YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: ART-ANTIQUES-AND-COLLECTIBLES: ...

COLLECTIBLES: Plundering Art While the strategy and tactics of warfare changed significantly throughout the centuries in response to technological and cultural developments, one rule had remained constant--"To the victor belong the spoils." Though the acquisition of loot was no longer the primary motivation for engaging in warfare, the seizure of the cultural treasures of a conquered nation--whether by individual soldiers looking for trophies or as part of an officially sanctioned plan--remained a common occurrence during conflicts taking place in the 20th century. As events in 1995 demonstrated, the question of whether such plunder should remain with the captors or be returned to its original owners had yet to be satisfactorily resolved. During World War II both the Soviet and German armies employed special "trophy brigades," whose main purpose was to seize paintings, sculpture, and other cultural artifacts taken from conquered nations. The Germans, in keeping with the Nazi disdain for non-German culture, destroyed much of the art seized in the countries they overran. The Soviets, however, kept many of the cultural treasures that they had confiscated. An estimated 24,000 works of art from private collections were looted by German forces during World War II, and the defeat of Germany and its subsequent partition led to situations of Byzantine complexity. The Soviets seized art that the Nazis had stolen from occupied countries, for example, and then returned it to the East German government. In March 1995 an exhibition at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg captivated the attention of the art world. Entitled "Hidden Treasures Revealed," the exhibition featured 74 masterworks by such artists as Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, and Henri Matisse. These paintings had not been viewed publicly for more than 50 years and had been stored undisturbed since the end of World War II, when the Soviet army seized them from German museums and private collectors. Amazingly, the Hermitage's director, Mikhail Pyotrovsky--whose father had served as museum director for 26 years--had no knowledge of the paintings until 1991. The existence of some of the paintings was first revealed in 1993, when the Hermitage reached an agreement with the heirs of German collector Otto Gerstenberg, whose collection included the Degas masterpiece Place de la Concorde, one of the standouts of the Hermitage exhibit. The Hermitage agreed to return half of Gerstenberg's collection, including Place de la Concorde, to his heirs. The return of the art, however, was still contingent upon the approval of the Russian government, and many Russians felt that the collection should remain in Russia as reparation for the damage and suffering inflicted upon the Russian people in World War II and as a replacement for Russian art destroyed by the Germans during the war. At the end of 1995 the collection remained in Russian hands, and the controversy over the rightful ownership of plundered art was left unresolved. (JOHN H. MATHEWS) NUMISMATICS Coin collectors searched their pocket change for 1995 Lincoln cents with doubled lettering on the "head side"--the most widely publicized U.S. Mint error in several years. Some dealers paid $150 or more for the coin soon after the mistake was discovered in February, but prices dropped after thousands of the cents turned up in circulation. All of the errors were created by one malformed die in Philadelphia. Overall, the U.S. Mint was expected to produce about 19.5 billion coins in 1995--nearly 25% more than it made just two years earlier and almost even with the production record of 1982--as a growing economy fueled demand. At congressional hearings in May and July, coinage experts debated proposed legislation that would force the U.S. government to replace dollar bills with $1 coins. Proponents argued that coins would reduce the cost of making money because they would last 30 years as opposed to $1 bills, which were estimated to wear out in less than 18 months. Others contended that the public would not support a switch. U.S. Mint Director Philip N. Diehl announced in May that the U.S. Treasury opposed a change, in part because he said savings estimates were exaggerated. Meanwhile, Treasury officials prepared for the 1996 debut of restyled $100 notes that would be more difficult to counterfeit. The new bills would include an enlarged, off-centre portrait and some colour-shifting ink, the first extensive U.S. currency redesign since the 1920s. Tajikistan became the last of the republics of the former Soviet Union to issue its own money, a ruble note dated 1994, and Georgia replaced monetary coupons with a new national currency, the lari. On January 1 the National Bank of Poland introduced a revalued zloty--worth 10,000 times more than the old zloty--to keep up with inflation. Several countries minted coins commemorating the end of World War II and the 50th anniversary of the UN, while Denmark, Norway, and Sweden marked the 1,000th anniversary of coinage in their respective countries. During 1995 the U.S. Mint sold several types of commemorative coins to collectors amid growing complaints about rising prices and the large number of new