Provenance Research on the Baumgart-Möller Donation Final Report Project management Dr. Thorsten Sadowsky, Director Annick Haldemann, Registrar [email protected] Project handling and report Julia Sophie Syperreck MA, Research Assistant [email protected] 31 August 2018 Kirchner Museum Davos Provenance Research on the Baumgart-Möller Donation 2 Contents 3 I. Work report 4 a. The situation and state of research at the beginning of the project 5 b. Work performed by the project staff and project schedule 6 c. Methodical approach and manner of publication of the findings 7 d. Object statistics 9 e. List of the historical agents (individuals and institutions) relevant to the project 10 f. Documentation of the findings for third parties 11 II. Summary 12 a. Evaluation of the findings 12 b. Unresolved issues and need for further research 13 III. Appendix: List of works Kirchner Museum Davos I. Work report Provenance Research on the Baumgart-Möller Donation 4 a. The situation and state of research at the beginning of the project At the beginning of the project an assessment was made which groups of works within the collection are more likely to be linked to the “liquidation” of private and public collections during the Nazi dictatorship in Germany in the years from 1933 to 1945. It was found that there is only very patchy provenance information for the forty-two artworks donated in 2000 to the Kirchner Museum Davos by “Rosemarie and Konrad Baumgart-Möller in memory of Ferdinand Möller, Berlin.” Since “Möller” is one of the red-flag names in provenance research, the investigation of this part of the collection was given priority. Originally, the plan was to examine about eighty works from various gifts to the Kirchner Museum Davos, but the number of works to be investigated was deliberately reduced to the Baumgart-Möller donation. Also examined was the provenance of the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting “Tinzenhorn” from the Steegmann- Morosani donation, which had likewise been traded through the Galerie Ferdinand Möller. From 1912 on, Ferdinand Möller, the father of donor Rosemarie Baumgart-Möller, initially worked at the renowned Galerie Arnold in Dresden and Breslau (present-day Wroclaw). In 1917 he then opened an art gallery of his own in Breslau. In the 1920s and 1930s, Ferdinand Möller’s galleries in Berlin and Potsdam were among the most important galleries for modern art; every month, new group and solo exhibitions were presented there. A focus was on works of the members of the “Brücke” and “Der Blaue Reiter” artists’ groups. Starting in 1938, Ferdinand Möller, along with Karl Buchholz, Hildebrand Gurlitt and Bernhard A. Böhmer was commissioned with the liquidation of artworks confiscated from German public collections as part of the Nazi “degenerate art” campaign. Since Ferdinand Möller also had business relations with museum professionals, art dealers and private collectors who were racially persecuted, there is a higher likelihood for Nazi-looted art to be among the donated works. Time and again, artworks whose provenances include the Galerie Ferdinand Möller are subject to restitution. Kirchner Museum Davos Provenance Research on the Baumgart-Möller Donation 5 b. Work performed by the project staff and project schedule Registrar (8 months, 20% workload) — Carrying through the project, deliberations, meetings — Attending the Provenance Symposium at the Kunstmuseum Bern in June 2017 — Attending events of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture Research Assistant (18 months, 45% workload) — Attending the Provenance Symposium at the Kunstmuseum Bern in June 2017 — Review of the group of donated works: documents related to the donation, publication in Sammlungsband III (collections catalogue, Kirchner Museum Davos, 2000), provenance information at MuseumPlus — Creating records of all works to be examined in a Word file with an extensive data sheet and a photo file for each object — Photographic documentation of the objects, their versos and details — Evaluating individual works and classifications on versos together with a conservator — Entering and continuously updating all research findings into the work data sheets — Continued intensive learning about the art-dealing activities of Ferdinand Möller in the period from 1912 to 1956 and the continued operation of the Dom-Galerie in Cologne until the 1960s by his widow, Maria Möller-Garny, and his daughter, Angelika Fessler-Möller — Researching all works, as needed, in the following databases: Datenbank Beschlagnahmeinventar (Confiscation Inventory Database, FU Berlin); www.lostart. de; Sammlung Online / Berlinische Galerie, Berlin: thorough scholarly analysis of the Ferdinand Möller estate; Getty Provenance Data, Auktionskataloge digital (Universität Heidelberg) — Researching auction and exhibition