Eberhard W. Kornfeld Explained

Eberhard W. Kornfeld
Birth Date:23 September 1923
Birth Place:Basel, Switzerland
Death Place:Ostermundigen, Switzerland
Nationality:Swiss
Occupation:Auctioneer, author, art dealer, collector

Eberhard W. Kornfeld (23 September 1923 – 13 April 2023) was a Swiss auctioneer, author, art dealer, and collector based in Bern.

Early life

Eberhard W. Kornfeld was born in Basel on 23 September 1923.[1] After a commercial apprenticeship with a local architect he started to work in January 1945 for August Klipstein in Bern who headed the auction house Gutekunst & Klipstein dating back to 1864.

Art career

The sudden death of August Klipstein in 1951 was a chance for the young Kornfeld to take over the lead of the house. The name changed from Klipstein & Kornfeld, to Kornfeld & Klipstein and finally to Galerie Kornfeld.[2]

Controversies

Kornfeld was involved in numerous controversies. In 1993 a lawsuit opposed him and David P. Tunick, a Manhattan dealer concerning the authenticity of a signature.[3] [4] In 2017, it was discovered that the son of Adolf Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt had been selling artworks from his secret stash in Munich through Kornfeld in Switzerland.[5] [6] [7] Kornfeld denied selling Nazi looted art.[8] In 2018, the heirs to other Jewish collectors who had been looted, August et Serena Lederer, got a court order to compel Kornfeld to supply information about a Schiele painting they had owned.[9] In 2019 a judge ordered that two Schieles that Kornfeld had sold be restituted to the heirs of a Holocaust victim Fritz Grünbaum because they had been looted by Nazis.[10]

In September 2023 the Manhattan DA seized several Schiele paintings that Kornfeld had sold to Otto Kallir's NYC-based Galerie St. Etienne, "with no provenance whatsoever". After an investigation by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, Assistant District Attorney Edward Smith, Investigative Analyst Hilary Chassé, and Special Agents Megan Buckley and Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations, "all seven drawings were seized and voluntarily surrendered by the holding institutions and estates after they were presented with evidence that they were stolen by the Nazis.[11] The Art Institute of Chicago refused, citing Kornfeld's story that he had purchased the Schiele known as The Russian Prisoner legally and denying evidence that Kornfeld had forged the signature of Mathilde Lukacs on a document. In February 2024, the Manhattan DA filed a 160 page motion accusing the Art Institute of Chicago of "willful blindess" and detailing the evidence that Kornfeld had falsified the provenance in order to conceal the sale of art looted from the Jewish Holocaust victim Fritz Grünbuaum.[12] [13]

Philanthropy

Kornfeld donated artworks to several museums, including the National Gallery of Art,[14] the Norton Simon Museum,[15] the Calder Foundation,[16] the MoMa,[17] and the Kunstmuseum Basel.[18]

Death

Kornfeld died in Ostermundigen on 13 April 2023, at the age of 99.[19]

