Hunt for rightful owners as ‘degenerate’ art treasures hoarded by Nazi-era collector go on display in Germany

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A visitor enters the exhibition 'Gurlitt: Status Report' in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday, November 2, 2017. Bundeskunsthalle museum is presenting some 250 art works from the 1,500-piece collection hoarded for decades by the late collector Cornelius Gurlitt, including pieces likely looted from Jewish owners under Nazi rule. Photo: AP

Published: 3:19am, 3 Nov 2017Updated: 5:42am, 3 Nov 2017

Some 250 art works from a huge trove hoarded by a collector during the Nazi era went on display in Germany for the first time on Thursday, as its curators pursue efforts to find the rightful owners of pieces identified as looted.

German art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt built up the collection after being enlisted by the Nazis to sell modern art they had seized from German museums and collectors and labelled “degenerate”.

His son Cornelius inherited the collection, which includes works by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse as well as older masterpieces, and kept it in his Munich flat for decades.

Gurlitt bequeathed the 1,500 works to Switzerland’s Kunstmuseum Bern, which inherited them after his death in May 2014.

A visitor looks at a painting titled 'Portrait de jeune femme assise' (Portrait of a Sitting Young Woman) by French artist Thomas Couture, on display in the exhibition 'Gurlitt: Status Report Nazi Art Theft and its Consequences' at the Art and Exhibition Hall in Bonn, Germany. Photo: EPA-EFE

The collection is now being displayed simultaneously in Bern and Bonn, with part of the latter exhibition focusing on works stolen from individual collectors.