Sotherby's refuses to return art stolen by Castro

[PEDRO MARTORI]

 

Subject: Sotherby's refuses to return art stolen by Castro
Date: Thursday, June 06, 2002 1:50 PM


In a surprising article in the New York Times it is reported that
Sotherby's is holding art stolen by Castro (footnote 1).  Of course New
York Times reporter Celestine Bohlen cannot bring herself to say that it
was "stolen" but merely "caught in the Cuban Revolution;"  however, from
her article it is clear that the paintings were stolen. 

We Cuban-American have been saying that for many years, that these these
thieving idiots took everything, and few listened. Darn it the Cuban
government is still holding or perhaps even sold my childhood stamp
collection.

What is so bothersome is that many in the media of this country and
overseas, still are bemused by the "Castro Revolution" and somehow still
feel that all the Cuban government does is justified and excused by the
"progress" achieved (Jeff Jacoby refutes this point in footnote 2).

The idea that Cuba, before Castro took power, was just a plantation not a
civilized and advancing country is still accepted in the media even when
such an view conflicts with objective reality as the existance of Cuban
art so clearly demonstrates.

Not only that but many in the media use every excuse to ameliorate the
impact of what the Cuban government does.  For instance today, Miami
Herald's reporter Tim Johnson --instead of worrying why the tyrannical
bureaucrats of the Cuban government and a senile and increasingly
irrational Castro have biological weapons, and why our government so
unpleasantly caught of guard on 9/11 is not doing anything about it --
instead puts apparently unuttered words in the mouth of US officials
stating in his headline:

"Cuban biological weapons called deterrent, not threat" (compete text in
footnote 3).


Castro, during the Bay of Pigs matter, said it himself "El que vive de
illusiones muere de desenga~nos"

"He(she) who lives illusions dies from learning the truth." 


Larry Daley
Corvallis, OR



Footnote 1. New York Times  web site June 6, 2002

Reclaiming Art Caught in the Cuban Revolution
By CELESTINE BOHLEN


s a young bachelor architect in Havana, Manuel De La Torre used to buy
paintings from his artist friends, members of a small circle later known
as the Cuban avant-garde. "Whenever I had a good commission on a building,
I would buy a painting," recalled Mr. De La Torre, now 84. "When I
married, I wanted to have a good home with good paintings and sculptures."
But in 1960, as the Cuban revolution gathered force, Mr. De La Torre,
married by then, left Cuba for the United States. All he could take with
him was what fitted in a suitcase. His paintings and sculptures were left
in the custody of relatives who later left Cuba themselves, further
dispersing the remarkable collection, like so many leaves in the wind.
Then one day a year ago, Mr. De La Torre, who now lives on Long Island,
was reading through The New York Times when he suddenly stopped. There on
Page E31 was a photograph of one of his paintings, "La Hamaca" by Mariano
Rodriguez, advertising a sale of Latin American art at Sotheby's auction
house. The asking price for the painting was $150,000 to $200,000.
Mr. De La Torre and his family quickly informed Sotheby's of their claim
to the painting (his name was in the catalog as the original owner),
which, as it turned out, had been sold once before by Sotheby's, in 1997.
Startled by the claim, Sotheby's pulled the painting from last spring's
auction. A legal correspondence ensued.
A year later, "La Hamaca" is still being held by Sotheby's, awaiting a
settlement between the competing claimants - a familiar standoff for works
of art from Cuba that were lost, abandoned or directly confiscated as
Fidel Castro's government took control.
Over the last decade, a growing number of these works have surfaced
outside Cuba and been put up for sale. Some left the island via diplomatic
channels, others were exported privately and illegally, and some,
particularly in the early 1990's, were put on the international market by
Cuba itself as it sought hard currency.
As these paintings emerge, Cuban families are increasingly active in
trying to reclaim what was once theirs, in the way that European Jews and
their heirs have sought to recover works seized by the Nazis during the
Holocaust.
Provenance issues in the Cuban cases tend to be murkier than those
involving art looted by the Nazi, given the various and obscure ways
artworks have left the island. And some lawyers say that United States
trade embargo laws against Cuba - especially those enacted in the last 10
years - could add a new twist in cases where art dealers or auction houses
are found to have "trafficked" in works expropriated by the Cuban
government.
No one knows how many legal claims have been brought by Cubans seeking to
recover lost art or how many have been settled privately. But experts
agree that Cuban migrs are now paying more attention.
"There is more information now, with the Internet, where you can find out
where the stuff is," said Nicolas Gutierrez, an international business
lawyer in Miami. "There is more of it coming out of Cuba than there was
before, and then there is the success of the cases where art was
confiscated by the Nazis and the Communists in Europe."
The effort to recover lost art may be the first drop in what could become
a flood of restitution claims if Cuba sheds its Communist government and
moves toward democracy and free markets. "There is definitely a greater
interest in people positioning themselves for the day when the end of this
regime is less remote," Mr. Gutierrez said.
Manny J. De La Torre, 42, the architect's son, said: "My father had no
idea that he could do anything about his paintings. He had no idea that
these things were coming out of Cuba."
The art cases are rarely clear-cut. The Fanjul family of Palm Beach, Fla.,
heirs to one of the great Cuban sugar fortunes, has been trying since the
mid-1990's to reclaim a painting by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida that was
confiscated by the Cuban government in 1959 and, in the early 1990's, was
quietly brought out of Cuba for a possible sale through Sotheby's.
The painting, "Castle Malaga," valued at $300,000 to $400,000, was one of
more than 100 works in the family collection that were turned over to
Havana's National Museum of Fine Arts. In 1994, when rumors spread that
this painting and perhaps others were being put up for sale, the Fanjul
family registered the collection with the Art Loss Register, which lists
stolen or missing works and puts the art world on alert.
Matthew Weigman, a spokesman for Sotheby's, said a client brought "Castle
Malaga" in for an appraisal in the mid-1990's and it was held for several
years. "Sotheby's took the picture to a recognized Sorolla expert, but we
could not agree on an estimate for the picture," he said. "So we never
offered it for sale, and the picture was returned to the client." He would
not pinpoint the date of the painting's return.
He said Sotheby's did get an inquiry from the Art Loss Register. "They
simply asked us if we had sold it, which we hadn't," he said, "and we said
we hadn't. I don't know where it is now."
The Fanjul family has since learned that "Castle Malaga" is being held by
a dealer in Italy, said Shanker Singham, an international trade lawyer in
Miami who represents the Fanjul family in the case. Based on
correspondence with the Italian dealer's lawyer, Mr. Singham said, he
wonders if Sotheby's played a more significant role in the aborted sale.
"We still don't know exactly what role Sotheby's played in this, or why
they can't be up front about it," he said.
Lawyers in Miami who specialize in cases involving the United States trade
embargo against Cuba say that art auction houses and dealers could be
running big risks if they handle the sale of art from Cuba.
Laws passed by Congress not only bar United States citizens from dealing
in property seized by the Cuban government, but also put foreign citizens
at risk of losing their visas to the United States for such activities.
As far as any of the lawyers contacted know, no case has gone to court
seeking to reclaim art with the help of the embargo laws. But Mr. Singham
said that as more cases of sales by the cash-hungry Cuban government come
to light, the option of invoking such laws may become more real.

