Vollersroda III

Purchased from the artist by the Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle, no. IV 804, 1929-August 21, 1937 [1];

Confiscated from the Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle by the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, August 21, 1937 [2];

With the artist and his wife, Julia Feininger (1880-1970), Berlin, New York and Falls River, CT, by May 12, 1950 [3];

Purchased from the artist, through Schaeffer Galleries, New York, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1950.

NOTES:

[1] Andreas Hüneke, Die faschistische Aktion„Entartete Kunst“ 1937 in Halle, Book 1 (Halle: Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, 1987), 49.

[2] In June 1937, Joseph Goebbels, head of the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Nazi Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda), authorized the confiscation of “degenerate” works of art from German public museums. “Degenerate” artworks were defined by the Nazis as those works which “insult German feeling.” The Ministry targeted mostly avant-garde modernist works. By 1938, thousands of works of art had been removed from German museums and were either sold, traded or destroyed. The confiscation of “degenerate” art from the German museums was legalized retroactively by the Nazi government on May 31, 1938. For more information on the Nazi confiscation of “degenerate” art, see especially Stephanie Barron, ed., “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany , exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991). This drawing is listed in the Inventory of Confiscated “Entartete Kunst,” “Degenerate Art” Research Center, Freie Universität Berlin, supplementary number 17176-E, http://emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultDetailView/result.tab.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=1&sp=3&sp=SdetailView&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=3&sp=F&sp=SdetailBlockKey&sp=2

[3] Summary of Lyonel Feininger’s account, Getty Research Library, Schaeffer Galleries Records, Box 101, folder 3, Correspondence, 1950-F, copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial file. An ‘X’ written in the lower left corner of the paper identifies this drawing as having been in the collection of the artist’s wife Julia, but correspondence regarding the sale was directed to Lyonel Feininger. For more about marginalia and inscriptions that appear on Feininger’s works on paper, see Leona E. Prasse, Lyonel Feininger: A Definitive Catalogue of the Graphic Work (Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1972), 32, 268-71.