61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

Case study: Curt Glaser – «I put the fate of the paintings into your hands.»
Curt Glaser, Director of the State Art Library (Staatliche Kunstbibliothek) in
Berlin from 1924–1933, emigrated to Switzerland as early as 1933 and
deposited eight works by Edvard Munch, Erich Heckel and Paul Kleinschmidt
with the Kunsthaus Zurich between 1935 and 1938. Glaser’s choice
of the Kunsthaus Zurich as the place of exile for his paintings was due to the
fact that it had already organised major Munch exhibitions between 1922
and 1932. When Glaser wanted to arrange for a further Munch, «Music on
the Street» («Musik auf der Strasse») (1899), to be brought from Berlin to
Zurich in 1939, the German foreign exchange authority (deutsche Devisenbehörde)
blocked the transfer. 23 Glaser therefore appealed to the Kunsthaus
director Wartmann for support, beseeching him, to purchase the painting:
«For how am I supposed to get the picture out of the country now that
all the borders are closed? [...] What should I do? Shouldn’t it be possible
to show some tolerance for a painting, as well as for the people who can
no longer get out? I really have no other options if you have no interest
in the painting and decide not to make me an offer, which I would look
at in quite a different light today than before the war which has turned
every possession into a cause for worry. It remains to be seen whether I
myself will be able to leave Europe. I very much doubt that this will be
possible. However, the pictures will have to stay here – one way or
another. In one of your letters, you expressed regret that Europe might
lose them. I now put the fate of the pictures into your hands.» 24
The letter vividly reveals Glaser’s difficulties. The Kunsthaus Zurich, which
already owned six pictures by Munch, acquired the oil painting in March
1941 for 12,000 francs. Originally, Glaser had demanded 15,000 francs,
which he claimed was already a drastic price reduction. On the other hand,
this was an enormous sum of money for the museum, equivalent to the
normal acquisitions budget for two years. Glaser needed the money for his
onward journey to the USA. In 1943 and 1946, the Kunsthaus purchased
three more paintings by Munch from Glaser’s collection: «Portrait of Albert
Kollmann» («Bildnis von Albert Kollmann») for 7,000 francs, as well as
«Portrait of a Lady» («Damenbildnis») and «Lübeck Harbour» («Hafen von
Lübeck») for a total of 14,000 francs.
The trade in looted assets
The term «looted assets» is used here to denote Jewish-owned cultural assets
which were either confiscated in the Reich or had to be sold by their owners in
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