Typically, as Cubans left Castro's Cuba, government agents would compile
an inventory of possessions left behind and consign artworks, books,
furniture and other valuables to museums and other public institutions.
Several Cuban migr groups have contended that many of these items were
later pilfered and sold illegally. Although some of this has taken place,
allegedly with the help of corrupt officials, many experts say that Cuba's
museums have in fact been very conservative about selling works from their
collections.
Much of the art that has come out of Cuba is thought to have drifted out
of the hands of family members, perhaps winding up in commission stores
run by the government, then being smuggled out by tourists, diplomats or
Cubans themselves.
"There is a very difficult situation with Cuban art, because many families
left their valuables with other family members, thinking the revolution
was going to last only a few months," said Ramon Cernuda, a Miami gallery
owner who specializes in Cuban art. "Then at some point, some of these
people got rid of things. It is a very complicated process - not as simple
as the World War II confiscated material, because it is not as clear-cut."
Mr. Cernuda cited two cases, one at Christie's in 1994 and another at
Sotheby's in 1996, when Cuban families who laid claim to paintings put up
for auction discovered that the works had in fact been sold by relatives.
In both cases, the families agreed to accept compensation rather than
pursue claims.
Manuel De La Torre was unusual because he was a passionate collector of
contemporary Cuban art, which at the time had little value. In 1956, he
showed his collection, which then numbered 48 works, at the Lyceum gallery
in Havana. The exhibition, fully documented, anticipated the boom to come
some 40 years later in works by artists like Wilfredo Lam and Rene
Portocarrero.
Mr. De La Torre lost track of his collection over the years, with the
exception of a few portraits that he and his relatives could plausibly
claim to be paintings of family members, and thus eligible for export from
Cuba. But only recently did he realize just how widely dispersed his
collection was: at least two paintings are in Cuban national museums, and
another turned up in the private collection of Mr. Cernuda, who in an
interview said he bought it through Sotheby's in 1984 for $4,675.
How "La Hamaca" left Cuba is still a mystery. All that is known is that it
ended up in Spain - perhaps by way of a Spanish diplomat, a friend of Mr.
De La Torre's sister-in-law, who was the last in the family to leave Cuba,
in 1973. A Spanish family consigned it to Sotheby's in 1997, where it was
bought by the current owner, who last year consigned it to Sotheby's for
resale.
When Sotheby's was first informed of the De La Torre claim, the auction
house offered to proceed with the sale, retain its fee and put the
proceeds in a special account to be divided later in a settlement between
the rival claimants. The family, noting that Mr. De La Torre never
divested himself of the painting, rejected the offer out of hand, arguing
that Sotheby's had been negligent in accepting anyone else's claim to the
painting.
"You would think Sotheby's would have the resources to do the research,"
Manny De La Torre said. "If they didn't, they are not doing the homework."
Mr. Weigman noted that Sotheby's requires consignors to guarantee that
they have clear title. In this case, he said, Sotheby's tried to further
investigate how the Spanish family wound up with "La Hamaca." "We even had
people sit down with a priest, but we have been unable to cast any light
on how the painting came into their collection," he said.
"The truth is, a lot of people don't have bills of sale for everything in
their house," he said. "We don't settle these cases; we just hold the
paintings."
Glenn Kerner, lawyer for the De La Torre family, said the family was
surprised by the auction house's "hands off" approach. "My client is
disappointed that Sotheby's appears to be indifferent to this entire
situation," he said.
Manny De La Torre added: "We have been trying to deal with this in a
friendly manner. We were hoping to have the painting returned in time for
my father's birthday on July 4 last year. Then we thought it would be a
great Christmas present. Now my goal is for him to have his painting back
within his lifetime."


