Art theft is usually for the purpose of resale or for ransom. Stolen art is sometimes used by criminals as collateral to secure loans. Only a small percentage of stolen art is recovered—estimates range from 5 to 10%. This means that little is known about the scope and characteristics of art theft.
The São Paulo Museum of Art is an art museum located on Paulista Avenue in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. It is well known for its headquarters, a 1968 concrete and glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, whose main body is supported by two lateral beams over a 74 metres (243 ft) freestanding space, considered a landmark of the city and a main symbol of modern Brazilian architecture.
Nazi gold is gold allegedly transferred by Nazi Germany to overseas banks during World War II. The regime is believed to have executed a policy of looting the assets of its victims to finance the war, collecting the looted assets in central depositories. The occasional transfer of gold in return for currency took place in collusion with many individual collaborative institutions. The precise identities of those institutions, as well as the exact extent of the transactions, remain unclear.
Nazi plunder refers to art theft and other items stolen as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Third Reich by agents acting on behalf of the ruling Nazi Party of Germany. Plundering occurred from 1933 until the end of World War II, particularly by military units known as the Kunstschutz, although most plunder was acquired during the war. In addition to gold, silver and currency, cultural items of great significance were stolen, including paintings, ceramics, books, and religious treasures. Although most of these items were recovered by agents of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, on behalf of the Allies immediately following the war, many are still missing. There is an international effort underway to identify Nazi plunder that still remains unaccounted for, with the aim of ultimately returning the items to the rightful owners, their families or their respective countries.
The Bergier commission in Bern was formed by the Swiss government on 12 December 1996. It is also known as the ICE.
Bruno Lohse was a German art dealer and SS-Hauptsturmführer who, during World War II, became the chief art looter in Paris for Hermann Göring, helping the Nazi leader amass a vast collection of plundered artworks. During the war, Göring boasted that he owned the largest private art collection in Europe.
Emil Georg Bührle was an arms manufacturer, art collector and patron. His art collection is now housed in the Foundation E.G. Bührle.
Jonathan Petropoulos is an American historian who writes about National Socialism and, in particular, the fate of art looted during World War II. He is John V. Croul Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Before his 1999 appointment to Claremont McKenna College, Petropoulos taught at Loyola College in Maryland.
Hector Feliciano is a Puerto Rican journalist and author whose book "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art" has shed light on an estimated 20,000 works of art plundered by the Nazis; each one is owned by a museum or a collector somewhere.
Fabiana de Barros is a Swiss artist of Brazilian origin. She is the daughter of one of the most striking figures of Brazilian photography and modern art, Geraldo de Barros, and the sister of the artist Lenora de Barros. She works and lives in Geneva and São Paulo.
Hildebrand Gurlitt was a German art dealer, art historian and war profiteer, who traded in "degenerate art" during the Nazi era, and purchased paintings in Nazi-occupied France, many of them stolen from their original owners, for Hitler's planned Führermuseum and for himself; he also inherited family artworks from both his father and his sister, an accomplished artist in her own right. His collection of 1,406 works reappeared in 2012 in the possession of his son, Cornelius Gurlitt, who bequeathed it upon his death in 2014 to the Museum of Fine Arts Bern in Switzerland.
The Gurlitt Collection was a collection of around 1,500 art works assembled by the late German art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895–1956) which was passed first to his wife Helene, and on her death to their son Cornelius Gurlitt, who died in 2014. The collection attracted international interest in 2013 when it was announced as a sensational 2012 "Nazi loot discovery" by the media as a result of actions by officials of Ausgburg in Cornelius Gurlitt's apartment in Schwabing, Munich, investigating Gurlitt on suspicion of possible tax evasion. German authorities seized the entire collection, although Gurlitt was not detained. Gurlitt repeatedly requested the return of the collection on the grounds that he had committed no crime, but eventually agreed that the collection could remain with the Prosecutor's office for evaluation in case any Nazi-era looted works could identified. In 2014, a new agreement was reached that the collection would be returned to Gurlitt but he died shortly thereafter, leaving all his property - including a house and additional works stored at his residence in Salzburg, Austria - to the Museum of Fine Arts Bern in Switzerland, which agreed to accept the collection in November 2014. Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had assembled the collection, was suspected of incorporating a number of looted items and, potentially, works acquired in dubious circumstances during the second world war and preceding period in Nazi Germany, in addition to works acquired legitimately and/or passed down through his family; the provenance of a significant subset of items is still under investigation.
Gottlieb Friedrich Reber was a German art collector and dealer who was involved with the trade in looted art during the Second World War.
Moïse Lévy de Benzion (1873–1943) was an Egyptian department store owner who built an important collection of art and antiquities. The collection was plundered by the Nazis in France during the Second World War and nearly 1000 items seized.
Achille Frederic Boitel was a French industrialist and Nazi collaborator in Paris during the Second World War. He manufactured aircraft engines, traded with the Germans, and played a pivotal role in a collaborationist art syndicate. He was killed by the French resistance.
Alfred Lindon was a Polish jeweller from a poor Jewish background who became an expert on pearls. He married into the Citroën family and built an important collection of modern art that was looted by the Nazis in occupied Paris during the Second World War. He lived to see some of his paintings returned, although others were returned to his heirs after his death.
Kali (Hanna Weynerowska, born Hanna Gordziałkowska; was a Polish-born American painter known for her stylized portraits. She has been described as one of the most important Polish female painters. She was a World War II veteran of the Polish Resistance Movement after Nazi Germany occupied Poland, when she used the nom de guerre Kali. After emigrating and marrying, she used many variants of name, including "Hanna Kali Weynerowski", "Hanna Weynerowski-Kali", "Hanna Gordziałkowski-Weynerowski", "Hanka Weynerowska", and "Hanna Gordziałkowski", but she signed her paintings Kali.
Franz Josef Weissmann was a Brazilian sculptor born in Austria, emigrating to Brazil while he was eleven years old. Geometric shapes, like cubes and squares, are strongly featured in his works. He was one of the founders of the Neo-Concrete Movement.
Nazism in Brazil began even before World War II, when the National Socialist German Workers' Party made political propaganda in the country to attract militants among the members of the German community. In the 1920s and 1930s, tens of thousands of Germans immigrated to Brazil, due to the socioeconomic problems faced by Weimar Republic Germany and the post World War I. It was this new wave of German immigration that originated most of the Nazis in Brazil, since these new immigrants had stronger ties with Germany than the immigrants who arrived in Brazil in the 19th century.
