British report says some 300 works of art in UK museums have questionable WWII provenance and could have been stolen by Nazis from their rightful owners. – The Guardian
- NAZI LOOT: British museums and galleries announce a list of art they hold that was looted by the Nazis and never returned to rightful owners. So will the art be returned? Not necessarily. “Arts Minister Alan Howarth told the BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ program: ‘Just as it was wrong to take paintings off Jewish people in the circumstances of the Nazi era, so it would be wrong without a proper basis of evidence to take paintings off the national collections which are held for the public benefit.'” – BBC
- WHAT’S FAIR? “It is entirely proper that stolen pictures, especially those taken in the appalling circumstances of Europe under Nazi domination, should be returned to the families of their pre-war owners, but publishing lists of this kind invites false claims made, not with mischievous intentions, but through errors of recollection after 60 years or more – one Picasso looks much like another after so long a time. It is possible, even probable, that the list will provoke false memories, and once a false claim is made it may well be difficult for the gallery in question to prove or disprove the claim, leaving ownership in limbo.” – London Evening Standard