[CPProt.net] New questions arise over the ownership of paintings smuggled from Russia during the Cold War

[MSN and CPProt list (Ton Cremers)]

The Mysterious Malevich Donation 
New questions arise over the ownership of paintings smuggled from Russia
during the Cold War 
By Stefan Koldehoff 

A document that Rosemarie Ziegler has in her Vienna apartment is 27 years
old and consists of only five sentences. Neverthless, it has caused immense
trouble for one of the most renowned museums in Europe, the Moderna Museet
in Stockholm. 


 
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: Black with White Rectangle,
formerly called White on Black (White Square), 1915. 
COURTESY MODERNA MUSEET, STOCKHOLM 
The document is a handwritten letter, dated August 28, 1977, addressed to
the Swedish scholar Bengt Jangfeldt and signed by Nikolai Khardzhiev, the
famous Russian historian of art and literature. The letter names four
paintings by Kazimir Malevich from Khardzhiev’s collection, worth millions
of dollars, and demands that Jangfeldt return them to him. 


Last year, one of those paintings, the 1915 White on Black (White Square),
was donated to the Moderna Museet by Jangfeldt. Another of the works, Black
Cross (1915), was acquired by the Pompidou Center in 1980. 


For several decades Khardzhiev was a central figure of the Moscow
avant-garde underground. He was a friend to many writers and artists,
including Malevich, who gave him paintings and drawings, books and letters.
In the mid-1970s, Khardzhiev and his wife, Lidia Chaga, began to consider
immigrating to the West. “At that time,” says Lars Kleberg, a professor of
Slavic studies at the University of Stockholm, “our department developed the
idea of inviting Khardzhiev and his wife to hold a series of lectures in
Stockholm. It was commonly understood that this should be arranged to give
him the opportunity to leave his country and come to Sweden.” 


To provide funds for his life in Sweden, Kleberg continues, Khardzhiev gave
four valuable early paintings by Malevich to a Swedish diplomat and asked
him to deliver them to Jangfeldt and his wife, Jelena, who would hold the
works for him. Jangfeldt, a scholar in the university’s Slavic studies
department (and today a member of the Swedish Academy of Arts), had
excellent contacts in Moscow in the 1970s and had translated the works of a
number of Russian writers. He became one of the few confidants of the
notoriously suspicious Khardzhiev. 


Khardzhiev and Chaga were given permission to travel to Stockholm, but they
decided to stay in Moscow. Khardzhiev never explained why. But he wanted his
four paintings returned, and he wrote to Jangfeldt via Ziegler, a prominent
scholar of Slavic literature who had studied in Moscow in the 1970s and knew
Khardzhiev well. 


“I am writing to you about four paintings belonging to me that are in your
possession,” Khardzhiev wrote to Jangfeldt. “The person holding this letter,
Dr. Rosemarie Ziegler from Vienna has my power of attorney to immediately
receive” the paintings. Ziegler, Khardzhiev continued, “will carry out my
will in regard to the future fate of these paintings. In case one of the
paintings has been sold, Dr. Rosemarie Ziegler shall dispose of the sum of
money according to my written instructions.” 


Ziegler remembers that when she received Khardzhiev’s letter and his power
of attorney, she immediately contacted a lawyer and, with him, flew to
Stockholm to meet Jangfeldt. “He also was accompanied by a lawyer,” Ziegler
says. “But when I asked him about the four Malevich paintings that
Khardzhiev claimed back from him, all he said was, ‘No comment.’ Again and
again, nothing else. This is why we have not been able to talk about a
restitution at all.” 


In 1980 the famous Black Cross, which Khardzhiev had listed in his letter to
Ziegler only three years earlier, was acquired by the Pompidou. Officially
it was a gift of the Houston-based Scaler Westbury Foundation (now the
Clarence Westbury Foundation), which supports cultural activities in France.
In fact, the foundation provided the money for the Pompidou to buy the
painting, according to sources at the Moderna Museet. A call to the
foundation from ARTnews was not returned. 


In late 1993 Khardzhiev and Chaga did leave Russia and settled in Amsterdam,
and again they tried to smuggle their collection out of the country—with
partial success. It has never been established who it was in the West that
helped them. What is known is that works from the collection turned up in
the 1990s in possession of the Galerie Gmurzynska in Cologne, which also has
a branch in Zug, Switzerland. The name of the gallery was found on a
document in the luggage of an Israeli passenger of Russian descent who was
arrested in 1994 at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow on his way to Düsseldorf.
He was carrying suitcases filled with precious archival material from
Khardzhiev’s collection, which was seized by Russian customs officials. The
document was an agreement between the 91-year-old Khardzhiev and dealer
Krystyna Gmurzynska regarding payment that would be made to him by
Gmurzynska of $2.5 million on his arrival in Amsterdam. Another document was
a draft contract between the two stating that Khardzhiev was transferring
six works by Malevich to Gmurzynska “to keep forever.” Galerie Gmurzynska
has denied playing any role in smuggling Khardzhiev’s collection out of
Russia. 


