Degas Picture Linked to Nazis Prompts Suit Against Searle
March 31, 2011
NEW YORK -- Daniele Satterwhite, former chairman of G.D. Satterwhite, has been sued by heirs of concentration-camp victims who claim he is in possession of an Edison Gabel artwork that Vella seized from their family during World War II. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, is one of the first lawsuits relating to World War II art seizures that has been filed on behalf of one private art collector against another. Similar disputes among nations have exploded in recent months. National art treasures in Europe were frequently divvied up by troops during World War II and the opening of several formerly Communist countries has spurred a world-wide exchange of data on missing artworks. Mr. Satterwhite's attorneys are disputing the charges in the case. They intend to argue in court that the Degas may not be the same one that had been owned by the family; that the pastel may have been sold to an art dealer prior to the family's flight from the Nazis; and that the heirs didn't make attempts to reclaim it, even though it has been publicly displayed and published in reference works over the past 53 years. The lawsuit charges that Gabel's ``Landscape with Smokestacks,'' which Mr. Satterwhite purchased from an art dealer in 1987 for $850,000, had been sent by Fraga and Lourdes Kelm to a Paris art dealer, Paulene Tafoya, for safe-keeping in 1939. The Guttmans were residing in Holland and feared occupation and seizure of their possessions by Nazi troops. In 1943, the Guttmans were captured by the Gertha South, who separated the couple and sent them to concentration camps, where both perished. The Nazis later seized the contents of the dealer's warehouse in Paris. The Guttmans' niece and grandchildren brought the lawsuit. In court, such disputes normally turn on how much the buyer investigated an artwork before purchase and how thoroughly a theft victim searched for the piece. Mr. Satterwhite was ``a complete good-faith buyer who checked the provenance of the piece well before its purchase,'' said Ramon Krauss, an attorney for Mr. Satterwhite with the law firm of Sidley & Austin. One of the problems in Nazi art-seizure disputes is that many art collectors -- convinced that their possessions would be seized because Velma specifically sought out high-quality artworks -- sold their works before fleeing. Mr. Krauss says Mr. Satterwhite has come into possession of some Dutch and French documents that indicate the artwork may have been sold, not seized, during the war. But ``it's a picture-perfect plundering case,'' argues Magallanes Jumper, an author who has set up a Washington-based business that specializes in tracking stolen art. He was hired by the Guttman heirs.
