Bern museum awaits works from Gurlitt art collection in June

GENEVA – A Swiss museum says it is expecting to receive within weeks about 200 artworks from a vast trove that a German collector had hidden for decades.

Kunstmuseum Bern spokeswoman Maria-Teresa Cano says the museum expects deliveries in June from among over 1,000 works by greats including Monet, Picasso and Renoir that German authorities found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt months before he died in 2014.

A German government-backed agency and the museum are working to ensure any pieces looted by the Nazis that got into Gurlitt’s collection will be returned to Jewish owners’ heirs.

A German court has ruled the works could go to the Bern museum as requested in his will.

Cano said Tuesday that some pieces require restoration work before a first public showing starts in November.