Distinctions

Literature

Exhibitions

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kornfeld, Eberhard W. in: Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (in German). Oberli. Matthias. 4 April 2017. hls-dhs-dss.ch/index.php.
  2. Book: Fehlmann, Marc. Hommage an "E.W.K.". Kunstmuseum Bern. 2003. 3-906628-37-X. Bern. 9.
  3. News: Vogel. Carol. 12 February 1993. The Art Market. en-US. The New York Times. 10 April 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20150526090905/http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/12/arts/the-art-market.html?pagewanted=2. 26 May 2015. 0362-4331. Sixteen months after his purchase, and eight months after the Art Show, Mr. Tunick said experts who had seen the signature questioned its authenticity. Mr. Kornfeld, a Picasso expert himself, insists the work is genuine. He offered to exchange it for a copy of the same print in his private collection that had once belonged to Nelson Rockefeller and had for years been on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Mr. Tunick refused to make the swap..
  4. Web site: David Tunick, Inc. v. Kornfeld, 813 F. Supp. 988 (S.D.N.Y. 1993). 10 April 2021. Justia Law. en.
  5. Web site: 12 October 2017. Gurlitt's Swiss dealer breaks silence on his client. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20171012142103/https://www.expatica.com/ch/news/country-news/SW-Gurlitts-Swiss-dealer-breaks-silence-on-his-client_1486324.html. 12 October 2017. 10 April 2021. Expat Guide to Switzerland Expatica. en-US. The art dealer and auctioneer, Eberhard Kornfeld, has spoken to the media for the first time about the reclusive Cornelius Gurlitt, revealing details about his trips to Switzerland to sell artworks, many stolen by the Nazis that he had inherited from his father. The 94-year-old Kornfeld said his client made regular trips to Zurich from his home in Munich to withdraw the proceeds of his art sales in cash from his account in order to pay his living costs. In his first interview about the reclusive Gurlitt – who died in 2014, a year after his secret trove of art first seized headlines - Kornfeld told Swiss Public Television, SRF, that he paid Gurlitt in cash or by cheque for the artworks he sold. Gurlitt, who had never had a job, needed the money to live on and to pay for medical treatment..
  6. Web site: Hickley. Catherine. Gurlitt's Swiss dealer breaks silence on his client. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20171012141659/https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/-degenerate-art--_gurlitt-s-swiss-dealer-breaks-silence-on-his-client/43590572. 12 October 2017. 10 April 2021. SWI swissinfo.ch. en.
  7. Web site: A Strange Bequest;The inside story of how a major World War II-era German collection ended up in an obscure Swiss museum.. live. 10 April 2021. www.lootedart.com. Art and Antiques. As Cornelius grew older, he became increasingly withdrawn, spending much of his time closeted with his collection in his Munich and Salzburg homes. To supplement what little income he had, he traveled to Switzerland to sell drawings that he could easily hide in his train baggage. One of his buyers was Eberhard Kornfeld, owner of Galerie Kornfeld in Bern, the most prominent auction house in Switzerland. Kornfeld admitted purchasing four German Expressionist drawings from Gurlitt in 1990, works that the auctioneer said were seized by the Nazis as "degenerate art" from German museums and thus not subject to restitution. Besides his towering stature as a dealer, "Ebi" Kornfeld has exercised great influence at the Kunstmuseum Bern as adviser on exhibitions, fund-raiser and lobbyist. This has led to speculation that he served as an intermediary for Gurlitt in arranging the transfer of the collection to the Bern museum. Asked whether he in fact played such a role, Kornfeld replied, cryptically, "I might have had something to do with it, yes.". https://web.archive.org/web/20150206120317/http://lootedart.com:80/news.php?r=R30U5E722481 . 6 February 2015 .
  8. Web site: Artdaily. Galerie Kornfeld denies 'Nazi-looted' art claims insisting it only bought legitimate works. 10 April 2021. artdaily.cc. English.
  9. Web site: 2018-04-10 . La justice genevoise condamne une maison de vente aux enchères . 2023-11-11 . Tribune de Genève . fr.
  10. Web site: New York's Appellate Division Upholds Return of Artworks to Heirs of Fritz Grünbaum. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200624050235/https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=TQVVSW817241. 24 June 2020. 10 April 2021. National Law Review. Shortly after the inventory, Grünbaum's entire art collection was deposited with a Nazi-controlled shipping company. Documentation as to its fate is sparse until in 1956, when several pieces from the collection, including the Artworks at issue, were put up for sale by Galerie Kornfeld, an art gallery in Switzerland..
  11. Web site: 2023-09-20 . D.A. Bragg: Seven Pieces of Nazi Looted Art Returned to Relatives of Holocaust Victim . 2023-11-11 . Manhattan District Attorney's Office . en.
  12. Web site: 2024-02-28 . Art Institute showed 'willful blindness' in buying Nazi-looted art, New York prosecutors say . 2024-03-01 . Chicago Sun-Times . en.
  13. Web site: 2024-03-01 . Art Institute of Chicago accused of holding onto Nazi-looted Egon Schiele . 2024-03-01 . The Art Newspaper - International art news and events . Investigators attempting to seize a drawing by Egon Schiele from the museum’s holdings filed a 160-page motion on 23 February that accuses the AIC of ignoring fraudulent provenance in its acquisition of the piece. The drawing in question, Russian War Prisoner, was purchased by the museum in 1966 and is one of several works by the artist sought by the descendants of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish cabaret artist and art collector from Vienna murdered by Nazis..
  14. Web site: Spray Can . 13 December 2022 . www.nga.gov.
  15. Web site: About the Collection . 13 December 2022 . Norton Simon Museum . en-US.
  16. Web site: For the Staircase (1959) . 13 December 2022 . Calder Foundation . en.
  17. Web site: Jean Tinguely. Cenodoxus. (1989) . 13 December 2022 . The Museum of Modern Art . en.
  18. Web site: 24 October 2020 . Rembrandt's Orient: West Meets East in Dutch Art of the 17th Century at Kunstmuseum Basel - Alain.R.Truong . 13 December 2022 . Alain R. Truong . fr.
  19. News: Waldorff . Laura . Berner Kunsthändler Eberhard W. Kornfeld verstorben . 14 April 2023 . Derbund . 14 April 2023.
  20. http://bazonline.ch/kultur/kunst/Eberhard-W-Kornfeld-ist-Berner-Ehrenbuerger/story/20322365 Eberhard W. Kornfeld ist Berner Ehrenbürger

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