Stedelijk Museum restitutes Matisse Odalisque to Jewish arts patrons’ heirs

At the time of the sale of the Matisse, Stern was desperately attempting to escape the Netherlands and had attempted in vain to acquire visas to numerous nations, including the USA, Haiti and Cuba, according to a statement from the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which represents the Stern beneficiaries.

Touria Meliani, the alderman of society at the district of Amsterdam, which possesses the Stedelijk, defined the suffering of Jewish residents in the Second World Battle as “extraordinary and irreparable”.

Stern’s better half Marie Stern, who had researched art, was the driving force behind the pair’s collection, which included jobs by Edvard Munch, Lovis Corinth and Vincent van Gogh. They lived in a stunning home in the lakeside residential area of Nikolassee in Berlin, where they delighted artists, collectors, authors and artists. The violinist Yehudi Menuhin is known to have performed there as a youngster.

The Dutch Restitutions Committee stated in its examination of the successors’ insurance claim that the sale “was attached to procedures taken by the occupying pressures against Jewish members of the populace and emerged out of necessity”.

The household got away to Amsterdam in 1937. By 1939, the Nazis had actually seized Stern’s organization and the family home. After the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the family members endured additional persecution and, by August 1941, they were residing in a boarding residence and marketing their furnishings.

Stern’s better half Marie Stern, that had actually researched art, was the driving pressure behind the couple’s collection, which consisted of works by Edvard Munch, Lovis Corinth and Vincent van Gogh. After the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the family members suffered additional mistreatment and, by August 1941, they were living in a boarding house and marketing their furniture.

“The return of the Matisse is a relocating and frustrating minute for us all,” the successors said in a declaration. “Our grandparents enjoyed art and music and theatre, it was the centre of their lives.

The Stedelijk Gallery in Amsterdam states it will certainly return a paint by Henri Matisse to the heirs of a Jewish textiles maker that sold it under duress in the Netherlands before being deported to a Nazi camp, where he died in 1945.

“To the extent that anything can be repaired from the wonderful oppression done to them, we as a society have a moral obligation to act accordingly,” Meliani included. “The return of works of art, such as the Odalisque paint, can suggest a whole lot to the sufferers.”

“The return of the Matisse is a relocating and overwhelming moment for us all,” the beneficiaries stated in a declaration.

The painting, Odalisque (1920-21), has remained in the museum’s collection considering that July 1941, when it was offered by Albert Stern, once the proprietor of one of the largest suppliers of females’s clothes in Germany and a patron of the arts.

Stedelijk supervisor Rein Wolfs stated the gallery has had questions about the painting’s provenance because 2013. It stands for, he said, “a very sad background and is linked to the offensive suffering brought upon on this family”.