Finally, justice for Henri Matisse’s Le Mur Rose.
The oil painting, which was stolen from a rich German Jewish family sometime after 1937 and kept by a Nazi officer responsible for delivering poison gas to Auschwitz, is to be given tomorrow to a British charity that supports medical rescue in Israel.
The story of how Le Mur Rose, or “The Pink Wall,” made its way through the war to France is as surprising as the colorful painting itself and steeped with death, mystery and injustice.
PHOTO: AP
Stolen from Jews, proceeds from the expected sale of the painting will go toward the Magen David Adom network of ambulances, paramedics and emergency treatment centers in Israel.
“It’s a remarkable and in some ways slightly creepy story,” said Stuart Glyn, chairman of the British charity Magen David Adom UK.
He will take delivery of the artwork at the French culture ministry in Paris.
The painting belonged to Harry Fuld, a German Jew who made his fortune in telephones, founding the H Fuld & Co Telefon und Telegraphenwerke AG in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1899, the charity said.
“The Fuld family were almost manic collectors, with the broadest of tastes,” Glyn said in a telephone interview.
After Fuld’s death on a business trip to Switzerland in 1932, his art collection passed to his son, Harry Fuld Jr. The son fled Nazi Germany in 1937, packing the collection into crates, which he gave to a shipping company to transport. The collection never left.
Instead, the Nazis confiscated it. Kurt Gerstein, an officer in the Nazis’ murderous Waffen SS, got the Matisse, either as a bribe or because he bought it, Glyn said.
An expert in decontamination techniques, Gerstein was assigned to the Hygiene Institute of the SS, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. On its Web site, it says he was responsible for delivering Zyklon B — poison used in the gas chambers — to Auschwitz and other camps.
Gerstein surrendered to French authorities in April 1945, as the Nazi regime was crumbling and was held at Paris’ Cherche-Midi prison, the museum says. It says he wrote a report there recounting his service with the SS and hanged himself in July 1945.
French gendarmes recovered the painting three years later from a cache near Gerstein’s home in Tuebingen, Germany, said Didier Schulmann, curator at the Pompidou Center national museum of modern art in Paris. It has been part of the museum’s collection since 1949.
Matisse painted the landscape, showing a building behind a wall, in 1898. The colors are vivid, the perspective a little unsettling as it leans left toward the viewer.
“It is not an absolute masterpiece but it is surprising,” Schulmann said in an interview.
While looted artworks often have complex stories, “this one is particularly amazing,” he said.
Harry Fuld Jr died in 1963 and for reasons unknown willed his estate to Gisela Martin, a woman who has remained something of a mystery in this saga. She in turn left her estate to the British charity when she died in Switzerland in 1992, which explains why Magen David Adom UK is now getting the Matisse.
Glyn said they have not been able to determine the nature of the relationship between Fuld and Martin, why he left her his estate or why Martin in turn made Magen David Adom the beneficiary of her will.
The Matisse is worth a “a good six-figure sum,” but will first be displayed in a museum, Glyn said. He said he’s in discussions with museums in Germany and Israel.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was