Chagall Search Requests for Nazi-looted art

The Picasso Museum currently is showing 'L'Art Dégéneré', an exhibition about art seized from German museums by the Nazi government which sought to ban so-called "degenerate" art and persecute artists it didn't like.

As so often with "degenerate art" the focus is on paintings lost by German museums to the predations of their own government. 

However, many of the dealers and collectors of the artists in question were German Jews, and for this reason they were targeted for persecution and plunder very early in the Nazi regime, when life was still pretty normal outside of Germany. Their assets were plundered and they were eventually murdered if they did not manage to escape. Later, after Nazi Germany attacked Poland in 1939 and France, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1940, the ERR and other Nazilooting organisations seized artworks from Jews in these countries, before murdering them. 

This post looks at some of the Jewish collectors of artworks by Marc Chagall who were plundered by the Nazis. The transfer of artworks by so-called "degenerate" artist Marc Chagall to museums and collectors around the world (and notably in the USA) cannot be told without the stories of these looted Jewish collectors.

Provenances for Modern Art at the AIC (selected artists)

Provenances published by the Art Institute of Chicago for artists persecuted as "degenerate" by the Nazis

(data from November 2024)

Kurt Feldhäusser or Weyhe in provenance of artworks in American museums

Source Url	Title	Artist	Credit Line	Acc Num	Provenance
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/483489	Crouching Woman with Crab	Aristide Maillol | Crouching Woman with Crab | French | The Metropolitan Museum of Art	Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982	1984.433.35	Mr. Bruno and Mrs. Sadie Adriani Bruno and Sadie Adriani, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., [ Buchholz Gallery } [Buchholz Gallery, New York], E. Weyhe Gallery [E. Weyhe, New York, probably on loan to the Whitney Studio, New York, sold in March 1924 to Thayer], [probably on loan to Whitney Studio, sold in March 1924 to Thayer], Scofield Thayer (1924–d. 1982, on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1936–82, his bequest to MMA), Worcester Art Museum
https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/296387	Madame Fisher | Harvard Art Museums	Diego Rivera, Mexican (Guanajuato, Mexico 1886 - 1957 Mexico City)	Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs	1965.437	Recorded Ownership History;[The E. Weyhe Gallery, New York, New York], sold, to Meta and Paul J. Sachs (L. 2091), Cambridge, Massachusetts, bequest, to Fogg Art Museum, 1965.
https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/225571	Proun 12E | Harvard Art Museums	El Lissitzky, Russian (Pochinok, Russia 1890 - 1941 Moscow, Russia)	Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Association Fund	BR49.303	Recorded Ownership History;Kurt Feldhäusser, Berlin, bequest, to Marie Luise Feldhäusser, 1945, sold, [E. Weyhe Gallery, New York], sold, to Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1949.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-n09930/lot.22.html	Das Soldatenbad (Artillerymen)	Ernst Ludwig Kirchner		NOTE: Claim for Nazi-looted art and Restitutionto heirs of Alfred Flechtheim	Provenance;Galerie Ludwig Schames, Frankfurt;Alfred Flechtheim, Dusseldorf (acquired from the above in 1919);Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf (acquired by donation in 1928-29);Alfred Flechtheim, Dusseldorf (acquired from the above by exchange in 1930 and left in the custody of his niece, Rosi Hulisch, on his departure from Germany in 1933);Kurt Feldhäusser, Berlin (acquired in 1938);Marie Luise Feldhäusser, Berlin (by inheritance from her son, above, in 1945);Erhard Weyhe Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1949);Mr. & Mrs. Morton D. May, St. Louis (acquired by 1952);The Museum of Modern Art, New York (a gift from the above in 1956);The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (by exchange from the above in 1988);Acquired by restitution from the above in 2018