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.)
