Last Friday, a lawsuit was filed against the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The heirs of a German Jewish collector are demanding the return of La Ironer, a masterpiece of the blue period by Pablo Picasso, exhibited in the halls of the institution since 1978.
She shines among the Degas, Monet, PissarroMorisot and Van Gogh from the Thannhauser collection, presented at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (USA). Masterpiece of the end of the blue period, The ironer (1904) by Pablo Picasso is today the subject of a legal case between the prestigious institution and the heirs of German Jewish collector Karl Adler (1872-1957), chairman of the board of directors of the largest leather manufacturer in Europe, having had to flee Nazi Germany with his wife Rosi Jacobi in 1938. On Friday January 20, the couple’s great-grandson, Thomas Bennigson, the other heirs and Jewish charities, filed a complaint against the museum in Manhattan Supreme Court seeking restitution of the artwork or $100-200 million in damages.
A Picasso sold off because of Nazi persecution?
It all started in 1916. Karl Adler acquired The ironer from the Munich gallerist Heinrich Thannhauser. In 1938, the collector and his wife wanted to immigrate to Argentina and needed money to pay for their emergency visas and the Reich Flight Tax (the so-called “flight” tax which prevented the departure of many Jewish families) instituted by the nazis. Karl Adler sold the painting before his departure to Heinrich Thannhauser’s son, Justin Thannhauser, for $1,552 (about $32,000 today). According to the descendants, this price would have been well below its market value. ” Thannhauser, Picasso’s main art dealer, must have known that he had bought this painting at a bargain price “, indicates the complaint. According to the plaintiffs, he would have taken advantage of the geopolitical situation to buy masterpieces at a low price from German Jews fleeing the country.
Use our interactive feature to view the hidden painting below Picasso’s 1904 “Woman Ironing” http://t.co/3ifb8jNvca pic.twitter.com/WSpUMYki5V
— Guggenheim Museum (@Guggenheim) January 30, 2015
To support this argument, the heirs specify that the spring following the sale of The Ironer, Justin Thannhauser lent the painting to the Municipal Museum of Amsterdam who insured it for $20,000. Same observation during the summer of 1939, when the work was exhibited at the MoMA in New York, which insured it for 25,000 dollars. Thus, according to the plaintiffs, Karl Adler and Rosi Jacobi would never have sold the painting (and even less at this price) if they had not had the urgent need to flee the Nazi threat.
Justin Thannhauser (third from left) photographed by Henri Manuel in 1938 with the Syndicate of Art Publishers and Modern Painting Dealers. ©Wikimedia Commons
Provenance research done by the museum in the 1970s
Obviously the Guggenheim Museum is not of the same opinion. ” The Guggenheim Takes Provenance Questions and Restitution Requests Very Seriously. “In a press release sent to the English cultural media” ArtNews ”, the institution defends the legitimacy of the provenance of the painting and affirms that the complaint of the heirs is “ unfounded “. Before The ironer does not join its collections (following an extended loan and a bequest from Justin Thannhauser), the administrators of the museum would have carried out research on the past of the masterpiece of Picasso in the 1970s. They even reportedly contacted Karl Adler and Rosi Jacobi’s son, Eric Adler, who “ raised no concerns about the painting or its sale », Specifies the institution. On the other hand, the Guggenheim Museum recalls that the Thannheusers were also Jews and that they were equally subjected to racist persecution. In view of this research, the canvas would have been acquired in good faith and transparency during a fair transaction. However, if today consciences are awakening, at the time, many families who were victims of the Holocaust wish to forget this painful chapter of their history and do not wish to claim the paintings stolen by the Nazis or sold under the opposite.
In 2014, Thomas Bennigson began his own investigation into the provenance of the painting, aided by the law firm Rowland & Associates. In 2017, they contacted the Guggenheim Museum and demanded, four years later, the return of the work under the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act). Introduced in 2016, this American law allows victims of the Holocaust and their heirs to request the return of works of art illegally sold or extorted during Nazi Germany, and this within six years of becoming aware that they have a right to the work. Now, justice must determine if the elements gathered by the heirs are sufficient to prove that their ancestors were forced to sell the painting or to admit that the painting is in its place on Fifth Avenue.
The Guggenheim Museum is located on Fifth Avenue in New York. ©Agathe Hakoun
