of Events Occuring in France with Regard to Art Collections, 1933-1954", late July 1940.

4. Rose Valland was the only Curator authorised to work at the Jeu de Paume. The information that she gathered and above all the lists she drew up and passed on to Jacques Jaujard, Director of National Museums, were to facilitate locating and restituting hidden works.

5. Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, C.R.A. papers, box 518, classification no P 213, dossier 106, sleeve 5.