28th September 2007

The Hunt Museum unreservedly welcomes the publication this week of an independent assessment of the work carried out by the Royal Irish Academy’s Hunt Museum Evaluation Group.
The Museum notes that Dr. Nicholas concludes:
There has been much talk about moral obligation during this inquiry. It is, of course, important to recover and return items unlawfully taken during World War II, but it is equally obligatory, in the pursuit of justice, to protect people and institutions from unproven allegations.

The Lynn Nicholas report establishes that there is “no proof that John and Gertrude Hunt were Nazis, that they were involved in any kind of espionage or that they were traffickers in looted art”.
The report establishes that the Simon Wiesenthal Centre have based their allegation on a single army intelligence file held at the Military Archives in Dublin.
The report establishes that this file does not provide any evidence for claiming that John and Gertrude Hunt were Nazis or were dealing in objects looted by the Nazis.
In a press release issued in June 2006 Dr. Shimon Samuels from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre states that letters in this file prove a connection between the Hunts and Emil Bührle. This is entirely mistaken. The name used, four times in one letter, is Buhl, not Bührle, and the individual described, certainly bears no resemblance to the extremely rich collector and armaments manufacturer Emil Bührle. This is a grossly serious error of fact and mistaken identity.
The file contains three letters to the Swiss dealer Alexander Von Frey but establishes no transactions between Mr. Von Frey and the Hunts and no references whatsoever to any dealings by the Hunts through Mr. Von Frey or any other party to anyone peddling Nazi loot.
The allegations made by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre caused unwarranted pain to the Hunt family and severely damaged the reputation of John and Gertrude Hunt. Given the serious nature of the allegations made, the sensational manner in which they were publicized, it is alarming to learn that the only basis for these unfounded allegations is this single file. Furthermore, it is very difficult to understand why the Simon Wiesenthal Centre did not reveal this file immediately. If the documentation were revealed the file could have been independently examined, as is now the case.
The report commends the Hunt Museum for setting up a website and making valiant efforts to allow third parties to query the provenance of any individual item in the Museum’s collection. Having canvassed the web-based catalogue far and wide in the international community, not one institution, agent or person has come forward with a single query or claim over the provenance of any item in the collection. (There are more than two thousand items fully catalogued and photographed on the website and we have had over a quarter of a million visitors to this website since it was established two years ago).
Although no foundation has been discovered in regard to the allegations made against the late John and Gertrude Hunt and no questions have been raised about the ownership of any Hunt Museum artifacts so serious and damaging were the allegations that the Museum fully concurs with the opinion expressed by Lynn Nicholas that the existing provenance research project be continued and that further research be carried out into the records of individual dealers. We owe this to John and Gertrude Hunt to their children Trudy and John (now deceased) and their families and to the legacy they have given the State. We also owe this to The Hunt Museum and to the government agencies, private individuals and other bodies who have financially aided the Museum.
The Hunt Museum would like to thank the Royal Irish Academy and most especially the Royal Irish Academy’s Hunt Museum Evaluation Group who agreed to carry out this work, despite a distinct lack of co-operation from those making the accusations - The Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT MARGARET O’BRIEN: 086 8055307

NOTES FOR EDITORS:
Lynn Nicholas, Biography
Lynn H. Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa, was educated in the United States, England, and Spain, received her B.A. from Oxford University and, upon her return to the U.S.A., worked for several years in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. While living in Belgium in the early 1980s, she initiated what would become 10 years of research for her first highly acclaimed book. The Rape of Europa was a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. She was elected to the Légion d’Honneur by the government of France, and in 2005 released her second book, Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web. Ms. Nicholas lives in Washington, D.C.

The Royal Irish Academy Hunt Museum Evaluation Group
The Royal Irish Academy Hunt Museum Evaluation Group was appointed following the publication, in February 2004 of a letter in February by Dr. Shimon Samuels, International Liaison Director, Wiesenthal Centre Paris, to President McAleese. In this letter Dr. Samuels requested that the title ‘Museum of the Year’ be suspended from the Hunt Museum. The Museum had received the award a few months previously. The letter also made allegations about the origins of the Hunt Collection and the business activities of John and Gertrude Hunt. At that time Dr Samuels said “sources” had indicated that John and Gertrude Hunt had “intimate business relationships with notorious dealers in art looted by the Nazis”. Dr. Samuels declined to identify which dealers, but said work was in course on compiling documentation.

ENDS