Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf & the Stern Foundation launch new research project, Nov 2023

HISTORY

Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf and Max and Iris Stern Foundation launch new research project

It was only in May that we reported on the restitution of the painting "Portrait of the Artist's Children" (1830) by Wilhelm von Schadow.

Article in German

Düsseldorf, 23 November 2023: We have just learnt that the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf and the Max and Iris Stern Foundation are launching a new research project. The aim is to reconstruct the transactions of the Stern Gallery in the period from 1933 to 1935. The art dealer Max Stern was persecuted as a Jewish Düsseldorf resident and forced to close his gallery. He fled Germany in 1937 and made a new start in Canada, where Max Stern developed into one of the country's most important gallery owners.

It was only in May of this year that the important restitution of the painting "Portrait of the Artist's Children" (1830) by Wilhelm von Schadow to the Max & Iris Stern Foundation took place in the festive atmosphere of Düsseldorf's Jan Wellem Hall. We received an interview from the representative of the foundation, the Canadian Dr Clarence Epstein.

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ALETHEA TALKS

Dr. Clarence Epstein: “And here we are. The settlement is behind us and is a good conclusion.“ (EN / DE)

According to the agreement, the painting remained in a wing of the Kunstpalast in return for compensation. The case had made negative international headlines in Düsseldorf in 2017 when a local Max Stern exhibition was cancelled by the mayor at the time. The exhibition initiated by the newly elected city administration, "Deprived and Robbed. The art dealer Max Stern" at the end of 2021 was cancelled without the participation of the Stern Foundation. In 2023, everything suddenly happened very quickly and on 20 April, councillor Miriam Koch announced the city council's decision to restitute the painting. Due to a provenance gap that could no longer be closed through research, the decision was made to return the work, according to the city. This decision is based on the fourth principle of the 1998 Washington Conference, which states that in seeking a just and equitable solution, account should be taken of the fact "that gaps and ambiguities" in provenance are unavoidable due to the passage of time and the particular circumstances of the Holocaust. The Stern Cooperation Project had succeeded in recovering 26 paintings that had been stolen from the gallery owner Max Stern.

Pilot character

According to the city, the new project will build on the "Stern Cooperation Project", which researched the history of the German-Jewish Stern art dealer family and the fate of their art collection from 2018 to 2022. The new Düsseldorf project is also intended to serve as a pilot and model for studies on migrant German-Jewish art dealers who survived the Holocaust. The project will be based on the archives of the Max and Iris Stern Foundation.

Thanks to its collection, the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf would have access to works of art by Jewish artists and maintain an intensive relationship with the Jewish community. It would also engage in close dialogue with the Central Council of Jews, the Jewish communities in Europe and Canada and the World Jewish Congress. The project is funded by the German Centre for the Loss of Cultural Property (DZK).