Events Intro Content

The Commission for Art Recovery helps to provide opportunities for attorneys, academics, and interested professionals to discuss best practices in the efforts to spur restitution. We organize, co-sponsor and participate in national and international lectures and conferences.

The first Provenance Research Training Program workshop hosted by the European Shoah Legacy Institute and the Coordination Office for Lost Cultural Assets (Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg) will be held from June 10 to June 15, 2012 in Magdeburg, Germany. This intensive five-day workshop will provide advanced training in provenance research and related issues concerning Nazi-looted art, Judaica, and other cultural property. The deadline for online applications is March 5, 2012 and further information is available at www.provenanceresearch.org.

In June 2011, leaders of the restitution community as well as government officials, scholars, collectors and other interested parties convened for the first restitution symposium of its kind ever to be presented in Italy. The presentations covered ethical and philosophical issues as well as more practical matters involving such works and their place in the art market. An overview of the restitution experience since the Washington Conference (1998) presented by Charles A. Goldstein is provided in a link at the left.

In May 2010, the conference “Restitution – Where Now?” was held at the National Gallery, London which sought to examine and challenge current responses drawing on the experience of both the UK and the international communities. The Commission for Art Recovery also helped to support a moving performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, of "Defiant Requiem" in October 2010.

In late June 2009, just a little more than ten years after the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, representatives of 46 nations met in Prague, Czech Republic, to discuss developments, changes and recommendations on how to meet the challenges of recovering art and cultural objects looted during the time from Hitler's rise in 1933 to the end of World War II. Holocaust education and remembrance were also prime subjects at the conference, as were immovable assets. The US Delegation was chaired by Stuart Eizenstat and the Commission for Art Recovery's counsel; his remarks are provided in a link at the left. Charles A. Goldstein, chaired a session (Sunday morning, June 28, 2009) on Legal Issues featuring experts from Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Prague Conference issued two statements that can be read on its website: the Joint Declaration and the Terezín Declaration at http://www.holocausteraassets.eu/press/press-releases/. The conference's website provides many official documents; we have added texts of several speakers' talks.

In February 2008, Harvard Law School hosted a two-day symposium on the subject of spoils of war and the legal framework of Russian cultural property. The participants explored the historical context and legal grounds for claims in favor of and against using art works and other cultural heritage objects as items for compensation in-kind. The event was open to the public.

Representatives of the Commission for Art Recovery also participated in meetings in Paris and in Berlin and helped plan a symposium sponsored by the Institute of Art and Law in London in June 2008. Such gatherings are important for the exchange of developments and ideas.