German Restitution Panel Rejects Grosz Heirs’ Claims for Two Paintings in State Collection

A German advisory panel that oversees claims related to the Nazi-looted art in the countries’ national museum collection has rejected a restitution claim for two paintings by George Grosz held by the Bremen Kunsthalle. The panel claims there isn’t sufficient evidence to support claims the works were lost due to the artist’s persecution.

Grosz was a German painter who is best known for his images of Berlin during the 1920s. He is associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, which marked a return to more naturalistic forms of painting after the Expressionist movement.

Before fleeing Germany during the early 1930s, Grosz faced persecution because he spoke out against the Nazis. He was among the many modernists who produced work that was subsequently labeled “degenerate art” by the Nazis in the mid- and late 1930s.

Grosz’s heirs filed official claim for legal title over the two works made prior to the artist’s departure from Germany. The panel claimed the transfer of these two paintings, titled Pompe Funèbre (1928) and Still Life with Ocarina, Fish, and Shell (1931), from Grosz’s personal holdings wasn’t initiated as a result of religious persecution.

According to documentation related to the committee’s decision, Grosz transferred the work to his former dealer, Alfred Flechtheim.

The panel argued that the paintings were put on consignment with Flechtheim to settle a preexisting debt in the amount of 16,000 Reichsmarks before the Nazis rose to power in January 1933. Flechtheim, who was Jewish, represented Grosz between 1923 until 1931.