Showing posts with label Hildenbrand Gurlitt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hildenbrand Gurlitt. Show all posts

Jul 14, 2025

Kunstmuseum Bern's donors, Nazi looted art and problems of transparency and accessibility in a leading Swiss museum

The Kunstmuseum Bern does not make it easy to find provenance information.

Instead of publishing the artworks in its collection on its website in the normal way with all the normal information (title, artist, inventory number, image, credit line, provenance, dimensions, et), accessible via url, the Kunstmuseum Bern has compartmentalised information in various PDF files and on special sections of its website.

Frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining a unified vision of the acquisitions after 1933, we searched for another approach, one adapted to the existing publications. 

In this post we attempt to map the information associated with important donors to the Kunstmuseum Bern during and after the Nazi period -- and fail.  

Why? Because we did not manage to find a central website or dataset or even PDF with all the necessary information.

Even if one has the inventory number or the digital ID of the artworks, it is not easy to find the provenance information unless it is Gurlitt-related. (And even then it is gappy.)

Donors we looked at include:

1. Max Huggler (c. 1945–2007)

  • President of Swiss museum associations and private collector

  • Bequeathed his collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern, including around 80 significant works by artists such as Cuno Amiet, Joseph Beuys, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and othersWikipedia+15Wikipedia+15Artnet News+15.

2. Georges Frédéric Keller (gifted lifetime loan starting in 1951; passed in 1981)

  • Swiss‑Brazilian collector and dealer

  • Lent around 120 modern paintings and sculptures (Cézanne, Matisse, Soutine, Modigliani, Renoir, Dali, Picasso) to the museum from 1951; bequeathed the collection upon his death, considered the museum’s largest donation to that date The Times of Israel+1Wikipedia+1Wikipedia.

3. Hermann Rupf (donation 1954)

4. Nell Walden & Marguerite Arp‑Hagenbach (1960s)

5. Adolf Wölfli Estate (1975)

6. Stiftung Othmar Huber (1979)

  • Deposited key works including Picasso, Klee, Franz Marc, Alexej von Jawlensky, Kandinsky, contributing major modernist pieces Wikipedia.

7. Anne‑Marie & Victor Loeb Foundation (1970s–1980s)

  • Their foundation gifted works by Johannes Itten, Victor Vasarely, Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse, Piero Manzoni, Jean Tinguely, and others, further boosting the post‑war avant‑garde holdings Wikipedia.

8. Meret Oppenheim Legacy & Other Gifts (1980s onward)

9. Eberhard W. Kornfeld (bequest in 2024)

  • Renowned Swiss art dealer (1923–2023)

  • In 2024, gifted significant works including Kirchner’s Junkerboden (1919) and Giacometti’s Caroline (1965)WikipediaWikipedia+1Kunstmuseum Bern+1.

10. Cornelius Gurlitt Estate (accepted in 2014; subsequent restitutions)

  • Inherited the controversial Gurlitt collection (1,400+ works, including Matisse, Renoir, Monet) under the condition that provenance research and restitution be pursued Wikipedia+3USA Art News+3Wikipedia+3.

Ongoing provenance research has led to the return of identified Nazi‑looted artworks, though most remain part of the museum’s collection under review (ex The Times of Israel )


Gurlitt, Huggler, Kornfeld, Keller and Rupf have all been linked to Nazi looted art previously owned by Jewish collectors, and Othmar Huber is known to have purchased art seized by the Nazi authorities from their own German museums.

***

In 2014, Matthias Frehner, the Director of the Kunstmuseum Bern, stated that the museum does not want any "Kunst aus illegitimem Besitz" (illegitimately owned artworks). (https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=QMYDSA865171) 

But where is the transparency?

Unlike nearly all other museums in its class, Kunstmuseum Bern appears to offer no public REST or developer-facing API to access its collection or metadata. 

There are isolated datasets, like for (some of) Gurlitt,  published at https://gurlitt.kunstmuseumbern.ch/de/collection/item.

There are PDFs with various reports, published here and there.

There is a "Gesamtliste_Slg.Präsentation_26.05.2025.pdf" which is not complete and which changes depending on which artworks are currently exhibited.

There is a 18MB PDF with a "Findmittel". (One can apparently travel to Bern and access information.)

There are various catalogues offering a slice of the collection.


But who among us had ever been able to consult or analyse the complete list of all the artworks created before 1945 and acquired by Kunstmuseum Bern after 1932?

One does not even appear to be able to  access a complete list of the artworks held by the Kunstmuseum Bern for a specific artist.

After a restitution claim has resulted in a restitution, a settlement or a refusal, one can not ask the question "what else" passed through the same hands because the data is not publicly available.

There is, however, a simple solution to this lack of transparency.

Kunstmuseum Bern could publish its collection online, like other museums do, with title, artist, medium, inventory number, digital object ID, and credit line.

