Research into the Robert Graetz Collection, paintings by Lovis Corinth: Porträt Alfred Kerr [Portrait of Alfred Kerr], 1907, inv. no. GEM 74/74

The starting point for the research project was the unresolved provenance of the painting by Lovis Corinth, Porträt Alfred Kerr [Portrait of Alfred Kerr],1907 (inv. no. GEM 74/74). It was acquired by the Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin for the Schiller Theatre in 1956 with funds from the lottery foundation Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin and handed over to what was then the Berlin Museum, a predecessor of today’s Stadtmuseum Berlin, in 1974.

The research undertaken revealed new information about the biography of the painting. Lovis Corinth painted this portrait of the then very popular theatre critic Alfred Kerr on the occasion of his 40th birthday in 1907 on his own initiative and without being commissioned to do so. The painting is thought to have remained in his possession until the early 1920s. The catalogue raisonné compiled by Charlotte Berend-Corinth lists the owner/subsequent owner as: D. Leder/Berlin and G. Arnold/Dresden. The portrait entered the art market around 1922, where it was acquired by the architect Leo Nachtlicht. It is not possible to determine exactly when the transfer of ownership from Nachtlicht to Robert Graetz took place, but it is thought to have been around 1929/30.

Around 1940 – before the 1941 auction of the interior furnishings of the Graetz house in Erdenerstr. 13/15, because the painting was not included in the latter – the portrait was presumably given as a gift to Gertrud Kahle, a friend of Robert Graetz. She was deported in 1942 and died in Theresienstadt. The whereabouts of the painting during the war are still not known.

The painting itself – or rather knowledge of it – did not become public again until 1956, when the theatre critic Friedrich Luft wrote his article: Ein Bild will nach Berlin. [A painting wants to go to Berlin] . At the time, the painting was owned by the Kahle family in Wuppertal. It was this newspaper article that gave rise to the sale of the Kerr portrait by the Kahle family to the Schiller Theatre/Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin in 1956.

The heirs of Robert Graetz were already actively endeavouring to regain their property at the time. Since in the specific case of the Kerr portrait neither side could prove its claim to ownership, the parties arrived at a settlement in 1957/1963 by dividing the purchase price proportionately.

The municipal museum received another request for the portrait to be restituted in 2017. Short-term research enabled by funding provided by the German Lost Art Foundation was able to close some gaps in the object biography. These results are published on the website of Stadtmuseum Berlin.

© Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin