A tragic fate
"The organized theft of fine art by Nazi Germany has captivated worldwide attention in the last 20 years. As much as any other topic arising out of World War II, stolen art has proven to be an issue that simply will not go away. Newly found works of art pit survivors and the hteir heirs against museums, foreign nations, and even their own family members. These stories are enduring because they speak to one of the core tragedies of the Nazi era: how a nation at the pinnacle of fine art and culture spawned a legalized culture of theft and plunder. A Tragic Fate is the first book to seriously address the legal and ethical rules that have dictated the results of restitution claims between competing claimants to the same works of art. It provides a history of art and culture in German-occupied Europe, an introduction to the most significant collections in Europe to be targeted by the Nazis, and a narrative of the efforts to reclaim looted artwork--including Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Camille Pissarro's Rue Saint-Honoré, après-midi, effet de pluit, and Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally--in the decades following the Holocaust through profiles of some of the art world's most famous and influential restitution cases"--Jacket.