Adam Szymczyk, the director for Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens has stated his interest in exhibited the full collection of works from the Cornelius Gurlitt trove at the exhibition in 2017.  “I am not interested in an exclusive or first spectacular presentation but I would like to show the entire Gurlitt estate in the political and aesthetic context of Documenta 14,” he says.  “Our exhibition provides a unique and timely public platform for such a presentation.”  (more…)

A Munich court ruled in favor of the Kunstmuseum Bern’s claim to the trove of Cornelius Gurlitt this past week, rejecting the suit by Gurlitt’s cousin Uta Werner.  Even so, the situation remains mostly unresolved, as the Task Force appointed to sort the provenance of the works have only returned a handful of findings, and several works are already under legal contention. (more…)

Following the death of Cornelius Gurlitt, the works he had willed to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland have hung in limbo, the subject of a dispute filed by his cousin Uta Werner, which questions the authenticity and authority of his will.  “The Board of Trustees regrets this delay, in particular because it will impede the settlement of restitution cases that have already been clarified and endorsed by the Kunstmuseum Bern, but the circumstances are beyond its control,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

The New York Times reports on the private life of German collector Cornelius Gurlitt, whose huge trove of Nazi-looted art, including works by Otto Dix and Pablo Picasso, left him leading a secluded existence in his Munich flat.  “There is nothing I have loved more in my life than my pictures,” he said. (more…)