About 1,500 modernist masterpieces, thought to have been looted by the Nazis, have been confiscated from the flat of an 80-year-old man in Munich in what is being described as the biggest artistic find of the postwar era. The artworks, which could be worth as much as €1bn (£860m), include pieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and Emil Nolde. They had been considered lost until now, according to a report in the German news weekly Focus.
The works, originally confiscated as 'degenerate art' by the Nazis or taken from Jewish collectors in the 1930s and 1940s, had made their way into the hands of German art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt. When Gurlitt died, the artworks were passed to his son, Cornelius – all without the knowledge of the authorities. Cornelius Gurlitt attracted the attention of customs authorities after a random cash check during a train journey from Switzerland to Munich in 2010, leading to a raid on his flat in Schwabing in spring 2011.
Police discovered the vast collection stored amid juice cartons and tins of food on homemade shelves in a darkened room. Since their seizure, the artworks have been stored in a safe customs building outside Munich, where art historian Meike Hoffmann has been assessing their origin and value. At least 300 paintings belong to a body of about 16,000 works once declared 'degenerate art', while others are suspected to have been owned by fleeing Jewish collectors.
One Matisse painting used to belong to French art dealer Paul Rosenberg, whose granddaughter is Anne Sinclair, the TV journalist and ex-wife of former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Sinclair and her family have been campaigning for the return of looted Nazi treasures for years. Art historian Gwendolen Webster said the significance of the find was 'absolutely staggering for historians' but opens a legal can of worms, as many restitution claims are expected.
Hildebrand Gurlitt, half-Jewish, was commissioned by the Nazis to sell works abroad but may have collected many artworks himself. Cornelius Gurlitt, described as a loner, may have occasionally sold artworks; at least one painting, Lion Tamer by Beckmann, was sold for €864,000 in December 2011 after the raid.
