Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s, he was associated with the New Objectivity, an outgrowth of Expressionism that opposed its introverted emotionalism. Even when dealing with light subject matter like circus performers, Beckmann often had an undercurrent of moodiness or unease in his works. By the 1930s, his work became more explicit in its horrifying imagery and distorted forms with combination of brutal realism and social criticism, coinciding with the rise of nazism in Germany.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal dome. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and one of the most important museums worldwide.
The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum located in the Kunstareal area in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pinakothek refers to the time period covered by the collection—from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. The Neue Pinakothek, re-built in 1981, covers nineteenth-century art, and Pinakothek der Moderne, opened in 2002, exhibits modern art. All three galleries are part of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, an organization of the Free state of Bavaria.
The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. It is known as part of the "Golden Triangle of Art", which also includes the Prado and the Reina Sofía national galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts' collections: in the Prado's case this includes Italian primitives and works from the English, Dutch and German schools, while in the case of the Reina Sofia it concerns Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the 20th century.
Nazi plunder was the stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany.
The Kunstpalast, formerly Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf is an art museum in Düsseldorf.
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, that houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This collection is representative of the artistic production and the taste of art enthusiasts in Antwerp, Belgium and the Northern and Southern Netherlands since the 15th century.
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), formerly the American Association of Museums, is a non-profit association whose goal is to bring museums together. Founded in 1906, the organization advocates for museums and provides "museum professionals with the resources, knowledge, inspiration, and connections they need to move the field forward."
The Alba Madonna is a tondo (circular) oil on wood transferred to canvas painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, created c. 1511, depicting Mary, Jesus, and John the Baptist in a typical Italian countryside.
Samson and Delilah is a painting long attributed to the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and displayed in the National Gallery. It dates from about 1609 to 1610.
The Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings in 1930 and 1931 resulted in the departure of some of the most valuable paintings from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad to Western museums. Several of the paintings had been in the Hermitage Collection since its creation by Empress Catherine the Great. About 250 paintings were sold, including masterpieces by Jan van Eyck, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and other important artists. Andrew Mellon donated the twenty-one paintings he purchased from the Hermitage to the United States government in 1937, which became the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The Bavarian State Painting Collections, based in Munich, Germany, oversees artwork held by the Free State of Bavaria. It was established in 1799 as Centralgemäldegaleriedirektion. Artwork includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, video art and installation art. Pieces are on display in numerous galleries and museums throughout Bavaria.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.
The Diggers or Two Diggers is an oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh painted in late 1889 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. It is in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Diggers is sometimes called Two Diggers among Trees to distinguish it from The Diggers , 1889.
Many priceless artworks by the Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh were looted by Nazis during 1933–1945, mostly from Jewish collectors forced into exile or murdered.
The art collection of Ismar Littmann (1878–1934), a German lawyer who lived in Breslau, comprised 347 paintings and watercolors and 5,814 drawings from artists such as Lovis Corinth, Max Pechstein, Erich Heckel, Max Liebermann, Käthe Kollwitz, Lucien Adrion, and Otto Mueller.
Max Silberberg was a major cultural figure in Breslau, a German Jewish entrepreneur, art collector and patron who was robbed and murdered by the Nazis. His art collection, among the finest of its era, has been the object of numerous restitution claims.
Eduard Sturzenegger was a Swiss manufacturer and art collector.
