Bowing to demands from Jewish groups and art experts, the German government has made public the details of paintings in a recovered trove of about 1,400 pieces of art, many of which may have been stolen by the Nazis, and said it would put together a taskforce to speed up identification.
In a written statement, the government said as many as 590 works of art could have been stolen by the Nazis. In a surprise move, it quickly featured some 25 of those works on the website lostart.de and said it would be regularly updated.
Until now, officials had released few details about the art found in the Munich apartment of 80-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt, though it was known to include pieces by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. The paintings were found during an ongoing tax investigation, adding to secrecy concerns.
Among the paintings listed on the site were Otto Dix’s The Woman in the Theatre Box, Otto Griebel’s Child at the Table, and Max Liebermann’s Rider on the Beach.
The Guardian: