In 1939 the Gallery Fischer in Lucerne organized an auction of degenerate art confiscated by the Nazis. The auction took place on 30 June 1939 in the Grand Hotel National. [1] The auction received considerable international interest, but many of the bidders who were expected to attend were absent because they were worried the proceeds would be used by the Nazi regime. [2]
After the Nazis confiscated thousands of artworks classified as degenerate art from the German Museums, they sought to monetize them. Four art dealers were authorized to sell degenerate art by Germany: Karl Buchholtz and Ferdinand Möller from Berlin, Bernhard A. Böhmer from Güstrow and Hildebrand Gurlitt from Hamburg. [3] The German Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda discussed opportunities how to place the works on the international market and the idea of an auction was discussed. [3] The earliest trace of the auction in Lucerne is a letter from Theodor Fischer to Heinrich Hoffmann in which he suggests that an auction under his guidance would yield the highest revenues for the Nazis. [4]
In March 1939 he received the contract to organize the auction from the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. [4] In the contract it was established in which outlets the auction would be advertised, that there would be two previews, one in Zurich and another in Lucerne and the auction would be held in Lucerne before the end of June. [4] Also the number of paintings to be depicted in the auction's catalogue was established – eventually sixty paintings were included in the catalogue. [5]
The preview of the paintings to be auctioned in Zurich took place between the 17 and 27 May. [6] 108 paintings and 17 sculptures were delivered on the 26 April 1939 for the previews. [6] During the preview in Zurich, Georg Schmidt, the director of the Kunstmuseum Basel visited the exhibit and made a first selection of the works he was interested in and following was able to secure several purchases before the auction was to happen. [6] The preview in Lucerne took place in the Gallery Fischer between the 1 and the 29 June 1939. [7]
The auction was held in the Grand Hotel National at the shores of Lake Lucerne on the 30 June 1939. [8] The languages of the auction were German, French, English and the currency was Swiss francs. [9] Theodor Fischer, the owner of the gallery, was seen as a suitable auctioneer as he was a Gentile art dealer of Switzerland with a vast international network. [3]
The bidders at the auction were several prominent art collectors and representatives of Museums from Switzerland, the United States, Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Sweden. [9] Beside the one from the United States, the Belgian and the Swiss delegations were the most successful ones in the auction. [10] Alfred Barr, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, sent Curt Valentin, owner of the Buchholz Gallery in New York, to bid for the MoMa with funds provided by the museum. [11] Alfred Frankfurter bidding for Maurice Wertheim, [12] Joseph Pulitzer jr., Pierre Matisse, the son of the French painter Henri Mattise and Josef von Sternberg were some of the other bidders at the auction [13] [14]
The Basel Kunstmuseum purchased 21 artworks which formed the basis of its modern art collection. [15]
The paintings originated from (former) museums in Munich, Kassel, Essen, Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin and were made by painters including Max Beckmann, Cuno Amiet, Erich Heckel, Vincent van Gogh, Lovis Corinth, [16] Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin among others. [17]
Several sculptures by Ernst Barlach, one by Alexander Archipenko, one by Otto Dix three by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and two by Ewald Matare were also auctioned. [16]
Alfred Frankfurter bought the Self Portrait of Vincent van Gogh for 170,000 Swiss Francs. [12] The Belgian delegation was able to secure 15 paintings. [10] The Blue House of Marc Chagall, the Portrait of Georg Brandes of Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschkas' Trance Player and Max Liebermanns' Rider at the beach, and two paintings of Pablo Picasso were among the ones acquired by the Belgian delegation. [10] The paintings were transferred to the La Boverie in Liege, Belgium. [17] The Swiss delegation from Basel was able to secure eight paintings of seven artists among which were The Parents of the Artist by Otto Dix, a Self-Portrait by Paula Modersohn-Becker, two paintings by Marc Chagall or the View from a window by André Derain. [10] Forty bidders were successful, [9] but not every artwork found a buyer. [1]
The auction didn't have the financial success the Nazis expected. [5] [1] Only 10 percent of the artworks were sold for more than the estimated amount. [18] The revenue was a bit more than 500,000 Swiss Francs [18] which at the time accounted for a modest sum of about $115,000. [10] The revenue was deposited in a bank account in the United Kingdom, [10] where the Nazis had access to it. [4] Following the auction, Fischer attempted to sell the remaining works, but with little success. [5] A second auction was in discussion, but it never materialized. [5]
Following the auction Fischer didn't return the remaining paintings to Germany as stipulated in the contract. [19] He kept selling some of the works, [19] of which the most prominent painting was the Female Absinth Drinker by Pablo Picasso. [20] It was withheld from the auction due to a legal dispute between the original owner and donor of the painting to the Kunsthalle Hamburg. [20] The painting was sold in 1941. [20]
The Director of the Museum in 1939 was Georg Schmidt. Schmidt received the auction catalogue from the Gallery Fischer in April 1939 following which the Museum started negotiations to purchase paintings of degenerate art before the auction would take place. [6] Schmidt was able to purchase several paintings, such as Oskar Kokoschkas The Bride of the Wind , Ecce Homo by Lovis Corinth, and the Fate of the Animals by Franz Marc. [6] Fischer unsuccessfully protested against this purchases in mid June 1939. [7]
Some of the paintings auctioned are: [13] [17] [18]
Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter, a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it.
Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.
Lovis Corinth was a German artist and writer whose mature work as a painter and printmaker realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.
The portraits of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) are the self-portraits, portraits of him by other artists, and photographs—one of which is dubious—of the Dutch artist. Van Gogh's dozens of self-portraits were an important part of his œuvre as a painter. Most probably, van Gogh's self-portraits are depicting the face as it appeared in the mirror he used to reproduce his face, i.e. his right side in the image is in reality the left side of his face.
Otto Müller was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Brücke expressionist movement.
The Nazi regime in Germany actively promoted and censored forms of art between 1933 and 1945. Upon becoming dictator in 1933, Adolf Hitler gave his personal artistic preference the force of law to a degree rarely known before. In the case of Germany, the model was to be classical Greek and Roman art, seen by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal. It was, furthermore, to be comprehensible to the average man. This art was to be both heroic and romantic. The Nazis viewed the culture of the Weimar period with disgust. Their response stemmed partly from conservative aesthetics and partly from their determination to use culture as propaganda.
Paul Rosenberg was a French art dealer. He represented Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse. Both Paul and his brother Léonce Rosenberg were among the world's major dealers of modern art.
Ambroise Vollard was a French art dealer who is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He is credited with providing exposure and emotional support to numerous then-unknown artists, including Paul Cézanne, Aristide Maillol, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Louis Valtat, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, Georges Rouault, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh.
Bathers with a Turtle is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1907 to 1908, in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1908 it has been acquired by Karl Ernst Osthaus who included it into the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany. It was removed from being exhibited by the Nazis in 1937 and brought to Niederschönhausen Palace. It was purchased for $2400 by Joseph Pulitzer Jr. in 1939 at an auction of art that the Nazi government considered "degenerate". The socalled "Degenerate Art auction" took place in the Grand Hotel National in Lucerne, Switzerland. Pulitzer purchased it at the urging of Matisse's son Pierre Matisse, in order to prevent the artwork from being destroyed, despite the profit from the auction going to the Nazis. Pulitzer later donated it to the art museum in Saint Louis.
The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the oldest public art collection in the world and is generally considered to be the most important museum of art in Switzerland. It is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Georg Muche was a German painter, printmaker, architect, author, and teacher.
The Degenerate Art exhibition was an art exhibition organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party in Munich from 19 July to 30 November 1937. The exhibition presented 650 works of art, confiscated from German museums, and was staged in counterpoint to the concurrent Great German Art Exhibition. The day before the exhibition started, Adolf Hitler delivered a speech declaring "merciless war" on cultural disintegration, attacking "chatterboxes, dilettantes and art swindlers". Degenerate art was defined as works that "insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill". One million people attended the exhibition in its first six weeks. A U.S. critic commented "there are probably plenty of people—art lovers—in Boston, who will side with Hitler in this particular purge".
The Gurlitt Collection was a collection of around 1,500 art works assembled by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of Hitler's official art dealers, Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895–1956), and which was found to have contained several artworks looted from Jews by the Nazis.
Theodor Fischer (1878–1957) was a Swiss art dealer and auctioneer in Lucerne who after the First World War built a highly successful firm of auctioneers that dominated the Swiss art market. In 1939 he was the auctioneer at the infamous Grand Hotel auction of "degenerate art" removed from German museums by the Nazis. During the Second World War he played a key part in the trading of art looted by the Germans from occupied countries.
Oskar Moll was a German Fauvist painter; best known for his landscapes, portraits and somewhat abstract still-lifes.
Villa R is an oil-on-carton painting from 1919 by the Swiss-born German artist Paul Klee.
Julius Freund was a German entrepreneur and art collector persecuted by the Nazis because he was Jewish.
Curt Glaser was a German Jewish art historian, art critic and collector who was persecuted by the Nazis.
Heinrich Thannhauser was a German gallery owner and art collector. As an art dealer, he was one of the most important promoters of early Expressionist art in Germany.
The Duchess of Montesquiou-Fezensac is a 1910 oil portrait by Oskar Kokoschka. In this expressionist work Kokoschka strove to capture the essence of his sitter, a young noblewoman afflicted with tuberculosis, with somber tones and stylized gestures. Among his early portraits, Kokoschka considered the work his most valuable, and as his first work to be acquired by a museum it played a key role in establishing the young artist's reputation. During the Nazi period it was confiscated from the Museum Folkwang in Essen and pilloried in the Degenerate Art exhibition before being auctioned off. It is currently in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
The auction attracted a coterie of international art buyers -- among those who made the pilgrimage to Lucerne were representatives of prominent museums; The Blue Angel director Josef von Sternberg; Pierre Matisse, son of the artist; and Joseph Pulitzer Jr. -- future editor and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- traveling through Europe on his honeymoon.
