Exiled Work of Art / Kidnapped Work of Art: Works of Art Market, Collecting and Circulation during the Second World War in Buenos Aires

BERMEJO, TALIA

The 34TH Congress of Comité International d´Histoire de l´Art (CIHA)

Comité International d´Histoire de l´Art (CIHA)

Lugar: Beijing; Año: 2020; p. 1751 - 1756

Valuing and preserving Europe´s artistic heritage rescued from the destruction and looting of the Second World War was a notion that resulted innumerous auctions and sales of works of art by commercial galleries in Buenos Aires. However, the discourse referring to the role of collecting in such adramatic context stands in contrast with a clear lack of information on the origin of the works that would allow them to be traced back to Nazi looting. Themission to preserve high culture and the sense of inheriting a little European tradition seemed to leave no room for any ethical questioning whatsoever amongthe upper bourgeoisie of Buenos Aires. In to the fiercely competitive commercial market in the import of works of art, a branch of the Wildenstein Galleryopened in Buenos Aires between 1940 and 1941 on the back of a successful history in Paris and branches in London and New York. By adopting well-usedstrategies, the company?s catalogues made their impact by including the names of well-known clients and by featuring pieces from private collections.The purpose of this paper is to explore certain aspects of the first years of Wildenstein?s period in the Argentinean capital, focusing on the exhibitionpolicies he employed to cater for the demand for European art, while stimulating both the material and the symbolic appropriation triggered by the dispersalof such heritage. The aim is to analyze the role of the gallery in that double game of identification and concealment played by a sector of the art world against the backdrop of the Second World War, a game which has in part survived until today.