New State Law Requires Museums to Identify Nazi-Looted Art

MoMA visitors look at a painting by Pablo Picasso, which is included in the MoMA’s Provenance Research Project. Photo by Natalie Demaree for The Midtown Gazette.

Originally published Nov. 21, 2022 for The Midtown Gazette.

Artwork elicits various emotions in different people. But for Judith Evan Goldstein, art is a way to cope with traumatic personal history.

Goldstein is one of the estimated 35,000 Holocaust survivors who call New York home. She said her emotions are stirred when she sees certain paintings in museums that remind her of the war. Because Goldstein is both an artist and a musician, she said these paintings often translate into a soundtrack in her mind. “I hear music and I feel sad,” she said.

In August, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a series of new laws intended to support Holocaust survivors in educational, cultural and financial institutions. Within the legislative package is a law requiring museums to identify displayed artwork stolen during Europe’s Nazi era with a placard or other signage. Though the law was implemented immediately at signing, the parameters of enforcement are not specified and many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown have not yet implemented changes.

“I can’t imagine that a museum is going to put up, as the law said, a little sign that says, ‘this was stolen.’ I mean, that’ll be the day,” said Bette Sparago, a volunteer at the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center and a frequent art museum-goer. 

According to a memorandum accompanying the legislation, “the Nazis looted around 600,000 paintings from Jews during World War II, with the goals of enriching the Third Reich and eradicating Jewish culture.” 

According to Goldstein, “a lot of art was stolen and taken because the people themselves were murdered. Six million were murdered. A million and a half were children,” she said. 

The Nazi-era Provenance Internet Portal, produced and managed by the American Alliance of Museums, is a registry of Nazi-era artwork in museum collections. It lists 16 museums in New York with 2,370 Nazi-era pieces, including the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Advocates for the legislation said many of these museums did not recognize the artwork’s dark history until this decade.

“It’s not just the most tremendous genocide to have taken place, it’s also the greatest theft in history, in terms of cultural property,” said Wesley Fisher, director of research at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and World Jewish Restitution Organization. “This is a good idea to make this known, but the legislation isn’t dealing with the details.”

According to Fisher, the law does not address artwork that isn’t on view, that is on loan in different states or that was looted by Nazis outside of continental Europe. 

“I think this is a statement law,” he said. “It’s a law that says New York state is in favor of people understanding that the Holocaust did this.”

Long before the law, in April 2000, researchers at the MoMA launched the Provenance Research Project on the museum’s website. The spreadsheet currently identifies over one thousand works created before 1946 and acquired after 1932 that were or could have been in Europe during the Nazi era. According to the website, the project is intended to identify any potentially unlawfully obtained works in its collection.

A recent survey by the Claims Conference, a nonprofit serving Holocaust survivors, found New York to be one of 10 states with the lowest Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Gen-Z. 58% of respondents couldn’t name a concentration camp or ghetto, the survey indicates.

“In the 70s, New York state didn’t have anything. A whole group of us really pushed for New York State education, and there is a curriculum,” Sparago said about Holocaust education.

She said that the rise of antisemitism is in part because certain school districts in New York have discontinued teaching about the Holocaust.

For Goldstein, the memories will never fade. “To me, the word ‘war’ scares the hell out of me because I know what it’s like,” she said. 

While museums are still figuring out how to respond to this new law, art auction house Christie’s established its own restitution department in 1966. The department was first involved in the Mauerbach sale, a major auction in Vienna which benefitted the victims of the Holocaust. That team has been central to the resolution of at least 250 claims over the last two decades, according to Richard Aronowitz, global head of restitution at Christie’s. 

“If we have a painting that’s been restituted for sale, we are pretty much going to shout it from the rooftops anyway because it actually makes a painting more desirable because that’s an interesting aspect to the provenance,” said Deborah Coy, a senior specialist at Christie’s. 

While Coy said none of the museum curators she knows have mentioned this new law to her, she does see benefit in providing as descriptive of a provenance as possible.  “A lot of people find it very interesting. A lot of people are more emotional about it than others,” she said. 

The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum did not respond to the Midtown Gazette’s requests for comment.

Broadway is Bustling; Sensory-Friendly Shows, Not So Much

The Lion King billboard on Broadway. Photo by Natalie Demaree for The Midtown Gazette.

Originally published Oct. 3, 2022 for The Midtown Gazette.

Barbara Gold Strate hoped to share her love of theater with her young daughter, but when the 2-year-old was diagnosed with autism, Strate stopped going to the theater altogether. That changed when she found out about sensory-friendly Broadway performances and realized she didn’t have to give up her passion at all.

“I kind of stopped because, you know, dealing with a child with autism is a full-time job,” said Strate. “It was by me bringing her to the sensory-friendly shows that kind of got me going back to the theater with my friends again.”

The Theatre Development Fund, an arts non-profit, has been working with Broadway theaters to provide sensory-friendly performances since 2011. But the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for the organization, threatening the number of performances it produces. Before the pandemic shut down Broadway theaters in March 2020, TDF put on six sensory-friendly performances a year. This season, because of low demand, the organization has announced a lineup of four performances with a fifth one still to be confirmed, raising concerns that the program could take a pause if things don’t turn around.

“Our ticket sales are not back where they were pre-Covid,” said Lisa Carling, director of accessibility programs at the Theatre Development Fund. “The interest is there, the appetite is there, they want to go to autism friendly performances, but they’re not quite ready yet.”

A sensory-friendly performance is defined by the Theatre Development Fund as a musical or play designed to create a welcoming, supportive atmosphere for people with autism or other sensory sensitivities. Certain lighting may be adjusted, the sound is lower, and audience members are allowed to speak or make sound whenever they want throughout a show.

“It means so much to families to be able to come and be in a welcoming, judgment free environment where they don’t have to apologize. Everyone can just be themselves,” said Carling.

Strate and her daughter, Sarah, now 26, are regulars at sensory-friendly Broadway performances, commuting from New Jersey, said Strate.

“We go to all of them. We have tickets to see the Lion King (for like the 10th time lol),” said Strate in a Facebook message.

Strate had taken her daughter Sarah to the theater before the Theater Development Fund’s sensory-friendly performances debuted in 2011.

“My daughter actually attended two shows that were just regular shows. She saw “Beauty and the Beast” and “Tarzan” and it was very, very stressful,” said Strate. “When TDF started doing the shows, it was like a godsend because now she could go to the theater and be who she is, and it was perfect.”

While she’s grateful that these performances are options for her daughter, Strate said she wishes there were a wider variety of shows available.

“How many times can you see The Lion King?” said Strate. “We go to see it every single time they offer it. Now for somebody with autism, that’s great because they love repetition. But for somebody who isn’t autistic—you want to kind of kill yourself.”

Carling said TDF aims to offer more performance options, but the pandemic has set back those hopes because of low attendance at the shows. “Is it crime in Times Square? Is it expenses? I mean, everything’s going up,” she said. “Is it fear of COVID? We don’t know.”

If ticket sales increase this season, the Theatre Development Fund plans to add back a sixth show to next year’s lineup. But if the season goes poorly or theaters are shut down again, the program will be paused, said Carling.

Ray Mercer, is an ensemble member in “The Lion King.”

“Even backstage, sometimes you hear the cast and the crew mention that this is one of their favorite shows that they do every year,” said Mercer, who recalled a special moment meeting a mother in the audience.

“I can remember her face, and she said that she is so happy that we had this performance, because this was her daughter’s favorite show. And she would probably never ever been able to bring her to a Broadway show under normal conditions,” said Mercer.

This season of sensory-friendly performances kicks off Sunday, October 2 with “The Lion King.”