NEW YORK.- The heirs of Prof. Curt Glaser, a prominent Jewish art historian and collector of Edvard Munch art works, are seeking to locate the painting "Street in Kragero", painted by Edvard Munch in circa 1911. The painting was gifted to Prof. Glaser in 1927 by Edvard Munch and was later lost in Nazi Germany some time between 1934 and 1936, when it was obtained without Prof. Glaser's consent by Albert Ottenheimer, later Albert Otten, an art collector in Cologne, Germany. Although Prof. Glaser attempted to obtain the painting back from Otten in about 1936, he was refused and died in 1943 prior to the end of WW II. The painting had gone missing from the Curt Glaser heirs until it was sold at Sotheby's at auction on June 24, 2002. Sotheby's failed to discover Prof. Glaser's prior ownership of the painting and had been given an ownership record by the Otten family which omitted Prof. Glaser as the previous owner and which stated that the painting had been purchased directly from the artist Edvard Munch through the Hermann Abels Gallery in Cologne. The Otten ownership record also failed to give a date of the purported sale from Munch to Otten. In a letter dated December 25, 1936, from Prof. Glaser to Edvard Munch, Glaser said the painting had been sold behind his back (without his consent) to a collector in Cologne and that he had attempted to obtain it back without success. At the time, Prof. Glaser was in exile in Switzerland having lost his position as the Director of the Berlin State Art Library due to a Nazi law which forbade Jewish persons from holding civil servant positions. The painting, which was considered to be "degenerate art" by the Nazis, had been left with Glaser's brother, Paul Glaser, in Berlin when Prof. Curt Glaser fled Germany in 1933. After extensive research, the Glaser heirs discovered correspondence between the Hermann Abels Gallery and the Berlin National Gallery in 1934, which proved that the Hermann Abels Gallery knew of Prof. Glaser's previous ownership of the painting, prior to its purported conveyance through the Hermann Abels Gallery to Otten. In addition, upon inquiry, the only ownership documentation provided by the Otten family to the Glaser heirs was an ownership record created and kept by the Otten family stating that Otten had bought the painting directly from the artist Edvard Munch through the Hermann Abels Gallery at an unknown date. Such record appears to have created and kept by the Otten family after the Abels correspondence in 1934 with the National Gallery in Berlin, which established Prof. Glaser's prior ownership of the painting, and after Prof. Glaser attempted to obtain the painting back from Otten in circa 1936. This is because the ownership record was hand written in English on a printed MOMA ownership card, and is thus thought to have been created after Otten emigrated to the United States from Germany in the late 1930's.

Under Allied laws passed after WW II, sales of Jewish property in Nazi Germany between January 30, 1933, and May 8, 1945, are presumed to be invalid. In addition, the circumstances of the purported sale to Otten, including the lack of authorization of the sale by Prof. Glaser, the knowledge of the Hermann Abels Gallery that the painting belonged to Prof. Glaser, Prof. Glaser's attempt to recover the painting prior to his death, and the false information as to the painting's previous owner on the Otten ownership card, all indicate an improper/unlawful transfer to Otten between 1934 and 1936 in Nazi Germany.

Following a recently completed extensive investigation by the Prof. Curt Glaser heirs, and after Sotheby's refused to divulge the name of the purchaser of the painting at auction and current location of the painting, the painting has now been listed by the Prof. Glaser heirs on the Art Loss Register as having been lost in the Nazi period in Germany.

A reward in the amount of $1000 is being offered to the first person who provides information regarding the current location of the painting and the name of its current possessor. A photo of the painting hanging in Prof. Glaser's Berlin apartment, together with other Munch paintings owned by Prof. Glaser, and a copy of the painting in Prof. Glaser's book regarding Edvard Munch are on file.

Anyone having knowledge of the whereabouts of the Edvard Munch painting "Street in Kragero" and the name of its current possessor should contact the attorneys for the Prof. Curt Glaser heirs as follows:

David J. Rowland, Esq.
Rowland & Associates
Two Park Ave., 19th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10016
Tel. 212-685-5509
Fax 212-685-8862
Email: davidjohnrowland@cs.com