譯文連載[附英文原文]：邪魔畫商 (五）全文完

八、完碧難歸 [Raubkunst and Restitution]

   畫作被沒收後，當局請來柏林自由大學“墮落藝術”研究中心的藝術史學家梅柯·荷夫曼追溯作品出處。梅柯用了一年半的時間鑒別出380幅屬於墮落派藝術品，但她明顯已力不從心。這時，一個由設在柏林的淵源研究局組辦，由已退休的前德國文化傳媒局長英格·伯格林-默克爾領導的國際專案組負責接手。伯格林-默克爾說“透明度和辦案進度是當務之急。”這些作品一經鑒定就立即在官方的“失散作品網站”予以登載。在公寓裏發現的最值錢的作品，是一幅從保羅·羅森伯格處被盜的馬蒂斯，估價在600-800萬美元之間（有的專家說一旦拍賣可能會賣到兩千萬）。羅森伯格的繼承人仍有1923年的收據並已向總檢察官立案索取。羅森伯格的繼承人之一是安·辛格勒，她是（前國際貨幣基金總裁）多米尼克·斯特勞斯－卡恩的前妻、法國著名政治評論家、法語版《赫芬頓郵報》主編。去年十二月，德國電視節目《文化》報道說，有多達３０人聲稱認領這幅馬蒂斯，充分說明了羅納德·蘭黛跟我說的，“這些畫作一旦在網上公布，大家就都開始說，‘我記得我叔叔當年有這幅畫哎！’”
    伯格林-默克爾還說，她所領導的專案組直屬總檢察長耐米茲，但並無權要求將原畫退還原主或其繼承人。再說德國沒有任何一條法律規定康納利斯必須完碧歸趙。耐米茲估計其中大約310幅畫無疑是屬於康納利斯本人的，應該立即予以歸還。對此，德國猶太同鄉總會總理事迪特·格魯曼回應說，總檢察長應對此決定三思而行。
    去年十一月，巴伐利亞新上任的司法部長溫弗瑞德·波斯巴克說，“聯邦和州政府各部門從一開始就應該對這個問題的處理給予更高的重視和緊迫感。”今年二月，由他起草的關於更改訴訟時效的法律更正案已被提交到國會上議院。美國現任國務卿凱瑞在猶太大屠殺問題上的特別顧問、1998年華盛頓大會條約中有關歸還藝術品之國際慣例的起草人斯圖爾特·愛森斯代特也不斷向德國施加壓力，呼籲取消30年的訴訟時效。說來說去，如果一個人事先不知道這批作品的存在，如何可能申報認領呢?

 九、鞠躬盡瘁 [To Protect and Serve]

   希德布蘭·葛利在車禍身亡前一年（1955年），在一篇沒有發表的六頁短文中寫道他的英雄壯舉，“這些作品意味著我生命之最精彩。”他回憶起在十九世紀初母親帶他去參觀的首次畫展，那是表現主義和其它現代藝術派的一次盛事。“其作品的野蠻、激情有力的色調，那種原始感，甚至那質地極差的木畫框”就像是給中產階級“搧了一記耳光”。他說他逐漸認識到這些畫作落到自己手裏“並不為我所有，我隻是一片聖地的守護者。”康納利斯覺得自己傳承了同樣的職責，就像父親當年救藏品於納粹、轟炸、美國人一樣。
    《焦點》周刊的曝光文章發表後十天，康納利斯逃過狗仔隊，搭上火車，前去見他三月一次的醫生。據《鏡報》的報道，這個旅程對於蟄居公寓的康納利斯來說是不錯的轉換環境，他對此總是很期待。他提前兩天到，看完醫生次日回來。而酒店是用打好的預訂信，鋼筆簽字，然後將信寄出去的方式提前幾個月就訂好的。康納利斯心髒有問題，他的醫生說最近由於各種刺激情況更不好。
    去年十二月底，康納利斯住進了慕尼黑的一間診所。慕尼黑地區法院派出了一名過渡期監護人，這樣的監護人不能為當事人決策，可是在當事人力不從心、不能清楚了解和行使自己的權利，特別是法律權利時，他會予以介入。康納利斯雇了三名律師，以及一間危機公關公司負責跟媒體打交道。今年1月29日，其中的兩名律師向慕尼黑公共檢察院提出起訴，追究向《焦點》周刊走漏消息因而違反司法機密的泄密人。
    2月10日，奧地利當局在康納利斯邵茲堡的家中發現了包括莫奈、雷諾和畢加索在內的六十多幅畫作。根據康納利斯的新發言人史蒂芬·赫辛格所說，是康納利斯主動要求當局調查這些收藏品來源,以確認其中有否當年以盜竊所得，初步的檢查結果是沒有。一周後，赫辛格公布了新設立的網站gurlitt.info（葛利.info）並在網站上發表以下聲明：“有些關於我和我的收藏品的報道並不屬實，或者不完全屬實，因此，我和我的律師、法律監護人願意提供信息，將有關這些畫作和我本人的討論具體化。” 赫辛格還說設立這個網站的意圖是“清楚地表明我們願意和外界以及可能的原畫主產生對話。” 康納利斯賣掉《馴獅人》並與原畫主弗萊克海姆的繼承人分成，就是一個例子。
    2月19日，康納利斯的律師對當年的搜查及沒收令提出上訴，要求推翻原訴，因為這與當時指控的逃稅罪無關。
    康納利斯的表弟愛哈特·葛利是位攝影家，住在西班牙巴塞羅那。他說康納利斯是“一位獨行的牛仔，一具孤寂的靈魂，一個悲劇的人物。他不為謀財，否則他早把這些畫賣掉了。” 他愛的是這些畫。這些畫是他生命的全部。

