BlogAdventures with Van Gogh
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
NewsMemorials
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
ReviewBooks
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
NewsDiscoveries
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
NewsRestitution
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
NewsArt market
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
BlogAdventures with Van Gogh
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
NewsSecond World War
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
FeatureSecond World War
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
BlogAdventures with Van Gogh
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
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Four North American museums cancel exhibition of masterworks from Liechtenstein’s princely collections
National Gallery of Canada cites use of forced labour on royal estates in wartime
ReviewBooks
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
FeatureObituaries
Obituary: Nathalie Brooke, a leading figure in the preservation of Venice
A remarkable cultural ambassador in London's art, political, and musical scene and on return visits to her native Russia. One of the founders of Venice in Peril
ReviewBook Shorts
This book gives a first-hand account of Second World War art and propaganda
A vivid account of the art arising from the experiences of the artist, George Plante
ArchiveLooted art
Top museums in Europe and North America face claims for Dürers looted during World War II
Poland and the Ukraine both want the Lubomirski drawings back
News
Churchill's 'strongest link' in the Battle of Britain: new museum tells story of Biggin Hill airfield
Bitter campaign against the new museum, comparing design to concentration camp structure, almost derailed the project
NewsRegeneration
From the archive, 1 October 1990: 'We did not pursue any party political nonsense on the Museum Island'
On the 25th anniversary of German reunification, we republish our first ever front-page story, in which East Berlin museums chief Günther Schade defends his record and reveals how East German museums sold in order to buy
ArchiveExhibitions
Bode museum finally lays bare its war-damaged collection
An exhibition in Berlin surveys the ethical implications of restoring damaged art
ArchiveConservation
Fixing - or not fixing - the works in Berlin's sculpture collections damaged in 1945
Should they be left as a reminder of a dark past or restored to reflect the artists’ intentions?
ArchiveExhibitions
Germany’s Nazi past is evoked in Anselm Kiefer’s first retrospective in the UK
Dealing with the traumatic experience of growing up in a nation rising from the ruins of the Third Reich has been an important theme in the artist's work
ArchiveRestitution
The message about looted art is finally getting through as Cambodia is inundated with returned loot
The restitution of Cambodian statues by major museums and auction houses is an encouraging sign
ArchiveNazi loot
Nazi loot claim for Tate’s Constable
Beaching a Boat, Brighton, has been claimed by the heirs of Baron Ferenc Hatvany
ArchiveRestitution
Heirs of persecuted dealer Alfred Flechtheim reject provenance project over restitution claims
The Jewish dealer’s relatives say participating museums are not dealing satisfactorily with their claims
ArchiveFilms
The art of warfare: new documentary on practical applications of art installation during WWII
Rick Beyer’s “The Ghost Army” is the story of the artists who worked to throw the German army off the scent of the real location of Allied troops
ArchiveRestitution
Getty Institute publishes Nazi auction data
Rise in restitution claims expected after launch of online German auction catalogues for 1930-45
ArchiveLooted art
The Dutch government gives up its claim on Nazi loot
The decision not to appeal cannot but weaken its claim to other war booty such as the Koenigs collection still held in Russia
ArchiveNews
Germany supports research into Russia’s wartime losses
Archives of the western allies will be searched for clues
ArchiveRestitution
Ten years after our report, the looted Benevento Missal will be returned to the cathedral
How The Art Newspaper changed the law
ArchiveOctober 2010
The source of infamous forger Van Meegeren’s secret supplies exposed
A Scotland Yard report shows that the notorious Dutch faker bought lapis lazuli paint for his “Vermeers” in bulk from Winsor & Newton
ArchiveMuseums
Oligarch Marek Roefler opens museum in Warsaw
Collector shows off Polish art with French accent
ArchiveRestitution
Books: How we got the loot back from the Nazis
The story of the US Monuments Men
ArchiveNews
Ukraine suffered “colossal” looting during World War II
New research challenges Russians’ claim that they own many cultural valuables from the independent state
ArchiveBooks
Books: French culture under the Nazis
How artists and the arts fared under the Vichy regime and the German occupation of France, 1940-44
ArchiveEgon Schiele
The increasing role of the market in settling restitution claims
Shakeouts of Nazi-looted occurring increasingly in the marketplace
ArchiveFilms
Art in the media: Light and dark after the war at the Ferus Gallery and in the art of Georg Baselitz
Ostensibly disparate films illuminate art after the end of World War II
ArchiveSecond World War
Israel builds first monument to LGBTQ holocaust victims
Work is expected to start next month
ArchiveForgeries
Can past nuclear explosions help detect forgeries?