footnote 2.
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 19:19:14 EDT
From: LavozdeC...@aol.com

Bush is focused on Cuban freedom

By Jeff Jacoby, 5/30/2002

LAST WEEK, in a heartfelt address, President Bush spoke out in support of a
nation suffering under tyranny. He declared that its people are entitled to
liberty, democracy, and dignity, and he condemned the dictator ''who jails
and tortures and exiles his political opponents.'' He called for free
elections and free speech. And he promised that the United States would
continue to press this odious regime to ''finally begin respecting the human
rights of its people.''


But the president's message was more nuanced than a blanket censure. He
acknowledged that democratic reform sometimes comes slowly, and made it clear
that Washington would respond encouragingly if it saw even halting progress
toward liberty and the rule of law. ''The United States recognizes,'' he
said, ''that freedom sometimes grows step by step.''

If Bush's speech had been about the vicious dictatorship in Burma, he would
have won plaudits in all quarters. If he had been speaking of Saudi Arabia's
corrupt theocrats or the depraved rulers of Sudan, the editorial pages would
sung his praises and Capitol Hill would have cheered. But because his speech
was about Cuba, it was promptly dismissed in elite circles as nothing more
than right-wing pandering.

Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota sneered that the president's stand was
''driven by politics, not policy.'' USA Today brushed it off as ''an
anachronistic failure'' and even pooh-poohed Bush's proposal to direct more
philanthropic and educational aid to Cuban citizens. Over at the Council on
Foreign Relations, a font of conventional wisdom, Walter Russell Mead poured
scorn on a ''do-nothing speech'' that was ''not ... very convincing or
effective.''

More hostile still was the Los Angeles Times, which headlined its Page 1
story ''Castro Must Yield to US, Bush Says'' - as though forcing Castro to
bend his knee to Washington, not liberty for the Cuban people, were Bush's
true aim. Below the headline, the Times reported in its lead that Bush had
reaffirmed the American ''economic quarantine'' of Cuba. But there is no
''quarantine''; there is only an embargo on US-Cuban business that leaves
Castro free to trade with every other country on earth.

Reasonable people can differ on the efficacy of the embargo, but surely all
Americans ought to be able to agree that Castro's reign is an affront to
human decency and a blot on the Western Hemisphere.

So why is it that so many critics of the administration's position expend far
more energy denouncing the US embargo than calling for an end to Castro's
repression? The abuse of Cuban dissenters doesn't seem to anger them nearly
as much as the loss of business opportunities caused by the US ban. What
really motivates the antiembargo lobby? A yen for liberty - or for profits?

A few days before Bush's speech, 14 members of the congressional Cuba Working
Group held a press conference to discuss their views of US policy toward
Cuba. My transcript of the event runs to 12 pages of single-spaced type. It
is a revealing document.

All 14 congressmen spoke, yet not one expressed outrage over the way Castro
suffocates the Cuban people. Not one denounced the lack of free speech or the
elaborate network of government informers or the misery that drives countless
Cubans each year to risk death in an effort to escape Fidelismo. Oh, there
was a passing reference now and then to democracy or human rights, but on the
whole the Cuba Working Group seemed to get passionate only when the topic
turned to the quantities of dried beans and chicken legs that Cuba is
supposedly keen to import. Would 14 members of a South Africa Working Group
in the 1980s have called a press conference and neglected to express their
revulsion for apartheid?

