The art collection of Ismar Littmann (1878–1934), a German lawyer who lived in Breslau, comprised 347 paintings and watercolors and 5,814 drawings from artists such as Lovis Corinth , Max Pechstein , Erich Heckel , Max Liebermann , Käthe Kollwitz , Lucien Adrion, and Otto Mueller .
6-631: Ismar Littmann was a patron of cultural life in Wroclaw. He supported young artists, helped found the local Jewish Museum, served as a board member of the "Society of Friends of Art", and promoted modern art. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Littmann was persecuted because he was Jewish. Banned from practicing law, socially and politically marginalized, and economically devastated, he died by suicide in 1934. To survive, Littmann's widow Käthe Littmann
12-549: A further seven works, which makes it clear that only 15 of the more than 6,000 works were found. In 2021 "Buchsbaumgarten" a painting by Emil Nolde that had belonged to Ismar Littmann was auctioned at the Ketterer auction house, following a settlement agreement with the Lehmbruck Museum . The four paintings that were shown in the exhibition "Degenerate Art" have the following provenance stories: Other works from
18-618: Is not known what became of them. The 64 confiscated pictures were transferred to the Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The museum director, Eberhard Hanfstaengl, selected four paintings from the Littmann collection, and 14 watercolors for storage. The remaining works were said to have been burned on March 20, 1936, in the heating system of the Kronprinzenpalais. In 1937, four paintings from the Littmann collection were displayed at
24-514: The infamous Nazi " Degenerate Art" exhibition in Munich, after which some were sold to raise cash for the Nazi regime. Since the 1960s, Ismar Littmann's heirs have been demanding restitution of Littmann's art collection. In 1961 the confiscation of six paintings was recognized and in partial settlement compensation of 32,000 DM was paid. A second settlement concerning the Nazi seizure of 1177 artworks
30-683: Was concluded in 1965, with DM 12,000 in compensation. The inventories of the Littmann Collection were found at the end of the 1990s, and research has been carried out since then into the whereabouts of the collection. Since 1999, on the basis of the Washington Declaration, six paintings and one drawing have been restituted to Littmann's heirs, however others have been refused, notably by the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg for an Emil Nolde . The heirs were able to identify
36-535: Was forced to sell her possessions, including 156 works which were to be sold through the Max Perl auction house in Berlin. Two days before the auction, however, 64 works, including 18 from the Littmann collection, were confiscated by the Gestapo because of "typical cultural Bolshevik depiction of a pornographic character". The remaining 182 works were auctioned on February 26 and 27, 1935, but many were not sold and it
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