Ismar Littmann Art Collection


The art collection of Ismar Littmann, 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.

Collector

was a patron of cultural life in Breslau. 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.

Nazi persecution

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.

Forced sales and Gestapo seizures

To survive, Littmann's widow Käthe Littmann 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 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 the infamous Nazi "Degenerate Art" exhibition in Munich, after which some were sold to raise cash for the Nazi regime.

Restitution

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 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 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.

Individual works

The four paintings that were shown in the exhibition "Degenerate Art" have the following provenance stories:
  • Otto Mueller: Knabe vor zwei stehenden und einem sitzenden Mädchen, Öl auf Leinwand, 1918/1919
  • Otto Mueller: Zwei weibliche Halbakte, Leimfarbe auf Rupfen, 1919
  • Karl Hofer, Sitzender weiblicher Akt auf blauem Kissen, Öl auf Leinwand, 1927
  • The fourth painting from the Littman Collection that was shown in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition was a nude by Franz Radziwill. Nothing is known about its whereabouts.
Other works from the Littmann Collection that have been restituted:
  • Lucien Adrion, La Procession, Öl auf Leinwand, 1927
  • Alexander Kanoldt: Olevano, Öl auf Leinwand, 1927
  • Lovis Corinth: Porträt Charlotte Corinth, Öl auf Leinwand, 1915
  • Otto Mueller: Akt an Baum lehnend, Zeichnung
Paintings found but not restituted:
  • Emil Nolde, Buchsbaumgarten, Öl auf Leinwand, 1909
  • Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann : Raubkunst und Restitution. Kulturgut aus jüdischem Besitz von 1933 bis heute. Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Jüdischen Museums Berlin und des Jüdischen Museums Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt a. M. 2008,
  • Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste Magdeburg : Beiträge öffentlicher Einrichtungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zum Umgang mit Kulturgütern aus ehemaligem jüdischen Besitz, Magdeburg 2001,
  • Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Handbuch. Kunstrestitution weltweit, Berlin 2007,
  • Lost Art Register: Sammlung Ismar Littmann
  • Jüdisches Museum Berlin: Sammlung Ismar Littmann
  • The Ismar Littman Collection, Holocaust Claims Processing Office, Department Financial Services