    若無癡愛如斯，藝術一文不值。

 圖1：安·辛格勒

  圖2：康納利斯·葛利 - 其邵茲堡家的門牌

Raubkunst and Restitution

After the artworks were seized, Meike Hoffmann, an art historian with the “Degenerate Art” Research Center at Berlin’s Free University, was brought in to trace their provenance. Hoffmann worked on them for a year and a half and identified 380 that were Degenerate artworks, but she was clearly overwhelmed. An international task force, under the Berlin-based Bureau of Provenance Research and led by the retired deputy to Germany’s commissioner for culture and media, Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, was appointed to take over the task. Berggreen-Merkel said that “transparency and progress are the urgent priorities,” and that the confirmed Raubkunst was being put up on the government’s Lost Art Database Web site as quickly as possible. One of the paintings on the site, the most valuable found in Cornelius’s apartment—with an estimated value of $6 million to $8 million (although some experts estimate it could go for as much as $20 million at auction)—is the Matisse stolen from Paul Rosenberg. The Rosenberg heirs have its bill of sale from 1923 and have filed a claim for it with the chief prosecutor. One of the heirs is Rosenberg’s granddaughter Anne Sinclair, the ex-wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a well-known French political commentator who runs Le Huffington Post. In December, the German television show Kulturzeit reported that as many as 30 claims have been made on the same Matisse, which illustrates the problem Ronald Lauder described to me: “When you put them up on the Internet, everybody says, ‘Hey, I remember my uncle had a picture like this.’ ”

Berggreen-Merkel also said the task force, which answers to the chief prosecutor, Nemetz, does not have the mandate to get the artworks back to their original owners or their heirs. There is nothing in German law compelling Cornelius to give them back. Nemetz estimated that 310 of the works were “doubtless the property of the accused” and could be returned to him immediately. The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, responded that the prosecutor should rethink his plans to return any of the works.

In November, Bavaria’s newly appointed justice minister, Winfried Bausback, said, “Everyone involved on the federal and state level should have tackled this challenge with more urgency and resources from the start.” In February, a revision of the statute-of-limitations law, drawn up by Bausback, was presented to the upper house of Parliament. Stuart Eizenstat, Secretary of State John Kerry’s special adviser on Holocaust issues, who drafted the 1998 Washington Principles’ international norms for art restitution, had been pressuring Germany to lift the 30-year statute of limitations. After all, how could anybody have filed claims for Cornelius’s pictures if their existence was unknown?

 To Protect and Serve

Hildebrand Gurlitt, spinning his heroic narrative in an unpublished six-page essay he wrote in 1955, a year before his death, said, “These works have meant for me … the best of my life.” He recalled his mother taking him to the Bridge school’s first show, at the turn of the century, a seminal event for Expressionism and modern art, and how “these barbaric, passionately powerful colors, this rawness, enclosed in the poorest of wooden frames” were “like a slap in the face” to the middle class. He wrote that he had come to regard the works that had ended up in his possession “not as my property, but rather as a kind of fief that I have been assigned to steward.” Cornelius felt that he had also inherited the duty to protect them, just as his father had from the Nazis, the bombs, and the Americans.

Ten days after the Focus story, Cornelius managed to escape the paparazzi in Munich and took the train for his tri-monthly checkup with his doctor. It was a little expedition, and a welcome change of scenery from his hermetic existence in the apartment, that he always looked forward to, Der Spiegel reported. He left Munich two days before the appointment and returned the day after and had made the hotel reservation months ahead of time, posting the typed request, signed with a fountain pen. Cornelius has a chronic heart condition, which his doctor says has been acting up now more than usual, because of all the excitement.

In late December, just before his 81st birthday, Cornelius was admitted to a clinic in Munich, where he remains. A legal guardian was appointed by the district court of Munich, an intermediate type of guardian who does not have the power to make decisions but is brought in when someone is overwhelmed with understanding and exercising his rights, especially in complex legal matters. Cornelius has hired three lawyers, and a crisis-management public-relations firm to deal with the media. On January 29, two of the lawyers filed a John Doe complaint with the public prosecutor’s office in Munich, against whoever leaked information from the investigation to Focus and thus violated judicial secrecy.

Then, on February 10, Austrian authorities found approximately 60 more pieces, including paintings by Monet, Renoir, and Picasso, in Cornelius’s Salzburg house. According to his new spokesman, Stephan Holzinger, Cornelius asked that they be investigated to determine if any had been stolen, and an initial evaluation suggested that none had. A week later, Holzinger announced the creation of a Web site, gurlitt.info, which included this statement from Cornelius: “Some of what has been reported about my collection and myself is not correct or not quite correct. Consequently my lawyers, my legal caretaker, and I want to make available information to objectify the discussion about my collection and my person.” Holzinger added that the creation of the site was their attempt to “make clear that we are willing to engage in dialogue with the public and any potential claimants,” as Cornelius did with the Flechtheim heirs when he sold The Lion Tamer.

On February 19, Cornelius’s lawyers filed an appeal against the search warrant and seizure order, demanding the reversal of the decision that led to the confiscation of his artworks, because they are not relevant to the charge of tax evasion.

Cornelius’s cousin, Ekkeheart Gurlitt, a photographer in Barcelona, said that Cornelius was “a lone cowboy, a lonely soul, and a tragic figure. He wasn’t in it for the money. If he were, he would have sold the pictures long ago.” He loved them. They were his whole life.

Without admirers like that, art is nothing.