Taking Stock Gurlitt in Review
Much has happened since the acceptance of the Estate of Cornelius Gurlitt (1932–2014) by the Kunstmuseum Bern in November 2014: in 2017, Switzerland’s first department of provenance research was founded at the Kunstmuseum Bern. In 2017 and 2018, works from the holdings were shown in several exhibitions and nine works were returned to their owners. Since December 2021 the entire holdings of the Gurlitt Estate have been made publicly accessible in a database for the first time. The Gurlitt Estate was comprehensively documented and explored, and the most important assessments and decisions were established in detail. Finally, with regard to works whose provenance was incomplete, a fairer solution for the victims of Nazism was developed, and in a first case put into operation with the voluntary handover of two works. With the large-scale exhibition Taking Stock. Gurlitt in Review, from 16 September 2022 until 15 January 2023 the Kunstmuseum Bern presents the results of this reappraisal.
