Mission
Painting by Georg Pencz, Portrait of Sigismund Baldinger (1510-1558), recovered by the Commission for Art Recovery and Clemens Toussaint in Germany in 2010.
Gustave Courbet Landscape Around Ornans, n.d.
Painting recovered by the Commission for Art Recovery and Clemens Toussaint in Poland (May, 2012).
The Commission for Art Recovery is a non-profit organization which seeks justice for Holocaust victims of Nazi art theft. We believe it important to identify works of art whose ownership histories show gaps in the years between 1933 and 1945. Once identified, information regarding such works needs to be made publicly available so claimants may easily search for works of art taken from their families.
The Commission for Art Recovery focuses on advocating and helping to institute policy changes internationally. We encourage governments and museums worldwide to examine their holdings in a systematic and diligent effort to identify and publicize works of art that may have entered collections, directly or indirectly, as a result of Holocaust art looting. We actively promote international policy changes through monitoring, research, and litigation. We press for meaningful reevaluations and modifications in the way museums and nations confront the provenance of displaced art so that it can be returned to the rightful owners.
The Commission for Art Recovery works in different countries to determine suitable solutions, legislative or otherwise, to the still unfinished business of returning art taken by the Nazis or as a result of their policies. In cooperation with lawyers, scholars, art experts, and other appropriate groups, we identify the best plans and help put them into practice; then we maintain an advisory role, monitoring progress and ensuring that research results are made public.
Through negotiation, we encourage European governments to put into practice the Principles adopted at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets in December 1998 and reinforced by the Declaration adopted at the Vilnius International Forum of Holocaust Era-Looted Cultural Assets in October 2000.
The Commission for Art Recovery favors amicable resolution of art-ownership disputes, but when this fails we have brought litigation against a government or an institution that is unreasonably resistant to legitimate claims for the return of stolen art.