Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn declared in an interview broadcast Wednesday on Russian television that his political career was over and he was instead working as an economic advisor. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The family of a prominent Parisian art dealer is demanding that a Norwegian museum return an Henri Matisse painting seized by Nazis under the direction of Hermann Goering, in the latest dispute over art stolen from Jews during World War II.
The painting at the center of the dispute, Matisse’s 1937 “Blue Dress in a Yellow Armchair,” depicts a woman sitting in a living room. It has been among the highlights of the Henie Onstad Art Center near Oslo since the museum was established in 1968 through a donation by wealthy art collector Niels Onstad and his wife, Olympic figure-skating champion Sonja Henie.
Museum Director Tone Hansen said it had been unaware the painting was stolen by the Nazis until it was notified in 2012 by the London-based Art Loss Register, which tracks lost and stolen paintings.
She said Onstad bought the painting in “good faith” from the Galerie Henri Benezit in Paris in 1950. The Benezit gallery “has no record of collaborating with the Nazis, as many galleries did,” she said in an interview.
Although the war ended almost 70 years ago, disputes over looted art have become increasingly common in recent years, in part because many records were lost, and in part because an international accord on returning such art was only struck in 1998.
But the case of the Matisse is somewhat different in that its former owner, Paul Rosenberg, was one of the most prominent art dealers in Paris before the war, which he survived by fleeing to New York. Art Loss Register Director Chris Marinello said the records in this case are unusually clear.
According to a biography published by New York‘s Museum of Modern Art, Rosenberg was one of the preeminent modern art dealers of his day, and personal friends with Picasso and Matisse, among others.
Art Registry documents show he purchased “Blue Dress” directly from the painter, having noted the purchase in 1937 and put it on display in the same year, Marinello said. After the war, Rosenberg re-established his business and sought to recover more than 400 works that had been taken by the Nazis.
Marinello showed The Associated Press documents that name the piece now on display in Norway as among those missing after the war.
He slammed the Henie Onstad art museum for “stonewalling.”
“The evidence is overwhelming. They just don’t want to resolve this,” he said.
Paul Rosenberg died in 1959. His family has remained prominent, as his son Alexandre was a war hero and later began his own art dealership.
Among surviving family descendants are Anne Sinclair, the French journalist and ex-wife of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss Kahn.
Another granddaughter, American lawyer Marianne Rosenberg, said Friday she didn’t wish to antagonize the museum, but hoped that it would come to realize that it is wrong in every sense of the term.
The paintings seized from Paul Rosenberg and other Jewish victims of Nazi aggression were taken “under difficult conditions, in a cruel and unfair situation,” she said in a telephone interview from her office in New York. “We honor …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A lawyer for IMF chief Christine Lagarde says French investigators have searched her Paris home as part of an inquiry into her role in a $400 million arbitration deal in favor of a tycoon.
The lawyer, Yves Repiquet (eev ruh-PEE-kay), says Lagarde has nothing to hide and welcomed Wednesday’s search as another step in proving her innocence.
Lagarde was France‘s finance minister when magnate Bernard Tapie won a 2008 settlement with a state-owned bank over the mishandled sale of Adidas in the 1990s. Critics said the settlement was too generous.
IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said the organization’s executive board had discussed the issue prior to Lagarde’s appointment in June 2011, “and expressed its confidence that Madame Lagarde would be able to effectively carry out her duties as managing director.”
Rice declined further comment, saying it would be inappropriate to say more about a case currently before the French judiciary.
Critics in France have said the Adidas case shouldn’t have gone to a private arbitration authority in the first place because it involved a state-owned bank, Credit Lyonnais, and that Lagarde should have questioned the independence of one of the arbitration panel’s judges.
Questions about the settlement began before Lagarde was appointed head of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund after her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, quit to face charges he tried to rape a New York hotel maid. The charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped.
During Lagarde‘s four-year tenure as France‘s finance minister, she won praise for her role in international negotiations during the global financial crisis and Europe‘s debt troubles.
Given the legal troubles of her IMF predecessor, Strauss-Kahn, Lagarde’s contract says she is “expected to observe the highest standards of ethical conduct” and “shall strive to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in your conduct.”
A lawyer for IMF chief Christine Lagarde says French investigators have searched her Paris home today as part of an inquiry into her role in a $400 million arbitration deal in favor of a tycoon.
The laywer, Yves Repiquet (eev ruh-PEE-kay), says Lagarde has nothing to hide and he welcomed Wednesday’s search as another step in proving her innocence.
Lagarde was France‘s finance minister when magnate Bernard Tapie won a 2008 settlement with a state-owned bank over the mishandled sale of Adidas in the 1990s. Critics said the settlement was too generous.
Questions about the settlement began before Lagarde was appointed head of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund after her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, quit to face charges he tried to rape a New York hotel maid. The charges were dropped.
