HEIRS - Observations on Provenance

NOLDE and SWEDEN

Actually, the last post reminded me of yet another Nolde story. He was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century but the more I read about Emil Nolde, the less I liked. His paintings command master prices now but 60 to 75 years ago, he was collectable and very attractive to avant garde collectors in Europe. So successful that by 1937, his graphics and oils were displayed in every German museum with a modern curatorial focus. Even lesser museums would own many graphic works  if not several oils.

When the Nazis determined that Emil Nolde was not producing paintings in the style keeping with National Socialist ideals, they labeled them degenerate and collected his works (and 15,000 or so other “degenerate” works) from every one of those museums.

What happened to ALL those Noldes?

Some would say that the Nazi’s weren’t stupid. They did not destroy the Noldes in bonfires. They knew they were tradeable for hard currency in the international market.  And the pending war plans required hard specie. So, after the Nazi elite  (like Goerring and Von Ribbentrop whose tastes ignored the Nazi art ideology when it came to their own personal collections) skimmed their choices, and after the art toured the country in an exhibition of derision produced for Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda, the bulk were sent Switzerland for auction on June 30, 1939. International buyers from US, Denmark, and Britain brought international cash: Norwegian kronin, British pounds sterling, French francs and US dollars.

The results of the Fischer auction in Lucerne are included in “Enterte Kunst,” primary documents held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a copy of which I have in my possession.

Noldes were sold off to dealers in bulk sometimes by dozens. The prices paid for graphics were often hardly more than several dollars .

Even then, many hundreds of items went unsold in Switzerland. It was the crest of war.
What became of those items?

They still traded. And this is NEW! Nolde himself was involved this time.

In a 1999 report, Sweden and Jewish Assets, the Commission’s art historians combed archives and found correspondence that implicates Nolde in the distribution of the unsold bounty of the German museums. “In August 1939 a Dane invited the museum to purchase paintings and graphic art by the German Expressionist painter Emil Nolde, one of the foremost artists of the 20th century. The works on offer had been acquired by the German Ministry of Propaganda and the seller, whose sister was married to Emil Nolde, was now offering them for sale to Scandinavian museums.” P.25

Although Goteborg’s Art Museum Director, Axel Romdahl refused to buy, my guess is that every other Swedish Museum was offered the same deal. And most would take the opportunity. Not all directors were as anti-Nazi as Axel Romdahl who turned the Dane down cold. Why shouldn’t the Swede’s buy the Lucerne art auction remnants anyway? One month earlier, German dealer Karl Buccholz was eagerly buying the best of the Lucerne auction on behalf his US clients, who were knowingly fuelling the Nazi war machine with their precious US dollars.

(Noldes painting, Christ Among the Children is  listed on MoMa's provenance  website, indicating it changed hands in Continental Europe during the Nazi era.)

THE CASE FOR RESTITUTION

If the idea of following the trail of a Restitution Case in minute detail interests you, this is a fascinating website supporting a historical and legal opinion re: the Restitution of a Kirschner painting last year in Germany:
                                                                Expert Opinion

The Experts who wrote those opinions have also authored a book on cases of a similar vein - See my Post in the HEIRS Books Category. But this story is special because the Berlin Gallery Director recognized injustice, did the right thing, and then suffered the wrath of many in the German cultural community. The community who felt the Museum had the right to hold onto the magnificent Berlin Street Scene Kirshner painted in 1913.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who helped form The Bruecke (Bridge) Group of modern German artists in Dresden in 1905, was considered a "degenerate" artist by the Nazis. They confiscated more than 600 of his paintings from museums, galleries, and collections. They mounted a Degenerate Art Tour in 1937; mocking the works of Kirchner and others.

Kirchner committed suicide a year later.

I own a copy of Entarte Kunste, the database documenting the sales records of 15,000 paintings and drawings taken from the museums in Germany in 1937 and auctioned in Switzerland in June 1939. Kirchner shows up in almost every museum list and his paintings were purchased for tiny amounts by the Art Dealers who later sold them to the world's museums.

But why now? Did Anita Halpin feel guilty about her successful claim and want to present the case as a legal one? I think the vitriolic arguments heated this case way up and the cooling off effect of the legal opinion may have actually helped. And wouldn't it be a dream if the proceeds from Anita's 30 Million Euros windfall sale at Christie's November 8th could be used towards Holocaust Education? But this is only my dream.