A Swiss artist who is Jewish has written an open letter criticizing a museum in Switzerland for its permanent display of an art collection belonging to a man who supplied arms to the Nazis, saying she wishes for her paintings and sculptures to be removed from their gallery.
Miriam Cahn also told the Kunsthaus Zürich museum that she wants to buy her art back from the institute, which has exhibited her works dating back to the 1980s.
“I no longer want to be represented in this Zurich Kunsthaus and would like to withdraw all of my work,” Cahn, 72, wrote in the letter, which was published by Swiss Jewish magazine Tachles. “I will buy them back at the original price of the purchase.”
Cahn is well regarded internationally as a figurative painter, sculptor and author. Her art can be found in museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York City. She also recently held exhibitions in Basel, Munich and Paris.
She added: “Buying art doesn’t whitewash you. Collecting art doesn’t make you a better human being.”
The museum’s holding of a press conference to defend its position was denounced last week by the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG/FCSI).
SIG/FCSI alleged that the Kunsthaus Zürich and the E.G. Bührle Collection Foundation had taken a “partly irritating and partly frightening” tone about the origins of its collection, even while confirming that 13 of its paintings had been stolen by the Nazis from French Jews.
A second open letter was written to Zurich Mayor Corine Mauch by Guy Bollag, whose family owns a Zurich art gallery, acting on behalf of a group of members of the country’s Jewish community with ties to the art world, according to Tachles.
“This open letter is addressed to you, Ms. Mauch, because we experience your silence as elected mayor and politically responsible for the city of Zurich in the Bührle-Kunsthaus case as deafening and unbearable,” the letter said. “We reach you as Jewish people, as descendants of families who have suffered a lot from the Holocaust and antisemitic official acts in Switzerland at the time.”