Hugo Nathan

Hugo Nathan (1861-1921) was a German banker and art collector.

Life

Hugo Nathan was a director at the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt am Main.[1]

He married Martha Adrianna Nathan.

He died in 1921.

Art Collection

Nathan collected art.[2] His collection included Dutch art (Josef Israels, "Alte Frau"), German art, with works by Max Liebermann ("Schreitende Bauerné, 1894/95, "Selbstbildnis" 1908, "Reiter am Meeresstrand" 1901, "Schulgang in Laren" 1899,), Wilhelm Trübner ("Kunstpause", "Brustbild einer Frau", "Blick auf Kloster Seon", "Kirchengang im Klster Seeon", "Atelierecke", "Waldinneres", "Vorgang ds Stift Neuburg", "Weg am Buchenwald", "Neustift bei Heidelberg", "Screinerwerkstatt") and Max Slevoft ("Spaziergan"), as well as Swiss art by Ferdinand Hodler (Aussicht vom Thunersee bei Niesen" 1876, "Jungfrau, Mönch und Eiger", "Mönch in Abendbeleuchtung").[1]

In 1912 he purchased Van Gogh's The Diggers.[3][4] In 1913, he lent artworks to an exhibition at the Kunstverein (July-September) entitled Frankfurter Kunstschatze.[1]

Family and Nazi persecution

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Nathan's widow Martha was persecuted because of her Jewish heritage. In January 1937, she fled Germany and moved to Paris, France where she obtained French citizenship. She returned briefly to Germany around May 1938 to sell her house, and was forced by the Nazi government to transfer six paintingsremaining in her home to the Staedel Art Institute. She moved to Switzerland around 1939. After the Nazis occupied Paris in 1940, property that she had managed to store there was seized too[5] She had managed, however, to move some paintings to safety Switzerland. The circumstances surrounding the sale of these paintings have been disputed in lawsuits.[6][7][8][9][10]

Postwar claims for restitution

In May 2004, Nathan's heir contacted the Detroit Institute of Arts after seeing Van Gogh's The Diggers on the museum website. The museum argued that a claim was time barred.[11] Nathan's heirs also contacted the Toledo Museum of Art requesting the return of a Gauguin that she had sold in 1938 to three dealers. The Toledo Museum of Art filed a lawsuit against Nathan's heirs.[12][13][14]

In 2013, Simon J. Frankel and Ethan Forrest defended the museums' use of legal tactics such as declaratory judgement against Nathan.[15]

In 2015, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) criticized the use of procedural defenses by museums and cited the Nathan case as an example.[16]

Lawsuits concerning Hugo and Martha Nathan's art collection

Toledo Museum of Art v Claude George Ullin, et al.,[5]

References
  1. GRODZINSKI, VERONIKA. "FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM AND GERMAN JEWS The Making of MODERNIST ART COLLECTORS AND ART COLLECTIONS IN IMPERIAL GERMANY 1896-1914" (PDF).
  2. Swarzenski, Georg (1917). "'Die Sammlung Hugo Nathan in Frankfurt am Main'". Kunst und Künstler (15): 105–120.
  3. "The art of the matter, p. 101 (page 1 of 3)". Detroit Free Press. 2006-03-19. p. 101. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  4. "International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR)-Case Summary-Detroit Institute of Arts v. Ullin". www.ifar.org. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  5. "Case: 3:06-cv-07031-JZ Doc #: 36 Filed: 12/28/06" (PDF).
  6. "Museums Respond to Biting Report on Nazi-Looted Art". Observer. 2015-07-02. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  7. "KKK, NAZIS' LIABILITY IN SLAYING A VICTORY FOR FOES OF HATE GROUPS". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  8. "Toledo Museum of Art v. Ullin, 477 F. Supp. 2d 802 | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  9. "Family drops claim to two paintings". Los Angeles Times. 2007-05-12. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  10. Micucci, Dana (2006-04-21). "Of museums, heirs and lawsuits". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  11. "REPORT CONCERNING CURRENT APPROACHES OF UNITED STATES MUSEUMS TO HOLOCAUST-ERA ART CLAIMS JUNE 25, 2015" (PDF). In Detroit Institute, the museum asserted that Michigan's three-year statute of limitations precluded the court or a jury from deciding the merits of the case. According to the museum, the claim was time-barred because it had accrued in 1938, when Ms. Nathan originally sold the paintings to the same European art dealers who purchased the Gaugin "Street Scene in Tahiti" painting at issue in the Toledo Museum case.
  12. "International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR)-Case Summary-Toledo Museum of Art v. Ullin". www.ifar.org. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  13. Micucci, Dana (2006-04-21). "Of museums, heirs and lawsuits". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  14. "Heirs seek to avoid legal battle over Gauguin painting". The Blade. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  15. "Museums' Initiation of Declaratory Judgment Actions and Assertion of Statutes of Limitations in Response to Nazi-Era Art Restitution Claims - A Defense".
  16. "REPORT CONCERNING CURRENT APPROACHES OF UNITED STATES MUSEUMS TO HOLOCAUST-ERA ART CLAIMS JUNE 25, 2015" (PDF). This report demonstrates that major U.S. museums have recently been asserting defenses, such as statute of limitations, to avoid resolving on the facts and merits claims by Holocaust victims and their heirs for the restitution of art looted by the Nazis. Use of these procedural defenses is an attempt to defeat claims for the restitution of art stolen by the Nazis by avoiding any adjudication of the substance of those claims. This report includes an analysis of cases in federal courts in the United States, in which prominent U.S. museums (Toledo Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma) have asserted these defenses
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