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A court in Argentina has charged the daughter and son-in-law of a top Nazi official of stashing away WWII-looted art.
Iconic designer Giorgio Armani, who was also a supporter of contemporary art, has died at 91.
The Louvre museum named Bénédicte Savoy as the next “Chaire du Louvre.”
The Headlines
NAZI’S DAUGHTER CHARGED. An Argentine court has charged the daughter and son-in-law of Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien with hiding looted artworks, AFP reported Friday. Kadgien, a financial adviser to Adolf Hitler, fled to Argentina after the war and died there in 1978. Police raided his family’s seaside home in Mar del Plata after a snapshot of a looted Baroque painting by Giuseppe Ghislandi appeared in an online real estate listing for the property and then vanished. In addition to recovering the 18th-century Ghislandi portrait, which once belonged to Jewish collector Jacques Goudstikker, police reportedly found 22 works by Henri Matisse and other art. Their provenance is now under investigation. Patricia Kadgien, 58, and her husband, 60, were charged with concealment, though they ultimately turned over the Ghislandi portrait, estimated to be worth about $50,000.
Related Articles
IN MEMORIAM. Giorgio Armani, the iconic designer long known as the “King,” has died in Milan at 91, according to Women’s Wear Daily. Armani’s influence extended into the visual art world, and in 2000 he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, curated by Germano Celant. That show “marked a turning point in how museums engaged with fashion,” the Art Newspaper noted. In addition to collecting photography and supporting international museum exhibitions, he converted his Armani/Silos warehouse in Milan into a cultural venue that connects fashion and art and houses an archive of his designs.
The Digest
A forthcoming exhibition at V&A East Storehouse reveals that David Bowie’s final “secret” project before his death in 2016 was an 18th-century–inspired musical titled The Spectator. His notes for the project, inspired by the newspaper of the same name that ran from 1711 to 1712, detail his fascination with satire and artistic development. [BBC]
The Louvre museum has appointed Bénédicte Savoy as the next “Chaire du Louvre,” a largely ceremonial, but influential position. The chaire typically gives a series of lectures on the museum’s history, culture, and collections. Savoy is an outspoken advocate for the repatriation of African art to former colonies, and co-authored a controversial French government-commissioned report asserting over 90 percent of significant art from sub-Saharan Africa was located in museums outside the continent. [The New York Times]
Gothic filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is selling off some of the artworks, books, and artifacts, including props and maquettes from his iconic films, such as The Shape of Water and Pacific Rim. Between September 11 and 25, Heritage Auctions will begin the first of a three-part sale from his cabinet of curiosities, kept in his infamous “Bleak House.” [Hypebeast]
What happens when an art auction bidder changes their mind? Cue the “cat” button, named for the often-used excuse that a bidder accidentally clicked on a bid, because their cat jumped on the “send” button. How’s that for the digital-age version of ‘the cat ate my homework’? Read on to learn about one auction house’s solution. [Observer]
The Kicker
“WHAT IS HAPPENING IN NEW YORK?” asks Alexander Herman, director of the Institute of Art and Law, writing in the Art Newspaper. He is referring to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which in recent years has seized thousands of looted antiquities and repatriated them around the world. Herman argues that the office’s sustained actions “deserve further scrutiny,” since “the approach in New York is highly unusual: other jurisdictions tend to honor foreign good-faith purchases and the operation of limitation periods.” Not so in New York, where the DA’s view—upheld in an April state supreme court ruling—asserts that if a work of art was stolen in the past, it remains stolen, regardless of the current owner or how they acquired title. As a result, Herman warns, “all bets are off” when a person brings an artwork to the city, even if it was bought elsewhere in good faith. Will this deter people from bringing art to New York? For most, it seems not. Still, the Art Institute of Chicago is appealing that April ruling, which allowed the seizure of Egon Schiele’s Russian War Prisoner (1916), a drawing the museum had acquired more than 50 years ago and that the court agreed had been looted by the Nazis. “Unless [that ruling] is overturned, many people will no doubt think twice before bringing works to New York,” Herman concludes.