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Swiss Museum Sells Monet Painting in Settlement With Heirs of Former Jewish Owner Forced to Sell Artwork During WWII
A partial view of Monet’s “L’Homme à l’ombrelle.” Photo: Kunsthaus Zürich via Wikimedia Commons
The largest art museum in Switzerland announced on Wednesday that it is selling a painting by Claude Monet as part of an agreement with heirs of the artwork’s original Jewish owner, who was forced to sell it during World War II when he fled Nazi Germany.
The Kunsthaus Zürich said it reached a “fair and just solution” and “amicable settlement” with the heirs of Jewish entrepreneur Carl Sachs regarding the painting “L’Homme à l’ombrelle” (“Man with a Parasol”) from the late 19th century. Proceeds from the sale will be allocated between the museum and Sachs’ family.
Sachs and his wife fled Nazi persecution in Germany and moved to Switzerland in 1939. He was forced to sell “L’Homme à l’ombrelle,” and several other pieces from his art collection, to the Kunsthaus Zürich in order to make a living. “The sale of Monet’s ‘L’Homme à l’ombrelle’ to the Kunsthaus Zürich was the first work that Sachs had to sell due to the acute financial emergency just a few weeks after fleeing Nazi Germany to Switzerland,” the museum explained.
“A swift sale was needed to provide the couple with money to live on, and he was therefore acting under duress,” the Kunsthaus Zürich said. Sachs died shortly afterward in December 1943 and by that point he had sold 13 artworks from his collection.
Philipp Hildebrand, the chair of Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, said: “Of course we regret that this wonderful painting will leave the Kunsthaus. At the same time, this step underpins the seriousness of our provenance strategy and our fundamental attitude towards a transparent and solution-oriented approach to works in our collection in which there are substantiated references to Nazis [or] there is a situation of a persecution-related predicament.”
The post Swiss Museum Sells Monet Painting in Settlement With Heirs of Former Jewish Owner Forced to Sell Artwork During WWII first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
The post Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.