'Looted Art in Europe 1938-1945 and its Restitution'

2007 Caldwell Lecture No 2

Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, The University of Melbourne

Wednesday 15 August 2007

In his second illustrated Caldwell Lecture, Professor Richard J Evans traced the history of looting and forced expropriation under the Nazi regime, focusing particularly on the spoliation of Jews, then Poles, and subsequently collectors and galleries in many parts of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Hitler, Göring and other leading Nazis amassed large quantities of art, most of which was stored for safe keeping during the war. After the war, Allied agencies restored much of this to its rightful owners, though the Soviet Union removed very large quantities, both of looted and legitimately owned art from Germany, much of which remains in Russia even after the repatriation of many objects to East Germany in the 1950s.

Professor Evans examined the growing international prominence of restitution actions since the end of the 1980s, and analysed three widely differing cases dealt with in the UK as examples of the complexity of the research required to establish provenance.

About the Caldwell Lectureship

Awarded every five years, the Caldwell Lectures are given in memory of – and are also very much the vision of – Colin Hicks Caldwell, who entered Trinity College as a resident law student in 1931.

A gifted student, and subsequently a lawyer, Colin Caldwell developed a passion for books, paintings, and porcelain. Fortunately, a combination of comfortable personal circumstances and propitious choice of employment enabled him to spend a good deal of his adult life pursuing these interests.

For a long time, Caldwell worked as a feature writer and reviewer for Art in Australia, and The Age. A very private man, his was nevertheless a life of conspicuous giving, whether that be through his work for the National Trust, or his support of country art galleries, or his gift to Trinity.

Caldwell’s bequest to the College at his death in 1989 was, at that time, the largest single gift in its history, and was given, appropriately, for a trinity of purposes: to support the purchase of books and manuscripts for the Library; for the general purposes of the College; and this endowed lectureship, which very much reflects Caldwell’s own interests as the lectures must be in art, art history, law or literature.

Caldwell Lecture No 3

'The Portrait and National Identity'

Wednesday 29 August  at 7.30pm

to be given by Dr David Starkey CBE, eminent historian, broadcaster and commentator on public affairs in the UK. An honorary Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, Dr Starkey is familiar to many in Australia through his television series, Elizabeth I, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Monarchy. A regular contributor to newspapers including The Sunday Times and The Spectator, he was awarded a CBE in the 2007 Queens' Birthday Honours list. While at Trinity, Dr Starkey will be participating in The Melbourne Writers' Festival.

Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts, University of Melbourne
Free admission but please RSVP
Email: events@trinity.unimelb.edu.au
Tel: +61 3 9348 7476