The inventors of a new technique for dating paintings say it can prove whether a work was made before or after 1945
ArchiveMarch 2008
Two new Holocaust memorials for Berlin
Parliament approves final budgets for monuments to homosexuals and Roma and Sinti people murdered by the Nazis
ArchiveGoudstikker
Successful Amsterdam sale concludes the series of Goudstikker auctions
Old masters, recovered as a result of one of the world’s largest Nazi restitution claims, net $20m
ArchiveRestitution
Amsterdam sale concludes Goudstikker series
Old masters, recovered as a result of one of the world’s largest Nazi restitution claims, net $20m
ArchiveRestitution
MoMA and Guggenheim file joint appeal against restitution effort
They dispute claims made by Julius Schoeps on Picassos in their collection
ArchiveGoudstikker
Norton Simon Museum of Art and Goudstikker heiress to go to court over fight for Cranachs
Marei von Saher claims they are Nazi loot, while Norton Simon believes it has legal title to the paintings
ArchiveLooted art
The German museum paintings secretly sold by the British government in 1946
Nearly 80 pictures, including works by Cranach and Kauffmann, were seized from the German embassy in London
ArchiveBooks
Nazi crime revelations raise questions about the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
The late collector Heini Thyssen forced himself to forget his family’s Nazi involvement, but so did the countries that vied for his and his father’s pictures in the 1980s. This well documented book gives the details
ArchiveLooted art
Revealed: six paintings in Maritime Museum were seized by British troops from Nazi Germany
Last month we reported that a Nazi picture in the London gallery was taken by British soldiers at the end of World War II. We have now discovered that other works of art were also removed
ArchiveNews
Growing evidence that Göring seized National Gallery’s Cranach from its pre-war owner
We uncover the remarkable story of how a US war reporter governed Hitler’s mountain retreat for a day and took control of Reichsmarschall Göring’s collection of stolen art
ArchiveRestitution
Auschwitz survivor wants her art back from concentration camp
Roma portraits were made by Jewish prisoner on the orders of Dr Josef Mengele
ArchiveRestitution
Holocaust restitution: Lack of funding and cooperation have resulted in failure and injustice
A short history of nazi loot restitution efforts
ArchiveLooted art
Revealed: National Gallery’s Cranach is war loot
The painting was taken from Germany at the end of World War II
ArchiveSecond World War
The Bode Museum reborn in Berlin
Works removed on the outbreak of World War II are now back on view in the newly-restored building
ArchiveRestitution
Restitution pledge by US museums remains unfulfilled six years on
Results of survey lay bare how the US fell short
ArchiveJuly 2006
France promised Mona Lisa to Mussolini to avert war: The untold story of Leonardo's 1939 Milan retrospective
King George VI loaned 19 of his best Leonardo drawings to Milan for the most important exhibition on the artist ever held
ArchiveRestitution
Books: The view from eastern Europe on restitution
These essays emanate from a series of Polish conferences
ArchivePablo Picasso
Nazi Loot Picasso case can proceed in California
Marilynn Alsdorf had hoped the case would be thrown out of court
ArchiveRestitution
War provenance art: a growing source of supply in the market
Christie’s follows Sotheby’s and appoints a director of restitution
ArchiveRestitution
Ukraine returns Koenigs’ drawings
But the 139 works go to Dutch State, not collector’s heirs
ArchiveRestitution
Incoming Russian minister dismisses German restitution claims
Alexander Sokolov does not seem interested in returning looted art
ArchiveMay 2004
The US finally unveils its Second World War memorial
It has taken almost 60 years to commemorate the 400,000 American soldiers who died in the conflict
ArchiveRestitution
Russian Minister on looted Baldin collection: “This collection should be returned and we will return it”
A legal loophole may enable the restitution to Germany of a collection taken to the USSR by a Soviet army officer in 1945
ArchiveNovember 2003
Maria Altmann's Holocaust restitution case against Austria will be heard by the US Supreme Court
An American citizen is claiming six Klimts from the Nationalgalerie in Vienna alleged to have been seized from her uncle by the Nazis and then unlawfully retained by Austria after the war
ArchiveRestitution
The Springfield Museum sues Knoedler over spoliated Bassano
Knoedler's poor provenance research led to the return of a $3 million painting to Italy
ArchivePaul Klee
How Paul Klee reached of fulfilment at the close of his career: Exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler
Works shown in Basel reflect how he made peace with the approach of death
ArchiveExhibitions
Weapons of mass dissemination: The propaganda of war on show at the Wolfsonian
Florida International University presents a brilliantly curated tour of the First and Second World Wars
ArchiveRestitution
Dutch government yields Nazi-looted 'NK collection'
Thousands of works in secret collection are now being claimed
ArchiveExhibitions
Pompidou exhibits Otto Dix's inter-war drawings
German realism takes over Paris
ArchiveSecond World War
World War II still rippling in Austria: Restitution fears hamper the Klimt show, and a flak tower becomes a Kunsthalle
Is this the predicted 'chilling effect' on international loans?
