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Man Says MoMA's Loaned "Scream" Has A Nazi Past
By
Jen Chung
Published Oct 14, 2012
Modified Oct 14, 2012
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By
Jen Chung
Published Oct 14, 2012
Modified Oct 14, 2012
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A $120 million pastel version of Edvard Munch's iconic "The Scream" will be on display at the Museum of Modern Art next week for six months, exciting art connoisseurs, since the other three versions are in Norway. However, the descendant of a former owner of this version says that the Museum of Modern Art ought to divulge the painting's Nazi history.
Rafael Cardoso, the great-grandson of Berlin banker Hugo Simon who owned the piece in the 1920s and 1930s, told the Post that "his forbear had to sell the treasure when he was declared an enemy of the state and driven from Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933," explaining, "He was living under direct threat to his life." A historian at the Holocaust Museum in DC confirmed that during that time, "Jews were giving up what they couldn’t hide," which is probably why Simon had consigned the piece to a Swiss gallery. The Post reports:
He and his family escaped to Paris. And when the Nazis invaded France in May 1940, they acquired fake passports and immigrated to Brazil, where he died in 1950.
The work wound up in the hands of a Norwegian shipbuilding family that hid it for five years in a barn after the Germans invaded Norway in 1940. The Nazis deemed it “degenerate” art and would have sold or destroyed it.
It’s unknown whether Simon was compensated for the sale of the work.
“The subject was never talked about by my grandparents, but we always knew they had been very rich and lost everything,” said Cardoso, who is now in Berlin researching Simon for a book.
Cardoso tried to contest sale ahead of the auction earlier this year, saying, "It is obvious that Hugo Simon has sold the painting under duress, probably under value." He said that the seller's owner, Petter Olsen, offered to donate $250,000 to a charity of his choice (but under Olsen's name, not even Simon's name), which prompted Cardoso to say, "If they had no ethical concerns, why [did] they [come] at all with the offer?"
The MoMA did not comment on the matter. The painting is being lent by MoMA trustee Leon Black, the billionaire financier who bought it.
Tagged
edvard munch
leon black
moma
museum of modern art
nazi
the scream
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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