catalogues, catalogues raisonnés, art literature, dissertations — Research trip to the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin (3 days): first inspection of the estate of the Galerie Ferdinand Möller: business correspondence, inventories and ledgers, photographic documents. Attempt at reconstructing the collecting activities of the Möller family over a period of nine decades (1912 – 2000) in order to determine when which works may have passed on to the individual family members — External research queries to archives, museums, government bodies, art galleries, and exchange of information with other provenance researchers — Research trip to the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin (5 days): second inspection of the estate of the Galerie Ferdinand Möller for in-depth research and clarification of unresolved issues — Preparing the interim and final reports — Preparing a list of works with provenance information for all objects for publication on the museum website at www.kirchnermuseum.ch according to the guidelines for standardising provenance information provided by the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e. V. (Provenance Research Task Force) — Evaluating the findings and entering the data into MuseumPlus Kirchner Museum Davos Provenance Research on the Baumgart-Möller Donation 6 c. Methodical approach and manner of publication of the findings The methodical approach is already evident from the tasks and performance described under item I.b. In the course of the project, it emerged that not all artworks are exclusively from the Ferdinand Möller estate, but may also have been acquired for the gallery or the private collections by his wife, Mrs. Maria Möller-Garny, and the three daughters Rosemarie Baumgart-Möller, Angelika Fessler-Möller and Susanne Wenzel- Möller and their respective husbands. Since all those involved have passed away many years ago, reconstructing the acquisition policy of the Galerie Möller as well as the private collecting activities of the family over a period of nine decades (1912 – 2000) is a difficult undertaking, even with the help of the gallery estate at the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin. To this day, it has not been possible to establish whether Ferdinand Möller made a distinction between his sales portfolio and private collection. The presumption is, rather, that the boundary was flexible. Accordingly, the suspicion of Nazi-looted art cannot be dispelled even for objects thus far determined in secondary literature as having a “Möller Family” or similar provenance. Hence, research could not start directly with the period from 1933 until 1945; instead, the history of each individual work needed to be examined in reverse chronological order to establish when which works passed into the possession of the family members or the gallery at its various locations (Breslau, Berlin, Potsdam, Zermützel, Cologne). In 1956, Maria Möller-Garny inherited the estate of her husband and little by little gave artworks from the estate of the gallery to her three daughters, which were presumably also swapped among them. At the same time, her daughter Angelika continued the operations of the Dom-Galerie in Cologne and also acquired new works. In addition to the 42 objects from the Rosemarie Baumgart-Möller donation, a work from the Steegmann donation was identified which likewise has a provenance from the Galerie Ferdinand Möller and was confiscated from a German public collection in the Nazi “degenerate art” campaign. Thus, there are five possible provenance groups for the group of works at the Kirchner Museum Davos: — Provenance from the estate of the Galerie Ferdinand Möller — Provenance from Nazi confiscation (previously part of a German public collection) — Provenance from the art trade — Provenance from the Steegmann donation via Galerie F. M. from Nazi confiscation — Provenance from the collecting activities of Maria Möller-Garny / Angelika Fessler- Möller from the art trade — Provenance from the collecting activities of Rosemarie and Konrad Baumgart-Möller from the art trade After examining the classifications on the versos and documenting all works, the database “Beschlagnahmeinventar Entartete Kunst” (Inventory of confiscated degenerate art, FU Berlin) as well as documents pertaining to the confiscation campaign at the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin were used to attempt to identify the works previously held by German museums. Then enquiries were directed to the original museums regarding the status of the object in question (part of the museum collection Kirchner or on loan) and the date it was received. The provenance information on all other works Museum was researched as explained under item I.b. Davos Provenance Research on the Baumgart-Möller Donation 7 d. Object