Khardzhiev and Chaga didn’t have long to enjoy their new wealth and freedom.
Chaga died in November 1995, after a fall down the stairs of their Amsterdam
house, and Khardzhiev died seven months later. Advisers took over the
collection, sold parts of it, and, after the Dutch government intervened,
left the rest with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. 


When the Guggenheim Museum presented the exhibition “Kazimir Malevich:
Suprematism” in Berlin and New York in 2003, experts were surprised to see
heretofore unknown works by the artist. The lender of these works, according
to the exhibition catalogue, was “Private Collection, Courtesy of Galerie
Gmurzynska, Zug.” A recently published Malevich catalogue raisonné revealed
their provenance as the Khardzhiev collection. Five of those works,
according to the German art critic Hans-Peter Riese, who wrote a biography
of Malevich, were among the six that had been promised to Gmurzynska in the
contract intercepted by Russian customs officials, works that the Russian
government still regards as pieces of Russian cultural heritage that left
the country illegally. 


The controversy surrounding the show led Swedish media to take up the issue,
and in February of last year, in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Kleberg asked
about the four Malevich paintings that had been handed over to his colleague
Jangfeldt 27 years earlier. The next day the Moderna Museet revealed in a
press release that White on Black had been donated to it by Jelena and Bengt
Jangfeldt, who had “received the painting as a gift” from Nikolai
Khardzhiev. 


Jangfeldt did not return calls from ARTnews. In a speech he gave at the
museum in January, at a private viewing of the painting, which the museum
has renamed Suprematist Composition: Black with White Rectangle, he said
that Khardzhiev had initially wanted to hand over to him eight paintings,
and he described the scene: Khardzhiev “climbed onto a stool, opened a
cupboard above the door between the hall and his study, and literally
dragged eight rolled-up canvases out onto the floor. Most of them were in
terrible condition, some of them having been used, according to Khardzhiev,
as firewood sacks or window protection during the war. Khardzhiev was deeply
harrowed, almost desperate, and claimed that the canvases were no longer
safe in his apartment. ‘I’d rather burn them than see them fall into the
hands of the authorities!’ he cried.” 


Jangfeldt said that he and his wife decided to take only four paintings,
which they regarded as gifts. He called Khardzhiev’s later request for their
return, conveyed through Ziegler, a betrayal. He saw Khardzhiev in Moscow,
and Khardzhiev again demanded the paintings back. “Khardzhiev was
shamelessly lying to my face,” Jangfeldt said. “The man who once in a state
of desperation had asked me to accept the paintings now wanted to take back
his gift by means of false accusations. It was obvious that this treachery
was the work of his wife.” 


Jangfeldt’s speech, which was given to ARTnews by the museum, didn’t include
a Swedish diplomat, nor did it explain how the paintings were smuggled out
of Russia. 


Moderna Museet director Lars Nittve declined to comment when asked if he had
seen any document proving that Jangfeldt was the rightful owner of the four
works by referring to the paintings as a gift. 


According to museum spokeswoman Karolina Eklund, Nittve and board chairman
Anna-Greta Leijon studied all the papers presented by Jangfeldt before
accepting the donation. “The documentation, including private
correspondence, convincingly proves that Bengt and Jelena Jangfeldt were the
rightful owners of the painting they donated to the museum,” Eklund says.
But the museum refused to show the relevant documents to Kleberg or to
Gregor Wroblewski, a member of the museum’s board, who also demanded more
information. The reason for the refusal given by the museum was that the
documents were Jangfeldt’s private property. Kleberg then pointed out that
according to Swedish law, “documents held in a public institution like a
museum have to be accessible to everyone.” 


At this point, the museum declared that all the documents had been returned
to Jangfeldt and that no copies existed. “The documents and private
correspondence . . . as well as the correspondence pertaining to the
transfer of the donation to which Lars Nittve and Anna-Greta Leijon have
been party, have at no time been put in their charge nor been in their
possession or in the possession of any other member of staff at Moderna
Museet. These documents are, therefore, not public documents.” 


“According to what Bengt Jangfeldt told us,” adds Nittve, “publishing these
documents would make people within and outside of Russia suffer. It would
also have been more comfortable for Mr. Jangfeldt to disclose everything if
he had seen a possibility to do so. But as he did not see such a
possibility, it was his wish to keep the documents we saw under embargo.” 


Asked by ARTnews how he explained Khardzhiev’s request for the return of the
paintings, Nittve replied, “He might have changed his mind. Friends don’t
always stay friends.” 


“Accepting the painting on that very dubious basis,” says Kleberg, “the
museum certified that Jangfeldt is the rightful owner of all four paintings
that Khardzhiev claimed back from him. It’s not money laundering but picture
laundering.” 


But as far as the museum is concerned, says Eklund, the investigation is
over. 

http://www.artnewsonline.com/