issues. The most controversial was a silver dollar that raised money for the 1995 Special Olympics World Games. It featured the profile of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of former president John F. Kennedy and founder of the Special Olympics movement. She became the first living woman and just the fifth living American to have been depicted on a U.S. coin. Even though four others (Alabama Gov. Thomas E. Kilby, U.S. Pres. Calvin Coolidge, Virginia Sen. Carter Glass, and Arkansas Sen. Joseph T. Robinson) had been so honoured, a Mint advisory committee recommended that the Shriver motif be rejected because no living person should appear on a coin. In 1994 the worldwide market for gold bullion coins was the lowest in two decades, and sales in the first half of 1995 remained at depressed levels. According to a Coin World survey that tracked 16,576 coin values, U.S. rare-coin prices edged up 2.9% in the 12 months ended August 31. One of about 10 known 1870-S silver dollars, which had been part of the James A. Stack, Sr., collection since 1944, commanded $462,000 in a March auction. Three months later a 1927-D $20 gold piece sold for $390,500 at auction and a 1927-S $20 gold piece brought $181,500; both coins had been owned by the Museum of Connecticut History. A Spanish gold coin minted between 1469 and 1504 in Seville went for $364,550 in January, reportedly a record auction price for a medieval coin. (ROGER BOYE) This updates the article coin. PHILATELY Renewed efforts in Great Britain to promote stamp collecting among the general public included an initial donation of 60,000 from Royal Mail National to support the British Philatelic Trust's Strategic Plan, including the appointment of a full-time coordinator. Meanwhile, the 1995 market for major collections and single rarities of stamps and postal history continued to gain strength. In September, Royal Mail deepened its commitment by announcing that it was "championing" the international Stamp World exhibition that would be held at Earls Court, London, in the year 2000. In July the "Rare Stamps of the World" exhibition was held at Claridge's Hotel, London, and showcased exhibits from the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, the National Postal Museum, and private collections from Britain, the U.S., and South Africa. Highlighted were the unique Swedish 3-skilling error of colour, a Mauritius 1847 1d "Post Office" on cover (sold late in 1993 for 900,000), and the Cape of Good Hope 1861 "Woodblock" 4d red error of colour. In May both Christie's and Sotheby's held auctions in Hong Kong, with respective sales totaling HK$13,151,035 ( 1,051,914) and HK$5,273,555 (421,817). Top prices included HK$735,000 ( 58,790) for a Hong Kong 1882 2 cents rose (S.G. 32b--only six were known to exist) and HK$276,000 ( 22,076) for a mint example of China's 8 fen Cultural Revolution stamp that was "prepared but not officially issued." This Far Eastern philatelic activity was followed in September by the first, and enormously successful, international stamp exhibition held in Singapore. It was there that the Feldman Group, based in Zrich, Switz., established David Feldman Pte. Ltd. to handle its fast-developing Far East business. In New York City, Sotheby's sold the Koenig collection of Mexico for $565,783; the 1921 10 centavos blue and brown inverted centre brought $25,300, three times the estimate. Sotheby's in London sold the famous France 1849 unused 40 centimes orange strip of five with retouched "4" on two stamps (ex-Ferrari) for a record 34,000, more than double the estimate. Collections sold in London by Phillips included the George Hollings Belgium for 164,012, double the estimate, and the R.P. Towers Grenada for 104,493. In London, Frank Staff's collection of Treasury Essays 1839-40 (the most extensive collection held in private hands) made 120,000 at Christie's. Included in that sale was a cover with both the black and red Chalmers essays, which brought 16,000. Cavendish Philatelic Auctions (Derby, England) sold Staff's philatelic ephemera and library for 172,700. Top price at that sale was a record 3,080 for a privately produced Valentine of 1805. Christie's in Zrich sold the Rudi Oppenheimer Bavaria collection for Sw F 1,178,925 (624,830) and the second part of the Gary Ryan Hungary collection for Sw F 762,600 (404,178). Outstanding individual items included the Bavarian entire letter franked with an 1862 1Kr yellow and 1Kr rose, which brought Sw F 11,500 (6,097), and a single Hungary 1867 3Kr red error of colour, which fetched Sw F 63,250 (33,536). The most remarkable "find" of the year was a House of Lords envelope, which was discovered between some worthless modern stationery that lined a dog basket. The envelope, which was addressed by the Duke of Wellington and postmarked Feb. 13, 1840, commanded 11,000 at Sotheby's in London. After serving 27 years as keeper of the Royal Philatelic Collection, John Marriott retired in September and was knighted by the queen. He was succeeded by Charles Goodwyn, most recent past president of the Royal Philatelic Society, London. (KENNETH F. CHAPMAN) PHOTOGRAPHY The purchase in 1995 of the huge Bettmann Archive by software billionaire Bill Gates underscored a potentially revolutionary trend taking place in museums, archives, and