The Art Newspaper

After collector's death, questions about provenance remain

Leopold's foundation says it will start settlement negotiations to find "a just and fair solution" if any of his works prove to be Nazi loot

By Martha Lufkin. Web only
Published online: 30 June 2010

Rudolf Leopold, a leading collector of works by Austrian artists who faced claims that his art acquisitions included Nazi loot, died on 29 June in Vienna at age 85.

Over decades, Leopold amassed over 5,000 works by Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Albin Egger-Lienz and other Austrian artists. In 1994, the collection was transferred in a government-funded purchase to the Leopold Museum in Vienna. The museum is called a treasure trove, and Dr Leopold’s passion for collecting is often commented upon. But in the last 13 years of his life, the reputations of both Dr Leopold and the collection were severely tarnished by claims that a number of the works he acquired were the product of Nazi looting, and that he knew it. While Dr Leopold disputed the allegations, his rebuttals were seen by critics as weak. By the time of his death, the museum was facing trial in a US government lawsuit seeking to confiscate a Nazi-stolen work by Egon Schiele, and research into the Nazi-era past of the collection, launched by the Austrian Culture Ministry, was continuing, with critics saying that some works were stolen.

In New York, trial is set to begin on 26 July in the US action to forfeit the Nazi-stolen Portrait of Wally by Schiele, which the Leopold Museum sent to New York in 1997 for a loan show. The sole question left to be decided is whether Dr Leopold or the museum knew the work was stolen when they sent it into the US. The Leopold says it has valid title to the painting, and that neither it nor Dr Leopold had any such knowledge. In 1998 and 1999, actions by New York and federal authorities to seize the painting sparked worldwide outrage about Nazi-stolen art, and major changes in museum policies about it.

In February 2008, further Nazi loot allegations about the Leopold collection erupted in Austria, when Wolfgang Zinggl, a member of Austria’s Green Party, alleged that works by Albin Egger-Lienz, and the Schiele painting Houses on the Sea, formerly owned by Jenny Steiner, had been stolen by Nazis from Jewish owners. A legal opinion given at the same time by the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG) to the Austrian Culture Ministry alleged that eleven works were Nazi loot. A second legal opinion from the IKG said that the Leopold should be subject to a 1998 Austrian law requiring government museums to return Nazi-looted art. While the Leopold Museum is private, the Austrian government built its building, subsidizes it and supplied the funds to buy Dr Leopold’s collection.

In May 2008, Austrian Culture Minister Claudia Schmied appointed two government-paid provenance researchers to review the collection’s Nazi-era provenance, with the Leopold’s agreement. In December 2009, the researchers issued the first 11 reports on 23 works of art, which were published in February 2010 on the culture ministry’s website. At some point after Dr Leopold's funeral, the culture minister will publish recommendations regarding restitution, which are to be made by a ten-member board appointed by the government.

The board of the Leopold Museum and Foundation will examine the provenance researchers' reports, and the report and any recommendations of the government panel. “If need for action is recommended, the Museum and Foundation will check the possibilities,” Klaus Pokorny, a spokesman for the Leopold Museum-Private Foundation, told The Art Newspaper. “In cases of artworks unlawfully appropriated by the Nazis, the foundation would undertake settlement negotiations to resolve claims by finding a just and fair solution, following the so-called Washington principles,” he said.