Second World War

US authorities return seven Schiele works to heirs of cabaret performer murdered by the Nazis

The seven drawings, seized from public and private collections throughout the US, are collectively valued at nearly $10m

Richard M. Barancik, the last living Monuments Man, has died, aged 98

He was part of a group that saved thousands of artworks during the Second World War from destruction and seizure by the Nazis

Statue of wartime code-breaker Alan Turing proposed for London's fourth plinth

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace made the suggestion following a review of LGBTQ veterans' experiences—but critics point out the minister's contradictory voting record

British wartime control tower to become holiday home after £3.1m restoration

Conservation charity Landmark Trust plans to transform derelict building into unique four-bedroom house, due to open in 2025

Courbet painting—seized by the Nazis and owned by a reverend—to be returned to its original owners

The forest landscape, La Ronde Enfantine, will be returned by the Fitzwilliam Museum, UK, to the heirs of Robert Bing

Booksreview

More than reclining women: how Henry Moore mined a rich seam with his drawings of working men

New book uses artist's wartime commission in a coalmine to show his melancholy side and mildly left political strain,

Virgin Mary and Christ diptych, stolen during Second World War, returned to Poland

The paintings, from the workshop of the Flemish master Dieric Bouts, were transferred from the Museo Provincial de Pontevedra in Spain to Gołuchów Castle

London's Wellcome Collection returns remains of death camp victim to Denmark

Research carried out in 2019 helped identify the remains as Preben Holger Larsen, a 26-year-old artist and member of the Danish resistance

Revealed: the hidden history of espionage in Britain’s heritage sites

New film uncovers how locations including Beaulieu, today home to the National Motor Museum, played a key role in intelligence training during the Second World War

Poland demands Russia return seven paintings it claims were looted during Second World War

Putin’s international cultural envoy, Mikhail Shvydkoy, says Poland’s request has no legal grounds

Mediafeature

New documentary sheds light on artist Eric Ravilious, a romantic visionary lost in war

Ravilious was the first artist to be killed on active service during the Second World War

Could one of these lost Van Goghs—which disappeared during the Nazi period—be hidden in your attic?

These five missing paintings might still survive—possibly looted and secreted away

a blog by Martin Bailey
Museumsreview

From cosy to creepy: new displays at Bletchley Park muddle Britain's honourable Nazi-fighting history with a contested present

The museum—set inside a Buckinghamshire country house—has opened its largest ever gallery, called the Intelligence Factory, this week

Has the art market recovered? A deep dive into the Art Basel/UBS report

Plus, an exhibition about wartime hideouts in Poland and Ukraine, and Mondrian’s final work Victory Boogie Woogie

Hosted by Ben Luke. with guest speaker Melanie Gerlis. Produced by Julia Michalska, David. Clack, Aimee Dawson and Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's
Art marketfeature

Jewish icons or anti-Semitic memorabilia? The growing market for Nazi-era artefacts—and the Israeli collectors buying them

On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we spoke with Eyal Ilya, owner of Pentagon Auction House in Israel, about the trend for Second World War artefacts

‘Slap in the face’: Poland passes law effectively blocking Holocaust-era art restitutions

Lawyers and collectors weigh in on new rule that sets a 30-year limit on claims to property that was stolen by Nazis and Communist leaders

When the US was accused of ‘plundering’ Berlin’s museums: new show reveals murky history

An exhibition opening at the Cincinnati Art Museum reveals how 14 major museums found themselves caught up in a “morally dubious” ­tour of Germany's art treasures after the Second World War

Louvre probes its collection for Nazi and colonial loot in massive provenance research project

Museum launches an online catalogue of 485,000 objects while curators comb through wartime acquisitions and works from former colonies

Hunt still on for a Van Gogh self-portrait lost deep in a salt mine during the Second World War

The Magdeburg masterpiece may have been burned at the end of hostilities—but some believe it might have been looted and survive

a blog by Martin Bailey

In honour of Armistice Day, more than 100 English war memorials listed as sites of historical importance

Monuments commemorating the First and Second World Wars—mostly built in small towns and villages—are added to Historic England's list of protected places

Booksreview

Charting a Life: MacDonald Gill, who designed the inscriptions that form an egalitarian monument to the British and Commonwealth fallen of two world wars

The first biography of ‘Max’ Gill reveals the versatile talent of an artist who was a master of lettering and murals and a standout mapmaker-artist

Sculpture by Arno Breker—one of Hitler’s favourite artists—found buried in Berlin museum garden

Missing for 75 years, the large marble head, one of the artist's best-known works, was uncovered by chance during construction work at Kunsthaus Dahlem

National museum in Stockholm to return stolen 16th-century painting to Poland

Officials in Poland and Sweden piece together provenance of work by School of Lucas Cranach the Elder

Code-cracking lot: Second World War Enigma machine on offer at Vienna’s Dorotheum

The Germans believed Enigma was uncrackable; cryptographers at Bletchley Park broke the code, contributing to the Allies’ victory

Executed by the Nazis: the story of Vincent van Gogh’s brave great-nephew

This month the Van Gogh family pays tribute to Theodoor, the 24-year-old student who faced a firing squad in 1945

a blog by Martin Bailey

The cultural consequences of the Second World War carry into today

From art restitutions to how museum adapted to wartime constraints, we continue to feel the fallout 75 years after the conflict’s end

What can we learn from museums during the Second World War?

On the 75th anniversary of VE Day, we look back at how art institutions adapted to wartime constraints, from tours without pictures to child's play

The astonishing tales of how the Sunflowers survived the Second World War

To mark VE Day, we investigate the fate of Van Gogh’s masterpieces under Hitler and Churchill

a blog by Martin Bailey
Booksreview

Book offers broadest and deepest study of Nazi culture yet

This is the first publication to fully examine the cultural output of the Third Reich, which, unsurprisingly, failed to produce great art