That's not hard. Why not do it now?

***

Below is what appears to be the current procedure:

The Kunstmuseum Bern's collection, as a whole, comprises over 4,000 paintings and sculptures and approximately 44,000 drawings, prints, photographs, videos, and films, spanning from the Gothic period to the present. This vast collection means many works acquired since 1932 would have been created before 1945.
3. Procedure for Obtaining the List
1. Consult the "Museumsarchiv Findmittel" (PDF): Identify the specific document numbers and titles mentioned above that fall within your target acquisition period (since 1932) and indicate the presence of creation dates.
2. Submit a Request: Contact the archive via email (archiv@kunstmuseumbern.ch) to inquire about accessing these specific documents. Explain your research scope (artworks acquired since 1932, created before 1945).
3. Review the Documents: Once you gain access, you will need to meticulously go through the "Eingangsjournal für Kunstwerke", "Verzeichnis der Schenkungen und Legate", and the "Sitzungsprotokolle" to extract the relevant information. You would filter the entries by the "Eingangsdatum" (acquisition date) to be on or after 1932, and then by the "Datierung" or "Zeitraum" (creation date) of the artwork to be on or before 1945.

By leveraging these specific archival materials identified in the "Findmittel," you should be able to compile a comprehensive list of artworks meeting your criteria.

***

Provenance information for the Kunstmuseum Bern in a patchwork of  PDFs and the Gurlitt Nachlass site:


DER NACHLASS GURLITT

The database publishes all artworks and artefacts from the Cornelius Gurlitt Estate. It contains some 1,600 objects, including paintings, drawings, aquarelles, sculptures, and prints, as well as archaeological finds and works of Asian art. Most of the provenances (1000+) have gaps and uncertainties for the Nazi years.



Bequest of Cornelius Gurlitt: Decisions by the Foundation of the Kunstmuseum Bern

This "News" page from the Commission for Looted Art in Europe details the Kunstmuseum Bern's approach to the Cornelius Gurlitt bequest. It explains the "Provenance Traffic Light" system (red, yellow-green, yellow-red, green categories) for classifying artworks based on provenance certainty during the Nazi era (1933-1945)301. It outlines the museum's decisions regarding acceptance and restitution, ongoing research, adherence to international ethical principles like the Washington Principles and Terezín Declaration, and plans for transparency and scientific reappraisal.... It also lists some of the works from the Gurlitt bequest and the Kunstmuseum Bern's own collection that require further provenance research


Werkliste Sammlungspräsentation

This PDF lists artworks currently on display. The content changes.


"Wir machen uns auch angreifbar" - "We're also vulnerable"

This "News" page from the Commission for Looted Art in Europe includes an interview snippet with Marcel Brülhart (Member of the Board of Trustees of the Kunstmuseum Bern), who discusses the  provenance research project for 525 works, acknowledging the incompleteness and contradictions in existing internal source


Provenienzbericht Stand:2022-11-16

This PDF document is a provenance report from Kunstmuseum Bern, updated November 16, 2022 for 297 selected artworks



Provenienzbericht Stand:10/26/2020

This PDF is a provenance report from Kunstmuseum Bern, dated October 26, 2020,

https://archive.kunstmuseumbern.ch/admin/data/hosts/kmb/files/page_editorial_paragraph_file/file/1689/20201207_provenienzbericht-bak-gemalde-ill.pdf


Provenienzbericht Stand: 04.12.2024

KMB_BAK 2023-2024_Provenienzberichte.pdf

https://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/de/api/files/2024-12/KMB_BAK_2023_2024_AB_Projekt%20RK.pdf


https://kmbzpk.nodehive.app/sites/default/files/2024-03/20201207_provenienzbericht-bak-gemalde-ill.pdf

Provenienzbericht 2016-2017

https://kmbzpk.nodehive.app/sites/default/files/2024-03/2016_2017_kmb_provenienzberichte.pdf



Provenance research on the legacy of Georges Frédéric Keller, 2019 – 2020

KMB_BAK_2023_2024_AB_Projekt

https://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/de/api/files/2024-12/KMB_BAK_2023_2024_AB_Projekt%20RK.pdf


Kunstmuseum Bern: Jahresbericht 2024 

https://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/de/api/files/2025-05/P100151_Jahresbericht_KMB_2024_web_3.pdf


German Lost Art Foundation: Kulturgüter aus dem Kunstfund Gurlitt

Thirteen artworks 


German Lost Art Foundation: Fundmeldung

21 artworks


Sammlung von Hermann und Margrit Rupf


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Documents found in www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/en/node/1083 on 7/16/2025 at 5:50:37 AM

Information published by the Kunstmuseum Bern about restitutions and settlements

Documents found in www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/de/proven...ung/restitutionen on 7/16/2025 at 6:07:00 AM



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