Stolen paintings by Kazimir Malevich found in France

In France, bailiffs confiscated more than a hundred works by avant-garde artists stored in a Paris storage facility. Among the seized works of art were several paintings by Ukrainian artist Kazimir Malevich. The Art Newspaper writes about it.

Investigators suspect that Malevich’s works were stolen from a private collector. German law firm Dentons claims the paintings belong to Palestinian-born businessman Usman Khatib.

The value of the found works, according to experts, is more than 100 million euros. The collector said that in December 2019 he was the victim of thieves who stole a large collection of art objects from his rented storage facility in the German city of Wiesbaden. It is part of this collection found in Paris.

Among the confiscated works, in addition to Malevich’s paintings, there were also works by Russian artists Wassily Kandinsky and Natalia Goncharova.

Another part of Khatib’s collection was discovered last year in Frankfurt. The collector claims that nearly 900 works of art were stolen from him. Last year, stolen paintings began appearing at auctions and were sold in Israel, France and Monaco, among others.

It was noted that in 2015, Khatib acquired 871 paintings through the mediation of Israeli art dealer Yitzhak Zarugi, who ran a gallery in Wiesbaden. However, German prosecutors eventually confiscated the works on suspicion of being fakes. The investigation lasted four years, after which the paintings were returned to the dealer, and Khatib placed his part of the collection in a storage facility in Wiesbaden. This storage facility was soon robbed.

Let’s recall that last year the employees of the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum reclassified the artist Kazimir Malevich as Ukrainian. In the past, he was considered Russian.

In 2018, at Christie’s auction house in New York, a painting by Malevich called Suprematist Composition was sold for $85.8 million. This is a record price for the artist’s works.