from
Catrin Lorch
An exhibition on the life of the art dealer Max Stern has just opened in the Düsseldorf City Museum, who – because he was Jewish – was initially banned from working in the city in the 1930s and then driven into emigration. Via London, where he joined the West’s Galleries founded by his sister as managing director, he came to Canada, where he became one of the most important art brokers of the post-war period. With this Max Stern one seems to have a hard time on the Rhine. The exhibition, which opened three years ago after a first project was canceled, has again met with rejections and criticism from Canadian scientists, provenance researchers, experts and even the Jewish Claims Conference. Outstanding restitutions are problematic; they put a strain on the collaboration of curators and scientists even on the unsuccessful first attempt. And obviously these problems have never been resolved.