libraries: the conversion of visual images to digitized form for electronic storage, access, and distribution. Gates's privately owned company, Corbis Corp., also had acquired electronic rights to 500,000 images, including work from individual photographers and art from the National Gallery of London, the Philadelphia Museum, and the Barnes Foundation. The Bettmann Archive--established in the 1930s by Otto L. Bettmann, who fled to New York from Hitler's Germany with $5 in cash and two steamer trunks of images on 35-mm film--now housed some 16 million images that, taken together, constituted an unmatched visual chronicle of the 20th century. The acquisition of this collection placed Gates at the forefront of photographic image digitization for use by new electronic imaging and communications technologies. An exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif., "Vision in Motion: The Photographs of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy," celebrated the centennial of the birth of this protean photographer, painter, filmmaker, and designer, who had powerfully influenced modern art in Europe and the United States between World Wars I and II. Some 50 vintage photograms (camera images and photographic collages made in Germany between 1923 and 1930) displayed his dynamic structures disciplined by elegant formalism. "An American Century of Photography from Dry Point to Digital" traveled to several venues and surveyed a familiar field but gave an unusually fresh and lively historical look at American photography from the mid 1880s to the early 1990s. More than 300 works, including many rare, less well-known, or virtually forgotten images, were selected from the notable Hallmark Photographic Collection of some 2,600 prints taken by 400 photographers. Another traveling exhibition, "The Garden of Earthly Delights: Photographs by Edward Weston and Robert Mapplethorpe," provoked controversy with its pairings for comparison of 82 prints by these two photographers. Though each artist was a rebel and a sensualist, some questioned whether they shared a common vision, as the exhibition seemed to suggest. Some critics, however, found a striking commonality of perception and style in the paired portraits, nudes, and erotic shapes of plant life. Others found the attempt superficial and unconvincing, arguing that the photographic genres for which each man was famous--landscapes for Weston and homoerotic images for Mapplethorpe--were too unalike for paired comparison. "Dirty Windows," an exhibition by Merry Alpern, tested the limits of artistic expression, with photographs that some felt bordered on the merely sensational or pornographic. By photographing across an air shaft through the grimy window of a Manhattan sex-club bathroom, Alpern framed anonymous yet startling fragments showing sexual encounters and drug transactions taking place there. Though her project was selected to receive a grant by a peer-review panel of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Council on the Arts, which reviews such recommendations, rejected it. Collectors, galleries, and leading museums were quick to acquire her pictures, however, which also appeared in book form. News of a rare daguerreotype unveiled by Sotheby's created a stir among collectors and aficionados of such works. Made in 1846 and tentatively attributed to early American photographer John Plumbe, Jr., the half-plate daguerreotype depicts the U.S. Capitol building with the Bullfinch-designed dome that replaced the original destroyed by fire during the War of 1812. Rumoured to have been purchased in the 1960s for about $5, it was estimated by Sotheby's to be worth between $100,000 and $150,000. The 1995 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography was awarded to Carol Guzy of the Washington (D.C.) Post for her series of photographs illustrating the Haitian crisis. For their coverage of Rwanda, the Pulitzer for feature photography went to four Associated Press photographers: Jacqueline Artz, Javier Bauluz, Jean-Marc Bouju, and Karsten Thielker. At the 52nd Annual Pictures of the Year Competition sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association and the University of Missouri School of Journalism, James Nachtwey (see BIOGRAPHIES) of Time magazine/Magnum Photos was named Magazine Photographer of the Year, while Michael Williamson of the Washington Post took the title of Newspaper Photographer of the Year. At the 38th Annual World Press Photo contest, the World Press Photo of the Year award was given to Nachtwey. The primary W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography went to Russian photographer Vladimir Syomin for his ongoing documentation of life in areas of Russia left untouched by industrial development. A secondary grant went to Fabio Ponzio of Rome so he could continue photographing life in Eastern Europe for his project "The Other Europe." Alfred Eisenstaedt, one of Life magazine's first four photographers and probably the most famous photojournalist of the 20th century, died at age 96. (See OBITUARIES.) "Eisie," as he was known to friends and associates, left a memorable montage of evocative photographs that chronicled his early years in Weimar Germany and Hitler's Third Reich, World War II, and postwar life in the U.S. (ARTHUR GOLDSMITH)