The new director of the Kunsthaus in Zurich since January, the Belgian Ann Demeester, who until then directed the Frans Hals museum in the Netherlands, intends to tackle the thorny question of the heritage of art looted by the Nazis during World War II.

The museum, whose image has been tarnished for two years by the controversy over the exhibition of the collection of the arms dealer Emil Bührle who made his fortune during this war, wishes to support "expressly the efforts aimed at setting up, at the level national, an independent commission for cultural property confiscated in connection with Nazi persecution," he said in a statement.

Until this body is set up, he explained, the Zurich Society of Fine Arts, which owns the museum's collection, "will establish an international commission of experts (...) by fall 2023" in order to conduct research on works of dubious origin.

This new provenance research strategy takes into account cultural property directly confiscated by the Nazis, as well as "works of art sold by emigrants in so-called safe third countries, outside the Nazi sphere of influence, for example in Switzerland".

"Our primary objective must always be to professionally verify the origin of our works and to enable just and fair solutions when there are substantiated indications that cultural property was confiscated in the context of Nazi persecution," said the president of the Zurich Society of Fine Arts, Philipp Hildebrand, former president of the Swiss National Bank.

The new director of the Zurich Kunsthaus, the Belgian Ann Demeester, at a press conference in Zurich, March 14, 2023 © ARND WIEGMANN / AFP

"We are aware of the fact that this is a complex and long-term process: each work concerned has its own history, which makes it a special case", he noted.

Renoir, Degas, Monet

The museum will primarily submit its own collection as well as its new acquisitions to the search for provenance.

He has already launched a systematic examination of the provenance of the works in the collection created before 1945 and having changed ownership between January 1933 and May 1945.

"As a museum, we have a great social responsibility," said director Ann Demeester, and "as such, we believe that when it comes to provenance research, a proactive and as transparent as possible approach is essential."

But, she pointed out, "how we react to potential results is just as important as the search itself."

The museum was the subject of criticism during the opening in 2021 of a new wing intended to permanently house the Bührle collection (1890-1956), an industrialist of German origin, naturalized Swiss in 1937.

This arms dealer had built up a vast art collection, some of which may have been stolen from Jews or sold in a hurry by their owners to flee the Nazis.

Two visitors in front of a painting by Auguste Renoir, "Irène Cahen d'Anvers", from the Emil Bührle collection, at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, March 14, 2023 © ARND WIEGMANN / AFP

Until 2015, his collection - which includes works by Manet, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Sisley, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Braque, Van Gogh and Gauguin - was visible in a very confidential site in Zurich, but paintings had been stolen during a robbery in 2008, which had prompted the museum to decide to move the collection.

Ms Demeester stressed that it should be "recognized that provenance research is complex, as each case must be analyzed and assessed separately".

© 2023 AFP