ArchiveExhibitions
German prints and drawings from Friedrich to Baselitz and the Manilow gift of post-war German works on paper go on show in Chicago
The Art Institute attempts to heal old wounds with upcoming exhibitions
ArchiveExhibitions
What's On in New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art registers the interaction between design and technology; Giacometti's centenary at the MOMA
How apocalyptic crises in the twentieth century - the endgame - permeated the familiar and the practical
ArchiveNews
Austria can be sued in the US in claim that it forced Jew to give Klimts after World War II
Austria is not an adequate forum to resolve Nazi loot claim, says California federal court
ArchiveNews
Dealer Adam Williams on trial for selling Nazi war loot
The work was taken by the Nazis from the Schloss Collection
ArchiveExhibitions
To see or not to see: Parisian exhibition documents the history of war photography
The Museum of Contemporary History provides historical explanations for why war photographers took the pictures that they did
ArchiveRestitution
Japan returns looted Paul Klee watercolour
A Kyoto museum has accepted “symbolic” payment for restituting a work of art
ArchiveRestitution
Italian embassy in London pursues claim to Benevento missal
The Art Newspaper has tracked down further details of what happened to the twelfth-century manuscript during World War II
ArchiveNews
Germany’s first federal minister of culture since World War II resigns
The deputy editorship of Die Zeit newspaper and a better pension prove too tempting for Michael Naumann
ArchiveRestitution
The World Jewish Congress’s Commission for Art Recovery restitutes works from museums in Hanover and Leipzig
Does this mark a change of direction for initiative, which previously only recorded losses?
ArchiveRestitution
Wildenstein reveal key documents on alleged war loot
While the Kann descendants have solid evidence for their claim, the Wildenstein family are confident enough in their story to share their own documents with The Art Newspaper
ArchiveRonald Lauder
How should billionaire Ronald Lauder be understood; philanthropist, restitution advocate, leader or naive temporiser?
The heir to the cosmetics fortune is creating his own museum and would like to see art returned to Holocaust victims, but how effective is he actually?
ArchiveRestitution
400,000 pieces of Nazi silver loot sold by US in 1950
British and French authorities dismayed at disposals that they considered illegal
ArchiveLooting
Restitution battles rage from Seattle to Paris to Budapest to New Zealand
Matisse Odalisque restored to the Rosenberg family
ArchiveMedia & broadcast
Art in the media: History as a developing process
Lodz ghetto photos found in Vienna; Van Dyck reassessed; Tracey Emin in profile
ArchiveKazimir Malevich
MoMA reached settlement agreement with Malevich heirs
The works in question were smuggled out of Germany during the Nazi regime for safe-keeping
ArchiveColonial art
Books: a selection of the Art Institute of Chicago's holdings
Painting, design, and decorative arts from Colonial times until the Second World War
ArchiveWar & Conflict
Tate acknowledges 'View of Hampton Court Palace' as Nazi war loot, expected to compensate family
An important test case for museums dealing with war loss cases.
ArchiveBooks
Books: Wyndham Lewis and the art of modern war
This collection positions Lewis as an “anti-war war artist”
ArchiveJoseph Beuys
Dia Center shows Beuys taking notes on Leonardo
Beuys drawings based on the Renaissance master’s famous Codices Madrid show revolutionary artist experimenting with the ideas of another
ArchiveRestitution
Restitution round-up: France, Austria, Italy, and Germany
Recent developments in the restitution of looted artworks
ArchiveExhibitions
Picasso's reaction to the Second World War
“Picasso and the War Years 1937-45”, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 5 February-9 May
ArchiveRestitution
Much piety and hot air at Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets
No binding agreements were reached and little effect on restitution is expected
ArchiveRestitution
Austria makes legal amends by passing a bill ensuring restitution
Works acquired in a “suspicious manner” will begin to be returned at once
ArchiveRestitution
Jewish family loses out to Louvre over WWII spoliation case
After an emergency ruling, the Louvre retains five Italian paintings that were salvaged after the war and the aggrieved Gentili family must now await appeal. Meanwhile, the Musée national d’art moderne has approved the return of more works
ArchiveMuseums
The end of World War II for Berlin’s paintings: The Bode and the Dahlem come together in harmony at the Gemäldegalerie
The State Paintings Collection has opened in Berlin’s Kulturforum
ArchiveRonald Lauder
Ronald Lauder returns Nazi loot
1829 Kipresnky painting was taken to Berlin in the 1940's
ArchiveRestitution
Anatomy of plunder: Maurice Tempelsman finds himself at the centre of a scandal over illegally excavated antiquities
Jackie’s companion targeted for buying $1 million of hot Greek body parts
ArchiveLooted art
US museums deny holding war loot
Museum directors summoned before the House of Representatives
ArchiveNazi loot
US Customs seize a painting from a looted collection
The collection was stolen during Nazi occupation of France
ArchiveRestitution
Why did leading US museum director keep mum over paintings stolen from Kassel?
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts and its former director, Alan Shestack are castigated in the press
ArchiveRestitution
Twenty-five Hermitage “treasures” gained as war loot still unclaimed
Watercolours and drawings seized by the Red Army in a Berlin bunker in 1945 have been on show in the Hermitage earlier this year for the first time
ArchiveRestitution
Weimar gets a painting back as Sotheby’s returns stolen Tischbein portrait
“A very happy occasion” as painting looted by American soldiers returns home
ArchiveRussia
Russian Parliament nationalises art taken from Germany
But negotiations continue between Chancellor Kohl and President Yeltsin
ArchiveNazi loot
Works of art stolen from Austrian Jews by the Nazis sell out and realise $14 million, five times the estimated total
Auction was an expression of piety, not of the art market