“As important a story as this is, why have the Bavarian authorities been sitting on them for two years?” said Anne Webber, co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, a London-based organization which helps families recover art seized by the Nazis. “Bavaria needs to publish a list of these works as soon as possible.”
The works include a painting entitled “Portrait of a Lady” by Henri Matisse that once belonged to Jewish art collector Paul Rosenberg, Focus said.
Rosenberg -- whose granddaughter is Anne Sinclair, the journalist and estranged wife of former International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn -- was forced to leave his collection behind when he fled the Nazis, Focus said. Gurlitt kept the artworks and sold some as a source of income over the years, the magazine reported.
Works by Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Liebermann and Albrecht Duerer were also discovered in the raid, it said.
Drab Block
The apartment building is a drab beige block constructed after World War II. It lies some 250 meters from the English Garden, in the affluent northern Munich neighborhood of Schwabing favored by rich intellectuals, a legacy of its heritage as a hub for artisans and bohemians.
“If only we’d known sooner,” said Asma Omar, a 23-year- old student at the school of dietetics opposite Gurlitt’s apartment block. “It’s crazy that all this art was right there and we’re here every day. I mean, a billion euros of art with all the history that goes with it? Astonishing.”