DOI article:
Yass-Alston, Agnieszka: Maurycy Gottlieb - in search of identity
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.40996#0123
reproduced. It is a limited catalog providing known information such as title, datę,
medium and present location. What is missing is a continuation of the research
done on the detailed provenance information that Nehama Guralnik started. It has
been almost twenty years sińce the Washington Principles (1998) were signed and
called for signatories, including Poland, to identify Nazi looted cultural property
and restitute it to its rightful owners.18 Of the exhibited artworks morę than half
have ąuestionable provenance, were either traded or collected by controversial in-
dividuals or have uncomfortable ownership gaps. With Polands dramatic history
and convoluted Polish-Jewish relations, the lack of proper provenance research for
the presented works within this catalog is a lost opportunity and an abandonment
of the fate of Gottlieb s artworks, of his patrons and his collectors.
There was a tacit expectation that the museum authorities writing in this catalog
would re-interpret, review and revise the history and trajectory of the oeuvre of
Maurycy Gottlieb through this. Unfortunately the exhibition and accompanying
publication, Maurycy Gottlieb In Search ofldentity did not meet the expectation of
scholars and researchers.
18 http://www.state.g0v/p/eur/rt/hlcst/122038.htm (31.01.2017).
Maurycy Gottlieb. In Search of Identity
121
medium and present location. What is missing is a continuation of the research
done on the detailed provenance information that Nehama Guralnik started. It has
been almost twenty years sińce the Washington Principles (1998) were signed and
called for signatories, including Poland, to identify Nazi looted cultural property
and restitute it to its rightful owners.18 Of the exhibited artworks morę than half
have ąuestionable provenance, were either traded or collected by controversial in-
dividuals or have uncomfortable ownership gaps. With Polands dramatic history
and convoluted Polish-Jewish relations, the lack of proper provenance research for
the presented works within this catalog is a lost opportunity and an abandonment
of the fate of Gottlieb s artworks, of his patrons and his collectors.
There was a tacit expectation that the museum authorities writing in this catalog
would re-interpret, review and revise the history and trajectory of the oeuvre of
Maurycy Gottlieb through this. Unfortunately the exhibition and accompanying
publication, Maurycy Gottlieb In Search ofldentity did not meet the expectation of
scholars and researchers.
18 http://www.state.g0v/p/eur/rt/hlcst/122038.htm (31.01.2017).
Maurycy Gottlieb. In Search of Identity
121