Systematic examination of the provenance of paintings, sculptures, stained glass and a drawing from Brücke-Museum

The Brücke-Museum has a special founding history that needs to be taken into account in any provenance work. In 1964, the artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff donated 75 artworks to the state of Berlin in order to initiate the founding of a museum dedicated to the artists’ group named “Brücke”. He found a director who shared his vision in Leopold Reidemeister. The collection was therefore only built up from the 1960s onwards. Following Schmidt-Rottluff’s primary donation, his colleague, Erich Heckel, also generously supported the new museum by donating nearly 1,000 works to it. Over the following years, Schmidt-Rottluff and Reidemeister purchased further works by all Brücke artists for the museum from art markets and private collections in Berlin, in Germany and internationally. Around 5,000 works came into the collection in this way after the museum was established. Of these, 2,937 objects were created before 1945.

For this research project, 58 paintings, sculptures and stained-glass pieces, as well as one drawing were selected. For these objects, there are, or were, knowledge gaps regarding their provenance for the years between 1933 and 1945. Paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel are particularly strongly represented in this set of works. After one year of provenance research, nine artworks were discovered to have gaps between 1933 and 1945, but these works are not regarded as suspicious. The work data relating to these nine paintings will be published in an album for the online collection. Two other works that are regarded as suspicious are being examined further.

To give first-hand insights into the research activities taking place, and to make the museum’s work more transparent for the public, a research diary has been posted on social media (Facebook and Instagram) where it has received a great deal of interest. Extensive use has been made of these communication channels—for example during the exhibition entitled “Escape into Art? The Brücke Painters in the Nazi Period” (April to August 2019)—where they were used to draw attention to the provenance of the nine paintings in the collection that had been confiscated from public collections for being “degenerate” in 1937. The starting point for this was the first Provenance Research Day on April 10, 2019. A detailed provenance history of these works was also depicted on their signage as a further way of making this aspect publicly visible. In addition, a guided tour allowed visitors to learn about the provenance research that went on behind the exhibition. Interest in the provenance research was also demonstrated by a request from the German publication “MuseumsJournal”; Nadine Bauer published the initial project findings in the January 2020 issue.

Thanks to the project, it has been possible for the museum to lay the foundations for provenance research and establish a sustainable documentation system for the research findings.

(c) Brücke-Museum