Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Photo: Anatoli Axelrod via Wikimedia Commons

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art has decided to no longer host a conference on art restitution organized by Christie’s after the auction house faced criticism for its recent sale of jewelry linked to a German businessman who amassed his fortune by buying Jewish businesses sold under duress during World War II.

The museum told Israel Hayom on Sunday that it has canceled the conference because of backlash from a Christie’s auction that took place two months ago, saying the museum was “attentive to criticism and committed to public sensitivity.” Christie’s told The Art Newspaper on Tuesday that it respects the museum’s decision.

Christie’s launched in January a year-long initiative called “Reflecting on Restitution” in which it would organize a series of events around the world to recognize efforts to return Nazi-stolen art to its original owners. The initiative also honors the 25th anniversary of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and its last event was expected to be a conference at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in December about art restitution and provenance research.

In May, Christie’s auctioned off a 700-piece jewelry collection that belonged to the late Austrian billionaire Heidi Horton, who was married to German businessman Helmut Horton. A member of the Nazi party, Helmut made most of his fortune in the 1930s by purchasing businesses, sometimes below-market prices, that Jews were forced to sell by the Nazis in Germany during World War II. After he died in 1987, Helmut left a large inheritance to his wife, who died last year at the age of 81. The two-part auction of Heidi’s jewelry garnered a record $202 million, Christie’s said.

The auction house vowed to donate proceeds from the auction to Jewish organizations that support Holocaust research and education, but Israel Hayom reported that most of those institutions, including Yad Vashem, refused to accept the donation because of the funds’ Nazi ties.

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art explained in its statement to the Israeli publication that it has a “long-standing professional relationship with Christie’s” and that the conference was planned long before the Horton auction was announced. It added that despite canceling the conference, it remains “committed to the issue of restitution and provenance research.”

Many called for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to cancel its participation in Christie’s initiative and for the auction house to call off the auction before it took place, including The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, and David Schaecter, a Holocaust survivor and president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA. Schaecter even wrote a letter to Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, who is also a member of the museum’s board, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art American Friends, a charity that helps raise funds the museum, asking them to cancel the conference.