Exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland present works from the Gurlitt Estate

Hundreds of artworks from a spectacular collection hoarded by the son of a Nazi-era dealer will be shown for the first time since World War II in parallel exhibitions in Switzerland and Germany starting Thursday. “Gurlitt: Status Report”, which displays around 450 pieces by masters including Monet, Gauguin, Renoir and Picasso, aims to shed a light on the systematic looting of Jewish-owned collections under Adolf Hitler. The works in the two exhibitions, which run in Bern and the German city of Bonn until March, derive from the more than 1,500 discovered in 2012 in the possession of Munich pensioner Cornelius Gurlitt. His father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, worked as an art dealer for the Nazis starting in 1938. “With these two exhibitions, we wish to pay homage to the people who became victims of the National Socialist art theft, as well as the artists who were defamed and persecuted by the regime as ‘degenerate’,” Rein Wolfs and Nina Zimmer, directors of the Kunsthalle Bonn and the Kunstmuseu