At one point Representative James McGovern of Massachusetts saluted former
president Jimmy Carter for ''having the guts to go to Cuba, for standing
before the Cuban government and speaking the truth about human rights.'' But
when I asked McGovern the other day whether he was equally proud of Bush for
speaking the truth about human rights, he pronounced himself ''very
disappointed with the president's speech. It was precisely the opposite of
what the dissidents have asked for.''

It is true that some Cuban dissidents call for an immediate end to the US
embargo. But others call for it to remain in force until Castro leaves. And
still others want what Bush wants - an end to economic sanctions but only in
exchange for irrevocable democratic reform.

McGovern says the promotion of democracy and human rights is the very raison
d'etre of the Cuba Working Group. Perhaps so. But while he and his colleagues
persist in talking about the embargo, Bush is reminding the world that the
real issue is freedom. The polestar of his Cuba policy is liberty, not
chicken legs. When the Cuban people are free at last, they will not forget
his steadfastness.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jac...@globe.com.



<A HREF="www.lavozdecubalibre.com">lavozdecubalibre.com</A>

footnote 3

Miami Herald web site.
Cuban biological weapons called deterrent, not threat
BY TIM JOHNSON
tjoh...@herald.com

WASHINGTON - Backpedaling from recent pronouncements, a Bush
administration official said Wednesday that Cuba's biological weapons
research is an ''effort'' and not a full-fledged weapons ``program.''

Cuba has experimented with biological agents to harm humans, livestock and
crops, but Cuban officials view the research on the biological weapons
more as a deterrent against a U.S. attack than for first-strike use, said
Carl Ford Jr., the State Department's assistant secretary for intelligence
and research.

``Do I go home every night and worry about it before I go to sleep? No.''

FIRST EXPLANATION

Ford's remarks were the first real attempt by the Bush administration to
explain a surprising speech May 6 by a more senior State Department
official, John Bolton, that amounted to a five-star alarm over what he
called Cuba's ``limited offensive biological warfare research and
development effort.''

The speech, which seemed to signal a stark reassessment of Cuba's hostile
potential toward the United States, brought headlines.

In a prepared statement, Ford told the Senate Foreign Relations
subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that the U.S. government has ''a
sound basis'' for making the assertion.

Responding to senators' questions afterward, Ford said that the assessment
that Cuba can ''build the bug'' is based on ''substantial information''
but noted that ``our information is indirect.''

Saying he had been briefed by other officials in the intelligence
community, Ford explained: ``The research and capabilities of Cuba include
work on areas -- biological agents, pathogens -- that could be effective
against people, livestock and crops.''

''I didn't ask them which crops,'' he told Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida
Democrat who pressed for details. ``I'm assuming that they're talking
about those close by. As you know well, both the cattle industry and the
fruits and vegetables in Florida would be clearly at least on my list of
things to be worried about.''

A CAUTION

But Ford cautioned against undue concern.

''I don't want to give you the impression that we are suggesting . . .
that there is a person with a satchel on his way to Dade County or St.
Pete with a bag of biological weapons,'' he said. ``Indeed, if you want to
talk about intentions, it has to do with their fear of the United States
and wanting to have a deterrent, wanting to have something in their
capability that they could strike back at us.''

Ford said Cuba was far from the No. 1 concern of U.S. policymakers keeping
tabs on hostile biological weapons programs around the globe.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the
subcommittee, said he was ''terribly disappointed'' at Secretary of State
Colin Powell's decision to block Bolton, the department's undersecretary
for weapons proliferation, from appearing at the Senate hearing.

Visibly peeved, Dodd said he would provide Powell's department ''with an
equivalent level of cooperation'' until the matter is cleared up.

Dodd asked whether Bolton's speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation
was timed to undercut a May 12-17 trip by former President Jimmy Carter to
Havana.

SEEKING DETAILS

Dodd said he was seeking details of Cuba's biological weapons capability
to ensure that U.S. defenses against terrorism are properly managed.

''If we're off chasing an issue here that is not substantiated by facts,
then we are misallocating resources,'' he said.

In a speech May 11, Cuban leader Fidel Castro called Bolton's assertions
''heinous slander'' and ''a string of Olympic-size lies.'' He said
Washington might be trying to sandbag efforts by Cuba to market its
bio-engineered medicines around the world.

[Huckleberry Hoshimoto]

Is making these pain-in-the-ass posts all you have to do?

Hey, I got the time too !

 

Now GET LOST!

-------------------------------------------------------------

"PEDRO MARTORI" <posei...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:qBPO8.40807$_h5.2...@news20.bellglobal.com...

 

===> Typical drivel clipped

[PEDRO MARTORI]

ok  Johimbo...stick it all in your ass.!

 

"Huckleberry Hoshimoto" <huckleberr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:GWRO8.10451$2e2.3...@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com...